in secret and avoid for the present an open breach with England. Arms
were to be sent to one of the French West India islands, where the
governor would find means of delivering them to the Americans. Soon,
however, this method was changed as too dangerous, and in place of it
Beaumarchais established in Paris a business house, which he personally
conducted under the name of Roderique Hortalez & Company. He did this at
the request of the government, and his biographer, De Loménie, has given
us a statement of the arrangement in language which he assumes Vergennes
must have used in giving instructions to Beaumarchais:
"The operation must essentially in the eyes of the English
government, and even in the eyes of the Americans, have the
appearance of an individual speculation, to which the French
ministers are strangers. That it may be so in appearance, it
must also be so, to a certain point, in reality. We will give a
million secretly, we will try to induce the court of Spain to
unite with us in this affair, and supply you on its side with an
equal sum; with these two millions and the co-operation of
individuals who will be willing to take part in your enterprise
you will be able to found a large house of commerce, and at your
own risk can supply America with arms, ammunition, articles of
equipment, and all other articles necessary for keeping up the
war. Our arsenals will give you arms and ammunition, but you
shall replace them or shall pay for them. You shall ask for no
money from the Americans, as they have none; but you shall ask
them for returns in products of their soil, and we will help you
to get rid of them in this country, while you shall grant them,
on your side, every facility possible. In a word, the
operation, after being secretly supported by us at the
commencement, must afterwards feed and support itself; but, on
the other side, as we reserve to ourselves the right of favoring
or discouraging it, according to the requirements of our policy,
you shall render us an account of your profits and your losses,
and we will judge whether we are to accord you fresh assistance,
or give you an acquittal for the sums previously granted." (De
Loménie's Beaumarchais, p. 273.)
It was in June, 1776, that Beaumarchais started his extraordinary
enterprise in the Rue Vieille du Temple, in a large building called the
Hôtel de Hollande, which had formerly been used as the residence of the
Dutch ambassador. The million francs was paid to him by the French
government, another million by Spain in September, and still another
million by France in the following year. So with the greatest
hopefulness and delight he began shipping uniforms, arms, ammunition,
and all sorts of supplies to America. He had at times great difficulty
in getting his laden ships out of port. The French government was
perfectly willing that they should go, and always affected to know
nothing about them. But Lord Stormont, the British ambassador, would
often discover their destination and protest in most vigorous and
threatening language. Then the French ministry would appear greatly
surprised and stop the ships. This process was repeated during two
years,--a curious triangular, half-masked contest between Beaumarchais,
Lord Stormont, and the ministry.
"If government caused my vessels to be unloaded in one port, I
sent them secretly to reload at a distance in the roads. Were
they stopped under their proper names, I changed them
immediately, or made pretended sales, and put them anew under
fictitious commissions. Were obligations in writing exacted from
my captains to go nowhere but to the West India Islands,
powerful gratifications on my part made them yield again to my
wishes. Were they sent to prison on their return for
disobedience, I then doubled their gratifications to keep their
zeal from cooling, and consoled them with gold for the rigor of
our government."
In this way he sent to the colonies within a year eight vessels with
supplies worth six million francs. Sometimes, in spite of all efforts,
one of his vessels with a valuable cargo was obliged to sail direct to
the West Indies, and could go nowhere else. In one instance of this sort
he wrote to his agent Francy, in America, to have several American
privateers sent to the West Indies to seize the vessel.
"My captain will protest violently, and will draw up a written
statement threatening to make his complaint to the Congress. The
vessel will be taken where you are. The Congress will loudly
disavow the action of the brutal privateer, and will set the
vessel at liberty with polite apologies to the French flag;
during this time you will land the cargo, fill the ship with
tobacco, and send it back to me as quickly as possible, with all
you may happen to have ready to accompany it."
Imagination is sometimes a very valuable quality in practical affairs,
and this neat description by the man of letters was actually carried out
in every detail and with complete success by his agent in America. He
was certainly a valuable ambassador of the colonies, this wonderful
Beaumarchais; but he suffered severely for his devotion. Under his
agreement with his government, the government's outlay was to be paid
back gradually by American produce; but Congress would not send the
produce, or sent it so slowly that Beaumarchais was threatened with
ruin, and suffered the torturing anxiety which comes with the conviction
that those for whom you are making the greatest sacrifices are
indifferent and incapable of gratitude.
It was in vain that he appealed to Congress; for Arthur Lee was
continually informing that body that he was a fraud and his claims
groundless, because the French government intended that all the supplies
sent through Hortalez & Co. should be a free gift to the revolted
colonies. Lee may have sincerely believed this; but it was very
unfortunate, because more than two years elapsed before Congress became
convinced that the supplies were not entirely a present, and voted
Beaumarchais its thanks and some of the money he claimed. A large part
of his claims were never paid. For fifty years there was a controversy
about "the lost million," and for its romantic history the reader is
referred to De Loménie, Durand's "New Material for the History of the
American Revolution," and Dr. Stillé's "Beaumarchais and the Lost
Million."
