Benjamin Franklin, the colonial American polymath, had become frustrated when his beloved Philadelphia was being threatened by the French during King George's War. The proprietor of Pennsylvania had bluntly refused to provide military defense, or to contribute to a militia, and had forbidden Franklin from raising a "home guard" to protect Philadelphia. In his frustration, Franklin turned to London for a solution that would wrest Pennsylvania from its miserly proprietor, and was turned away by both Parliament and the Crown. Unwilling to accept this decision, Franklin turned to confidants in London to solicit a method to free Pennsylvania. The response gradually came to include a revolution by all the American colonies against Great Britain, and the mechanism to achieve this revolution entailed the "spin" of two separate events in London to motivate the colonists to this drastic action. Franklin assumed the leadership in this effort and in the ensuing Revolution, working quietly behind the scenes in an international intrigue that would culminate in the foundation of the independent United States of America.