Commodore Lambert Wicks in USS Reprisal with Benjamin Franklin aboard arrives in Nantz, France, on this day. Wrotes Stacy Schiff in A Great Imrpvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America, “Franklin knew that his name had been a passport in France for years. As early as 1769 friends reported that they wre welcomed everywhere with open arms on his account; distinction was the best recommendation a man could claim in Paris. It introduced where titles failed. If Franklin knew he was vilified in London as the insidious ‘chief of the rebels’ he would have known too the effect of that epitaph on his stock in France. Nowhere was his compound status as emblem, as thinker, as chief rebel on better display… ‘You know that Dr. Franklin’s troops have been defeated by those of the King of England. Alas! Philosophers are beaten everywhere. Reason and liberty are poorly received in this world,” wrote Voltaire. And Franklin’s symbolic power only increased as he crossed the ocean. Unwittingly, Congress sent France a sort of walking statue of liberty.”
Congressional President John Hancock writes the four New England states urging troops be sent to reinforce General Schuuyler in northern New York.
In Tapppan, New York, a force of Tories and British marauders known as “cowboys” pillatged the town.
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