the dishonest liberties which the deputies of Passy have wished to take with me. I have written them a letter of which I send you a copy, and which they have left without reply up to the present. While waiting, I have left the cargo in the hands of MM. Berard brothers, of Lorient, and in so doing I have not believed myself to have deviated in any way from the frank and generous attitude I always have maintained towards Congress, but simply to use my legitimate right in regard to the first and very small return which they make upon an enormous advance; that cargo is worth about 150,000 livres. You can see the great difference between that drop, and the ocean of the debt owing me.” (Note of Loménie, “Franklin and Lee, who in this instance acted in spite of Deane, did not dare insist, and the cargo remained for Beaumarchais.”) “As for you, my dear, I suppose you have arrived and that you have obtained from Congress a reasonable adjustment, such as the situation of America permits them to give. I hope that following my instructions, you have obtained and will continue to obtain much tobacco, and I expect that my vessels will find their return cargoes ready to be embarked as soon as they arrive where you are. I still hope that if events should retard my vessels still longer, that you will send me at least by _le Flammand_ a ... cargo that will deliver me from the horrible pressure in which I find myself. “I do not know whether I flatter myself, but I count upon the honesty and equity of Congress as I count upon mine or yours. The deputies here are not in comfortable circumstances, and pressing need often make men indelicate; this is the way I explain the injustice which they tried to do me. I do not despair even of winning them back to me by the gentleness of my remonstrances and the firmness of my conduct.” Loménie says, “This explanation may seem strange ... but the fact is that the deputies from America received no more remittances from Congress than Beaumarchais. Silas Deane had been obliged to borrow from the latter the funds absolutely necessary for his personal expenses. Arthur Lee tried later to make use of this fact to inculpate Deane ... but it has been well proved that necessity alone forced Deane to contract the debt. As for Franklin, he was a little richer when he landed in France, because he wrote to his colleague, Silas Deane, from Quiberon, December, 1776; ‘Our vessel has brought indigo to the value of about 3000 pounds sterling which will be at our orders to pay our expenses.’ ... “During the year 1777, the French Government itself gave money at different times to the deputies at Passy, up to the moment when it passed to them, through the Banker Grand, the two millions, which were used partly to support the agents and under-agents of America in France, and partly to buy munitions for Congress.” To return to Beaumarchais’s letter: