The service was increased to three a week in summer and one in winter.
The main post road ran from northern New England to Savannah, closely hugging the seacoast for the greater part of the way.

Some of the milestones set by Franklin to enable the postmasters to compute the postage, which was fixed according to distance, are still standing.
Crossroads connected some of the larger communities away from the seacoast with the main road, but when Franklin died, after serving also as Postmaster General of the United States, there were only seventy-five post offices in the entire country.
Franklin took a hand in the final struggle between France and England in America.

On the eve of the conflict, in 1754, commissioners from the several colonies were ordered to convene at Albany for a conference with the Six Nations of the Iroquois, and Franklin was one of the deputies from Pennsylvania.

On his way to Albany he "projected and drew a plan for the union of all the colonies under one government so far as might be necessary for defense and other important general purposes." This statesmanlike "Albany Plan of Union," however, came to nothing.

"Its fate was singular," says Franklin; "the assemblies did not adopt it, as they all thought there was too much PREROGATIVE in it and in England it was judg'd to have too much of the DEMOCRATIC." How to raise funds for defense was always a grave problem in the colonies, for the assemblies controlled the purse-strings and released them with a grudging hand.