Benjamin Franklin, next to George Washington possibly the most famous 18th-century American, by 1757 had made a small fortune, established the Poor Richard of his almanacs (written under the pseudonym Richard Saunders) as an oracle on how to get ahead in the world, and become widely known in European scientific circles for his reports of electrical experiments and theories. What is more, he was then just at the beginning of a long career as a politician, in the course of which he would be chief spokesman for the British colonies in their debates with the king's ministers about self-government and would have a hand in the writing of the Declaration of Independence, the securing of financial and military aid from France during the American Revolution, the negotiation of the treaty by which Great Britain recognized its former 13 colonies as a sovereign nation, and the framing of the Constitution, which for two centuries has been the fundamental law of the United States of America.