none of his positions did his transcendent business ability show
to better advantage. He established new postal routes and
shortened others. There were no good roads in the colonies, but
his post riders made what then seemed wonderful speed. The bags
were opened to newspapers, the carrying of which had previously
been a private and unlawful perquisite of the riders. Previously
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 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
Franklin died, after serving also as Postmaster General of the
United States, there were only seventy-five post offices in the
entire country.

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 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." This
statesmanlike "Albany Plan of Union," however, came to nothing.
"Its fate was singular," says Franklin; "the assemblies did not