In the first class were announced eighteen millions; then another loan of ten millions from Holland, guaranteed by the king of France and of which he paid the interest; finally the six millions about to be loaned. This constituted a sum of thirty-four millions which the United States promised to refund at future times. Finally the King announced as a gift, the three millions conveyed to the colonists before her treaty of Alliance in 1778, and six millions given in 1781. It was therefore nine millions which the king of France relinquished without expecting any return, and this in addition to the enormous expenditure made in sending the fleets and armies of France to America. (See _Loménie_ Vol II, p. 186.) The statement was signed by Franklin and received without comment by the United States, but three years later, in 1786, Franklin made the discovery that the king of France stated that three millions had been given to the cause of independence in America before 1778, whereas he, Franklin, had received but two millions. What had become of the other million? Inquiry was at once made of the United States banker in France, and an explanation demanded. After much difficulty it was learned that this million was one delivered by the royal treasurer on the 10th of June, 1776. “It was,” says M. de Loménie, “precisely the million given to Beaumarchais, but the reticence of Vergennes showed that an embarrassing mistake had been made, though unconsciously, by the royal treasurer.” It was impossible in 1786 for the French government to avow the secret aid she had given to the colonies before her open recognition of American Independence. The two millions given to Franklin in 1777 through the banker, Grand, after France had decided upon the policy of open recognition, but before the act, had never been a secret—but the million given to Beaumarchais, while really intended to help the American cause, had been conveyed to him under stress of secrecy at a time when it was unsafe to submit to writing even the most informal engagement in regard to it. Whatever the stipulations made concerning the use of the money, they were verbal and have never been revealed. Nothing could attest the profound confidence inspired in the magistracy by Beaumarchais more than this absence of documents relative to the loan. There can be no doubt that whatever the arrangement made by Vergennes, he was satisfied with the account rendered him by Beaumarchais, for we find him coming repeatedly to the latter’s aid when the failure of Congress to return cargoes, placed the house of Hortalès and Company in danger of bankruptcy. The confidence of the minister is also further attested by his refusal to deliver the receipt for the million, signed by Beaumarchais, on the 10th of June, 1776, and so become a handle to the calumny which Congress was directing against him.