250 and Counting

Category: Charles Carroll

  • Back From Canada–May 30, 1776

    Cover art for May 30, 1776: Detail of an oil sketch depicting Samuel Chase, Charles Carroll and Benjamin Franklin on their diplomatic mission to Canada. Father John Carroll's hand is entering from right. Created by J. Carroll Mansfield, probably for an exhibition called Cavalcade of Colonial Maryland, 1943.

    Ben Franklin in Canada isn’t completely unreasonable, even though he was already the oldest delegate to the Continental Congress at 70. He was America’s first diplomat and a very skilled one at that, with oodles of charm.

    But Franklin in Canada was also a bad idea, because his health was bad and it’s not like he could just shoot up the New York Thruway to get there. He had to head up the Hudson River through Albany and Saratoga, and then across Lake Champlain. And he had to do it in wartime, in hostile territory.

    For all that, however, Franklin’s failure in Canada eventually led to the Battle of Saratoga and in turn got the French on our side.

    So maybe it wasn’t such a crazy idea after all.

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  • Once More To Canada–April 20, 1776

    Cover art for April 20, 1776: Map of Montreal and the immediate area, 1761.

    If nothing else, the tenacity of the Continental Congress has to be admired, because sending a delegation to Canada, especially after the recent New Year’s Eve disaster in Quebec, and then the “who knows how well it went” trip in March, was a sign of either eternal optimism or an inability to get the hint.

    It was probably a little of Column A and a little of Column B.

    At any rate, Ben Franklin, Samuel Chase and Charles Carroll headed up to Montrèal to see if relations with Canada could be smoothed over a little bit. And perhaps they could, but the Canadians still weren’t interested in the events going on to their south.

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