But he was not the only person who suffered. The truth is that the whole
arrangement made by Congress for conducting the business in France was
ridiculously inefficient, not to say cruel and inhuman. That we got most
important aid from France was due to the eagerness and efforts of the
French themselves, and not to anything done by Congress.
Franklin and his two fellow-commissioners, Silas Deane and Arthur Lee,
had equal powers. They had to conduct a large and complicated business
involving the expenditure of millions of dollars without knowing exactly
where the millions were to come from, and with no regular system of
accounts or means of auditing and investigating; their arrangements had
to be largely kept secret; they expended money in lump sums without
always knowing what use was made of it; they were obliged to rely on the
assistance of all sorts of people,--naval agents, commercial agents, and
others for whose occupation there was no exact name; and they had no
previous experience or precedents to guide them. On their arrival at
Paris, the three commissioners found a fourth person, Beaumarchais, well
advanced in his work, and accomplishing in a practical way rather more
than any of them could hope to do. Moreover, Beaumarchais's arrangement
was necessarily so secret that though they knew in a general way, as did
Lord Stormont and all Paris, what he was doing, yet only one of them,
Deane, was ever fully admitted into the secret, and it is probable that
the other two died without having fully grasped the real nature and
conditions of his service.
That three joint commissioners of equal powers should conduct such an
enormous business of expenditure and credit for a series of years
without becoming entangled in the most terrible suspicions and bitter
quarrels was in the nature of things impossible. The result was that the
history of their horrible disputes and accusations against one another
is more voluminous than the history of their services. Deane, who did
more actual work than any one except Beaumarchais, was thoroughly and
irretrievably ruined. Arthur Lee, who accomplished very little besides
manufacturing suspicions and charges, has left behind him a reputation
for malevolence which no one will envy; Beaumarchais suffered tortures
which he considered almost equivalent to ruin, and his reputation was
not entirely rescued until nearly half a century after his death; and
Franklin came nearer than ever before in his life to sinking his great
fame in an infamy of corruption, for the attacks made upon him by Arthur
Lee were a hundred times worse than those of Wedderburn.
It was a terrible ordeal for the four men,--those two years before
France made an open alliance with the colonies,--and I will add a few
other circumstances which contributed variety to their situation. Ralph
Izard, of South Carolina, a very passionate man, was appointed by the
wise Congress an envoy to the Grand Duke of Tuscany. He never went to
Tuscany for the simple reason that the duke could not receive him
without becoming embroiled with Great Britain; so he was obliged to
remain in Paris, where he assisted Lee in villifying Deane, Franklin,
and Beaumarchais, and his letters home were full of attacks on their
characters.
He was not a member of the commission which had charge of French
affairs, and yet, in the loose way in which all the foreign business of
the colonies was being managed, it was perhaps natural that, as an
energetic and able man and an American, he should wish to be consulted
occasionally by Franklin and Deane. In a certain way he was directly
connected with them, for he had to obtain money from them for some of
his expenses incurred in attempting to go to Tuscany, and on this
subject he quarrelled with Franklin, who thought that he had used too
much. He was also obliged to apply to Franklin for certain papers to
enable him to make a commercial treaty with Tuscany, and these, he said,
Franklin had delayed supplying. He complained further of Franklin's
neglect to answer his letters and obstructing his means of sending
information to America.
Franklin afterwards admitted that he might have saved himself from
Izard's enmity by showing him a little attention; his letters to both
Izard and Lee were very stinging; in fact, they were the severest that
he ever wrote; and Izard's charge that he delayed answering letters was
probably true, for we know from other sources that he was never orderly
in business matters. At any rate, the result of his neglect of Izard was
that that gentleman's hatred for him steadily increased to the end of
his life, and years after Izard had left Paris he is described as unable
to contain himself at the mention of Franklin's name, bursting out into
passionate denunciation of him like the virtuous old ladies we are told
of in Philadelphia.
Then there was William Lee, brother of Arthur Lee, appointed envoy to
Berlin and Vienna, which places he could not reach for the same reason
that prevented Izard from going to Tuscany. So he also stayed in Paris,
assisted his brother Arthur, became a commercial agent, and had no love
for either Franklin or Deane. There was also Dr. Edward Bancroft, who
had no regular appointment, but flitted back and forth between London
and Paris. He was intimate with Franklin, assisted Deane, knew the
secrets of the American business in Paris, which knowledge Lee tells us
he used for the purpose of speculating in London, and Bancroft the
historian says that he was really a British spy. Thomas Morris, a
younger brother of Robert Morris, was a commercial agent at Nantes,
wrecked himself with drink, and started what came near being a serious
dispute between Robert Morris and Franklin; and Franklin himself had his
own nephew, Jonathan Williams, employed as naval agent, which gave Lee a
magnificent opportunity to charge that the nephew was in league with the
uncle and with Deane to steal the public money and share with them the
proceeds of the sale of prizes.
