Papers of Benjamin Franklin, Volume 43

In August 1784, Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson began their congressional commission to negotiate commercial treaties with twenty nations. Their treaty proposal, which Prussia alone would consider, contained unprecedented humanitarian articles that would have changed the Law of Nations. During the period of this volume, from August 16, 1784, through March 15, 1785, Franklin sent his grandson Temple to London, apprenticed his grandson Benny to a Parisian type founder, and finally received Congress's permission to return home.