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
Berlin scientific balloon flights the Académie française a program for scientific aviation, that was eventually not realized. In Germany, it was Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, who first addressed the issue of research into the atmosphere in his writings on the use of balloons. The first balloon flight with the aim of making meteorological observations was undertaken on 30 November 1784 by the American medical doctor John Jeffries together with the professional balloonist Jean-Pierre Blanchard. Some of the first systematic investigations into the upper atmosphere was performed between 1862 and 1866 by the English meteorologist and important pioneer aerologist James Glaisher. On 28 balloon flights, he