“I hasten to inform you that an emissary from Lord North arrived in Paris yesterday. He has been watched ever since he left London. He has orders to gain the deputation at Passy at any price whatever. This is the moment or never, to cry _tu dors Brutus_. But I know that you are not asleep. From your side you see very well that I do not keep bad guard either.... Be sure that the English ministers are working seriously to make peace with America, and that it is of as much value to the nation that they make it, as it is for Lord Chatham and others.... And so peace with America is absolutely resolved; this is what has been very expressly communicated to me. As for myself, I am informed by the same avenue that the minister of France has given the Americans here help of money by means of Messrs. Grand, that the English ministers know it on good authority and that I am shifted off, which annoys no one in England. I easily believe it. Then I have lost the fruits of the most noble and unbelievable labors, by the very means that lead others to glory; I have several times guessed as much by the strange things which have struck me in the conduct of the Americans towards me.... Miserable human prudence, thou canst save no one when intrigue is bent upon ruining us. “M. le Comte, you are the man upon whose equity I have the most counted; you have not even refused at times esteem and well-wishing to my active zeal. Before I perish as merchant, I demand to be fully justified as agent and trader. I demand to lay before you my accounts, in order that it be proved well that no one else could have done so much with so little means across so many difficulties. It is certain that this summer M. le Comte de Maurepas permitted me to send guns to America, and he promised me that when they were gone I should be reimbursed, because he feared at that time the indiscretion of those about M. le Comte de St. Germain. I bought them, sent them and gave my notes which fall due soon, and yet M. de Maurepas seems to have forgotten his promise. This article and the charging of my vessel at Rochefort, arrives at more than 800,000 francs. “By the unbelievable retention of my vessel in port, everyone considers me lost and demands his money; nevertheless, though ready to perish through this delay and money not reimbursed, I do not lose my head. You can judge of that by the cold and reasoned work which I put into your hands Saturday. But I avow that I am at the end of my courage and my strength by the assurance that Messrs. Grand have secured the confidence which I believed I so well merited.[1] This breaks my heart. I have fulfilled the most thorny of tasks; I must be allowed to prove that I have fulfilled it well; it is in giving my accounts that this truth will appear....