Before Franklin there had been one mail a week in summer between New York and Philadelphia and one a month in winter. The service was increased to three a week in summer and one in winter.
The main post road ran from northern New England to Savannah, closely hugging the seacoast for the greater part of the way. Some of the milestones set by Benjamin Franklin to enable the postmasters to compute the postage, which was fixed according to distance, are still standing. Crossroads connected some of the larger communities away from the seacoast with the main road, but when Benjamin Franklin died, after serving also as Postmaster General of the United States, there were only seventy-five post offices in the entire country.
Benjamin Franklin - Defense of the Colonies
Benjamin Franklin took a hand in the final struggle between France and England in America. On the eve of the conflict, in 1754, commissioners from the several colonies were ordered to convene at Albany for a conference with the Six Nations of the Iroquois, and Benjamin Franklin was one of the deputies from Pennsylvania. On his way to Albany he "projected and drew a plan for the union of all the colonies under one government so far as might be necessary for defense and other important general purposes."Raising funds for defense was always a grave problem in the colonies, for the assemblies controlled the purse-strings and released them with a grudging hand. Benjamin Franklin opposed the suggestion of a general tax to be levied on the colonies by Parliament, on the ground of no taxation without representation, but used all his pull to bring the Quaker Assembly to vote for money for defense, and succeeded.
