William Temple Franklin British peace commissioners if something could be done for his father. He noted his father's steadfast defense of the Stamp Act, and hoped that the British government might award him a diplomatic post. During 1784, Temple went to London and reconciled with his father, lengthening his stay several times before returning to Paris at the end of the year. In January 1785, Temple received the first airmail in history when a letter from his father was brought across the English Channel by a hot air balloon flown by Jean-Pierre Blanchard and John Jeffries. When Benjamin Franklin relinquished his post and
Jean-Pierre Blanchard France on 7 January 1785, flying from Dover Castle to Guînes. Blanchard was awarded a substantial pension by Louis XVI. The King ordered the balloon and boat be hung up in the church of Église Notre-Dame de Calais. (A subsequent Channel crossing attempt in the opposite direction by Pilâtre de Rozier on 15 June 1785 ended unsuccessfully in a fatal crash.) Blanchard toured Europe, demonstrating his balloons. He holds the record of first balloon flights in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, and Poland. Among the events that included demonstrations of his abilities as a balloonist was the coronation of Holy Roman