It is impossible to go fully into all these details; but we are obliged
to say, in order to make the situation plain, that Deane, being taken
into the full confidence of Beaumarchais, conducted with him an immense
amount of business through the firm of Hortalez & Co. On several
occasions Franklin testified in the warmest manner to Deane's efficiency
and usefulness, and this testimony is the stronger because Franklin was
never taken into the confidence of Beaumarchais, had no intercourse with
him, and might be supposed to be piqued, as Lee was, by this neglect.
But the greatest secrecy was necessary, and Deane could not reveal his
exact relationship with the French contractor and dramatist. So letter
after letter was received by Congress from Lee, describing what dreadful
fraud and corruption the wicked pair, Deane and Beaumarchais, were
guilty of every day. Deane, he said, was making a fortune for himself by
his relations with Beaumarchais, and was speculating in London. Deane
also urged that Beaumarchais should be paid for the supplies, which were
not, he said, a present from the king, and this Lee, of course, thought
was another evidence of his villany.
Some of Lee's accusations are on their face rather far-fetched. On the
charge, however, that Deane and Franklin's nephew, Jonathan Williams,
were speculating on their own account in the sale of prizes, he quotes a
letter from Williams to Deane which is rather strong:
"I have been on board the prize brig. Mr. Ross tells me he has
written to you on the subject and the matter rests whether
according to his letter you will undertake or not; if we take
her on private account she must be passed but 13,000 livres."
This, it must be confessed, looked very suspicious, for Williams was in
charge of the prizes, and by this letter he seemed prepared to act as
both seller and purchaser and to share with Deane.
The charge that Deane had assumed to himself the whole management of
affairs and ignored Lee was undoubtedly true, and no one has ever denied
it. Franklin also ignored him, for he was an unbearable man with whom no
one could live at peace.
Lee kept on with his accusations, declaring that Deane's accounts were
in confusion. A packet of despatches sent to Congress was found on its
arrival to contain nothing but blank paper. It had evidently been opened
and robbed. Lee promptly insinuated that Deane must have been the thief,
and that Franklin probably assisted.
In a letter to Samuel Adams, Lee said,--
"It is impossible to describe to you to what a degree this kind
of intrigue has disgraced, confounded, and injured our affairs
here. The observation of this at head-quarters has encouraged
and produced through the whole a spirit of neglect, abuse,
plunder, and intrigue in the public business which it has been
impossible for me to prevent or correct."
So the evidence, or rather suspicions, piled up against Deane, and he
was ordered home. Supposing that Congress wanted him merely for
information about the state of France, he returned after the treaty of
alliance was signed, coming over, as he thought, in triumph with Admiral
D'Estaing and the fleet that was to assist the Americans.
He expected to be welcomed with gratitude, but Congress would not notice
him; and when at last he was allowed to tell his story, the members of
that body did not believe a word of it. He made public statements in the
newspapers, fought Lee with paper and ink, and the curious may still
read his and Lee's recriminations, calling one another traitors, and
become more confused than ever over the controversy. His arguments only
served to injure his case. He made the mistake of attacking Lee instead
of merely defending himself, and he talked so openly about our affairs
in France, revealing, among other things, the dissensions among the
members of the commission, that he was generally regarded as having
injured our standing among the governments of Europe.
He struggled with Congress, and returned to Paris to have his accounts
audited; but it was all useless; he was ruined; and, in despair and fury
at the injustice done him, he went over to the British, like Arnold, and
died in poverty and obscurity.
In America both he and Beaumarchais seem to have been considered rascals
until far into the next century, when the publication of Beaumarchais's
life and the discovery of some papers by a member of the Connecticut
Historical Society put a different face upon their history. Congress
voted Deane's heirs thirty-eight thousand dollars as a recompense for
the claims which the Continental Congress had refused to pay their
ancestor. Indeed, the poverty in which Deane died was not consistent
with Lee's story that he had been making millions by his arrangement
with Beaumarchais. Franklin always stood by him, and publicly declared
that in all his dealings with him he had never had any occasion to
suspect that he lacked integrity.
Lee was a Virginian, a member of the famous family of that name, and a
younger brother of Richard Henry Lee, who was a member of the
Continental Congress. Though born in Virginia, he was educated in
England at Eton and also at Edinburgh, where he took the degree of
doctor of medicine. The easy-going methods by which Franklin and Deane
handled millions of dollars, sold hundreds of prizes brought in by Paul
Jones and other American captains, and shipped cargoes of arms,
ammunition, and clothing to America were extremely shocking to him. Or
perhaps he was extremely shocked because he was not allowed a hand in
it. But it was necessary to be prompt in giving assistance to the
revolted colonies, and Franklin and Deane pushed the business along as
best they could.
