Today in History - November 29,1775 - Congress Creates Committees of Secret Correspondence

Today in History - November 29,1775 - Congress Creates Committees of Secret Correspondence

  I thought this was interesting and picked this particular one out to blog about today. The reason I find this one interesting was that somewhere, probably on the Internet, I saw a video or article that discussed this event, but the authors behind the article or video had a different interpretation on why this event took place. I would like to find that video again and watch it in light of this article which was published on www.history.com today.
   Either there really was a secret conspiracy going on among our forefathers or there wasn't. I would like to do more investigating on this. If there was a secret conspiracy, did our forefathers accomplish their goals? If not, why were there secretive meetings? I guess this is bringing out the detective in me! Here is the article and you can read more at: www.history.com :

On this day in 1775, the Second Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, establishes a Committee of Secret Correspondence. The committee's goal was to provide European nations with a Patriot interpretation of events in Britain's North American colonies, in the hope of soliciting aid for the American war effort.

The committee, consisting of Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Harrison, John Dickinson, John Hay and Robert Morris, instructed Silas Deane to meet with French Foreign Minister Charles Gravier, Count de Vergennes, to stress America's need for military stores and assure the French that the colonies were moving toward "total separation" from Great Britain. Covert French aid began filtering into the colonies soon after the outbreak of hostilities in 1775. Deane, a Connecticut delegate to the Continental Congress, left for France on the secret mission on March 3, 1776.

Deane managed to negotiate for unofficial assistance from France, in the form of ships containing military supplies, and recruited the Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette to share his military expertise with the Continental Army's officer corps. However, it was not until after the arrival of the charming Benjamin Franklin in France in December 1776 and the American victory at the Battle of Saratoga in October 1777 that the French became convinced that it was worth backing the Americans in a formal treaty.