After fitting out, she sailed for France on 1 November 1777, carrying dispatches telling of General Burgoyne's surrender to the commissioners in Paris. On the voyage over, two British prizes were captured. "Ranger" arrived at Nantes, France, 2 December, where Jones sold the prizes and delivered the news of the victory at Saratoga to Benjamin Franklin. On 14 February 1778, "Ranger" received a nine-gun salute to the new American flag, the "Stars and Stripes" from the ship of the line "Robuste", under Lamotte-Picquet, at Quiberon Bay. This was the first salute from a warship and, the second to an American fighting vessel by a foreign power (the first salute was received by when on 16 November 1776 she arrived at St. Eustatius and the Dutch island returned her 11-gun salute).