If Congress had made a less stupid arrangement the embassy might have
been organized on a business-like system in which everything would move
by distinct, definite orders, everybody's sphere be defined, with a
regular method of accounts in which every item should have its voucher.
But, as Franklin himself confessed, he never could learn to be orderly;
and now, when he was past seventy, infirm, often laid up with violent
attacks of the gout, with a huge literary and philosophic reputation to
support, tormented by Lee and Izard, the whole French nation insane with
admiration for him, and dining out almost every day, it was difficult
for him to do otherwise than as he did.
Although the others had equal power with him, he was necessarily the
head of the embassy, for his reputation was so great in France that
everything gravitated towards him. Most people scarcely knew that there
were two other commissioners, and the little they knew of Lee they did
not like. Lee was absent part of the time on journeys to Spain, Berlin,
and Vienna, and as Deane had started the business of sending supplies
before either Franklin or Lee arrived, the conduct of affairs naturally
drifted away from Lee. It afforded a good excuse for ignoring him. He
was insanely suspicious, and charged John Jay, Reed, Duane, and other
prominent Americans with treason, apparently without the slightest
foundation.
Finding himself ignored and in an awkward and useless position, he
should have resigned, giving his reasons. But he chose to stay and send
private letters to members of Congress attacking the characters of his
fellow-commissioners and intriguing to have himself appointed the sole
envoy to France. Among his letters are to be found three on this
subject, two to his brother in Congress and one to Samuel Adams.
"There is but one way of redressing this and remedying the
public evil; that is the plan I before sent you of appointing
the Dr. _honoris causa_ to Vienna, Mr. Deane to Holland, Mr.
Jennings to Madrid, and leaving me here." (Life of Arthur Lee,
vol. ii. p. 127.)
His attack on Franklin and his nephew, Jonathan Williams, was a very
serious one, and was published in a pamphlet, entitled "Observations on
Certain Commercial Transactions in France Laid Before Congress."
Williams was one of Franklin's Boston nephews who turned up in Paris
poor and without employment. Franklin was always taking care of his
relatives with government positions, and he gave this one the position
of naval agent at Nantes. He had charge of the purchase of supplies for
American men-of-war, sold the prizes that were brought in, and also
bought and shipped arms and ammunition. It was a large business
involving the handling of enormous sums of money, and there is no doubt
that there were opportunities in it for making a fortune. Under the
modern spoils system it would be regarded as a precious plum which a
political party would be justified in making almost any sacrifices to
secure.
Franklin and Deane seem to have let Williams manage this department
pretty much as he pleased, and, as has been already shown, Lee had some
ground for suspecting that Deane was privately interested with Williams
in the sale of prizes. Williams certainly expended large sums on Deane's
orders alone, and he was continually calling for more money from the
commissioners' bankers. Lee demanded that there should be no more orders
signed by Deane alone, and that Williams should send in his accounts;
and, notwithstanding Lee's naturally captious and suspicious
disposition, he was perfectly right in this.
Deane and Williams kept demanding more money, and Lee asked Franklin to
stop it, which he not only refused to do, but wrote a letter to his
nephew justifying him in everything:
"PASSY, Dec. 22, 1777.
"DEAR NEPHEW:
"I received yours of the 16th and am concerned as well as you at
the difference between Messrs. Deane and Lee, but cannot help
it. You need, however, be under no concern as to your orders
being only from Mr. Deane. As you have always acted uprightly
and ably for the public service, you would be justified if you
had no orders at all. But as he generally consulted with me and
had my approbation in the orders he gave, and I know they were
for the best and aimed at the public good, I hereby certify you
that I approve and join in those you received from him and
desire you to proceed in the execution of the same."
Williams at last sent in his accounts, and Lee went over them, marking
some items "manifestly unjust," others "plainly exorbitant," and others
"altogether unsatisfactory for want of names, dates, or receipts." He
refused to approve the accounts, sent them to Congress, and asked
Williams to produce his vouchers. The vouchers, Lee tells us, were never
produced. He asked for them again and again, but there was always some
excuse, and he charges that Williams had in his possession a hundred
thousand livres more than was accounted for. Finally, John Adams, who
had come out to supersede Deane, joined with Franklin in giving Williams
an order on the bankers for the balance claimed by him; but the order
expressly stated that it was not to be understood as an approval of his
accounts, for which he must be responsible to Congress. Franklin
appointed certain persons to audit the accounts, but at a time, Lee
says, when they were on the point of sailing for America, and therefore
could not act. Adams seems to have been convinced that Williams was not
all that could be desired, and he and Franklin soon dismissed him from
his office, again reminding him that this was not to be considered as an
approval of his accounts.