The first time I entered the Château Ramezay museum in Old Montreal I thought I was just killing time. It was March 2017 and the 16th century building in Old Montreal offered respite from the icy winds coming off the St. Lawrence and a chance to learn more about Quebec’s history. But then I came across a portrait of Benjamin Franklin in one of the back rooms and the course of my life was altered.
The portrait, in an ornate gilt frame, shows an older, soberly dressed Franklin, gazing out at the viewer with a serious expression. But it was the plaque beside it that grabbed my attention. Franklin had been in this very building in 1776, it said, when he came to Montreal to persuade the Canadians to join the American Revolution. I was the Canada correspondent for The Economist at the time of my visit and considered myself a moderately well-informed person. Yet it was news to me that Franklin had been in Montreal as an envoy of the Continental Congress and that there were other American colonists there to welcome him.
Two immediate questions came to mind: What did Franklin do in Montreal? And why don’t I know about his presence and that of the other Americans? It wasn’t until I stopped writing for The Economist in 2020 that I had time to satisfy my curiosity. I went back to school and studied for a master of arts in history, with Franklin in Montreal as the focus. The more research I did, the more I realized that his appearance in Montreal was far from the only time that Franklin showed an interest in annexing Canada. He had honed that interest over a period of decades, developing a rationale for why Canada should be American, and attempting to make that happen when the opportunity arose. His visit to Montreal in 1776 was one of those occasions. The negotiations in Paris to end the revolution was another.
I will admit that this was a niche topic when I began my research. Donald Trump’s musings about making Canada the 51st state suddenly made it extremely relevant. Readers of He Did Not Conquer: Benjamin Franklin’s Failure to Annex Canada will discover some surprising similarities between these two events separated by 250 years. My book is not a biography of Franklin. There are countless books that trace his remarkable life as a printer, inventor, politician, diplomat and founding father of the United States. I tell the story of his relations with Canada, a topic usually ignored by American authors. Franklin’s ultimate failure to secure Canada for the United States has lessons for both countries today.
— Madelaine Drohan