“Holding to the choice of French vessel charged to the account of Roderigue Hortalès et Cie., Congress, or rather Mr. Adams, Secretary of Congress, will be alone forewarned by the agent in England that a vessel is carrying to him at Cape Francis both goods and munitions, which are to be returned in Virginian tobacco, so that he may send to the Cape upon a vessel loaded with tobacco an agent who will bear his power to receive both and to send back by the captain of Hortalès et Cie. the entire return in tobacco or at all events a recognition that he owes Hortalès et Cie. the balance of the amount for which he may not have been able to furnish return.” So far in Beaumarchais’s mind, the mercantile undertaking was to be for the king, only cloaked by the appearance of a mercantile house. But it seems that the French government, anxious to evade all possible risk and wishing to deny all connivance in the transactions, decided to remain entirely foreign to the operation. “We will give you secretly,” said the government, “a million. We will try to obtain the same amount from the court of Spain.... with these two millions and the co-operation of private individuals, whom you will associate in your enterprise, you will found your house and at your own risk and perils you will provision the Americans with arms and munitions, and objects of equipment and whatever is necessary to support the war. Our arsenals will deliver to you these things, but you will replace them or pay for them. You shall not demand money of the Americans, because they have none, but you shall ask returns in commodities of their soil, the sale of which we will facilitate in our country.... In a word, the operation secretly sanctioned by us at the outset must grow and develop through its own support. But on the other hand, we reserve the right of favoring or opposing it according to political contingencies. You will render us an account of your profits and losses, while we will decide whether we should grant you new subsidies or discharge you of all obligations previously made.” (Loménie, II, p. 109.) In this transaction, the responsibility of the agent to the United States had no consideration. “The advances of the government were simply a guarantee to Beaumarchais against loss.” (Durand, p. 90.) The difficulties and dangers of this undertaking have been admirably summed up by M. de Loménie. “They were of a nature to cause any other man than Beaumarchais to hesitate.... He threw himself into this, however, with all his usual intrepidity, and the tenth of June, 1776, a month before the United States had published their Declaration of Independence, he signed the famous receipt which, kept secret under the monarchy, delivered to the United States in 1794, under the republic, occasioned a suit lasting fifty years, and to which we shall return. The receipt read thus: