Four days before this interview, the Doctor Dubourg had learned to his great disappointment where the confidence of the minister had been placed. Knowing nothing of the real situation, he thought to dissuade the latter from his choice by attacking the private character of the man who had usurped his place. The effect of his letter upon the Comte de Vergennes can be judged from the fact that the latter immediately communicated it to Beaumarchais himself, who was charged with the reply. The Doctor wrote: “Monseigneur: “I have seen M. de Beaumarchais this morning and conferred with him without reserve. Everyone knows his wit, his talents, and no one renders more justice to his honesty, discretion and zeal for all that is good and grand; I believe him one of the most proper men in the world for political negotiations, but perhaps at the same time, the least proper for mercantile enterprises. He loves display, they say that he keeps women; he passes in a word for a spendthrift and there is not a merchant in France who has not this idea of him and who would not hesitate to enter into the smallest commercial dealings with him. Therefore, I was very much astonished when he informed me that you had charged him not only to aid you with his advice but had concentrated on him alone the _ensemble_ and the details of all the commercial operations.... “I represented to him that in taking the immense traffic and excluding those who already had run so many dangers and endured so many fatigues ... it would be doing them a real wrong.... But I return to my first and principal reflection and implore you, Monseigneur, to weigh it well. Perhaps there are a hundred, perhaps a thousand persons in France with talents very inferior to those of M. de Beaumarchais, who would fill better your views, inspire more confidence, etc., etc....” The reply of Beaumarchais, first published by M. de Loménie, and since become so famous, is in the former’s most characteristic style. It had its part to play as we shall see, in the trouble which came to its author, and was partly responsible for the non-recognition of his services by the American people. The good doctor always retained a grudge against his brilliant and preferred rival. From him Doctor Franklin imbibed in the beginning such a prejudice against the indefatigable friend of the American cause, that he always avoided him as much as possible. From the reply, a copy of which Beaumarchais sent at the same time for the amusement of the ministers, we quote the following: “Tuesday, June 16, 1776.