“As I am not, Sir, to have the honor of seeing you again before your departure I pray you to receive here my wishes that your voyage may be speedy, short, and happy, and that you may find in your own country the same sentiments which you inspired in France. You could not, sir, desire anything to be added to that which I feel for you and which I shall keep as long as I live. The King, in order to give a personal proof of the satisfaction which he has had in your conduct, charged me to communicate it to the Congress of the United States. This is the object of the letter which Mr. Gérard will give you for Mr. Hancock. He will also give you a box ornamented with a portrait of the king. You will not refuse to carry into your country the image of its best friend.” On the 23rd of March, Beaumarchais had written to Congress in a letter in which he set forth the proofs in his possession of the innocence of Deane. “These, gentlemen,” he wrote, “were the real motives that determined us both in sending you the officers. As I have never treated with any other, as my firm never has transacted business with any other in France, and as the other commissioners have been lacking even in common civility towards me, I testify that if my zeal, my advances of money, and my shipments of supplies and merchandise have been acceptable to the august Congress, their gratitude is due to the indefatigable exertions of Mr. Deane throughout this commercial affair. “I hope that the honorable Congress, rejecting the insinuations of others, who are desirous of appropriating for themselves the credit of the operations, will accept in perfect faith the present declaration of the man most capable of enlightening them and who respectfully signs himself and his firm, gentlemen, yours, etc. “Caron de Beaumarchais, “Secretary to the King and Lieutenant-General of the King’s Hunt, known in America under the title of his firm, Roderigue Hortalès et Cie.” Before quitting France, Silas Deane addressed a letter to Beaumarchais, dated March 29, 1778. Obliged to quit France during the absence of his friend, he wrote thanking him for his letter to Congress, which he hoped would throw light upon the vexed question. “It is unhappy,” he said,