As for Beaumarchais, the affair of the 60,000 guns had ended, distressingly enough for his coffers, by the English carrying them off. They consented, however, at the urgent request of the merchant friend, to pay an arbitrary sum which was, however, far below their real value, but saved Beaumarchais from complete ruin. The affair ended, his only desire was to return home. This he was prevented from doing because of the proscription unjustly continued against him, which all the efforts of his friends and his family had been as yet unable to have removed. Finally a member of the committee which he was serving, the same Robert Lindet before mentioned, wrote in his behalf to the minister of police, Cochon, the following letter: “You have asked me to enlighten you regarding the second mission of Citizen Beaumarchais, and upon the exact time when that mission ended or should end. “In charging the Citizen Beaumarchais with a mission, the committee of public safety proposed to itself two objects. The first was to procure the 60,000 guns deposited in the armory at Tervère, as objects of commerce; the second was to prevent these guns from falling into the power of the enemy. “The Committee was obliged to pay for them only at the agreed price on condition that they should be delivered and placed at their disposition in one of the ports of the Republic, within five or six months, The negotiation might take longer, but these terms were used to excite the zeal of the Citizen Beaumarchais. “Before the expiration of the term he sent from Holland to Paris, the Citizen Durand, his friend, who had accompanied him on his journey, to give an account of the obstacles which delayed the execution of the enterprise and to propose measures which he thought were needful. “Citizen Durand was sent back to Citizen Beaumarchais with a revised passport, which ran thus; ‘to conduct him to his destination and to continue his mission;’ because it seemed important to procure the guns for the government at whatever time that should be found possible, and also that the enemy should be prevented from seizing and distributing them in Belgium among the partisans of the house of Austria. “The department of Paris placed the Citizen Beaumarchais upon the list of _émigrés_ and placed seals upon his property. “The committee decreed that since the Citizen Beaumarchais was on a mission he should not be treated as an _émigré_, because he was absent on a mission for the government. The department removed the seals.