“When after my arrival at York, I announced my purpose and the reclamations I came to make, I did not find a single member of Congress disposed to believe that it was an individual who had rendered them such signal services, and that he was to be paid for them, as it was impossible to find on this continent a man who would ever have attempted for the freedom of his country the one-hundredth part of what you have done.... True Americans are infinitely rarer here than in Paris, and I am satisfied there is not one whose zeal approaches yours.” As a sample of what Lee had been writing to Congress, the few following passages quoted at random, will suffice: “Upon this subject of returns I think it my duty to say ... that the ministry have repeatedly assured me that no returns are expected for these subsidies.” At another time he wrote, speaking of a shipment just being made, “this is gratis as formerly, and what has been sent I have paid for; so that those merchants Hortalès et Cie. have no demand upon you; nor are you under any necessity of sending effects to them, unless you think it a proper market for some things, as it certainly is for fish.” (See _Vindication of Arthur Lee_.) “These assertions,” says Loménie (Vol. II, p. 178), “offering the advantage of dispensing America from all gratitude and all payment to Beaumarchais, Congress was naturally disposed to adopt.” It must be remembered, however, that at this moment the party which upheld Arthur Lee, headed by his two brothers and Samuel Adams, were at the height of their power, so that the opposite side, in whose ranks stood the upright and clear-sighted John Jay, was temporarily overruled.