Silas Deane Essay

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Strange Silas Silas Deane went from being a “nobody”, to someone possessing full power and authority and then back to a “nobody” who had a bad reputation in America, England, and France. Deane was the son of a blacksmith in a small town in Connecticut. He graduated from Yale College and then opened a practice near Hartford. He would later become a merchant after his first marriage. He worked hard to progress from the son of a blacksmith. He decided to work in politics; he served on Connecticut's Committee of Correspondence and later as a delegate to the first and second Continental Congresses. Deane was sent to France in 1776 to represent the united colonies abroad. He later was promoted all the way to Minister Plenipotentiary, possessing full power and authority. Arthur Lee accused Deane of taking advantage of his position for personal gain. In 1778, there was vote to recall the Minister Plenipotentiary. In 1781, Deane wrote letters to some of his friends with his opinion that the U.S. should rejoin with Britain. At that time, anyone saying that the United States rejoin Britain was considered as much a traitor as Benedict Arnold. Some of his letters were taken and printed in the New York Tory newspaper. He was now seen as a traitor in America. He couldn’t go to England without confirming he was a traitor and he couldn’t go to France because he had accused the King of selfishness. He lived the next two years in Flanders, then moved to England and in 1789 set sail back to America. While on the ship, he fell ill with “dizziness in his head, and an oppression at his stomach”, he passed away only four hours after the first signs of illness. I learned many things about the past from this reading. I learned that “History is not "what happened in the past;" rather, it is the act of selecting, analyzing, and writing about the past.” I learned about Silas Deane, Paul
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