Early one morning in late June 1778, an unknown passerby tossed a package of documents that clanged against the gate at Benjamin Franklin’s home in Passy, France.[1] In it was a letter addressed to Franklin dated June 16, 1778 from one “Charles de Weissenstein,” writing from Brussels. In addition to the letter, the package contained two other documents, titled Project for Allaying the Present Ferments in North America and An Outline of the Future Government in America. The flurry of activity that followed provides a unique window into the state of both American and British thinking on the Revolution at the...