This leaving all to Deane might have been well enough had not Deane had an implacable enemy in Arthur Lee, who, for that matter, resembled the devil in at least one particular, inasmuch as he was the foe of all mankind. Beaumarchais early in the proceedings had summarily dropped Lee from his confidence and instated Deane in the vacancy. This was sufficient to set Lee at once at traducing, an art in which long experience had cultivated natural aptitude. He saw great sums of money being used, and he was not told whence they came. But he guessed, and upon his guess he built up a theory of financial knavery. Deane had repeatedly assured Beaumarchais that he should receive the cargoes of American produce with promptitude,[42] and he did his best to make these promises good, writing urgent letters to Congress to hasten forward the colonial merchandise. But Arthur Lee mischievously and maliciously blocked these perfectly straightforward and absolutely necessary arrangements. For he had conceived the notion that Beaumarchais was an agent of the French court, that the supplies were free gifts from the French government, and that any payments for them to Hortalez & Co. would only go to fill the rascal purses of Deane and Beaumarchais, confederates in a scheme for swindling. He had no particle of evidence to sustain this notion, which was simply the subtle conception of his own bad mind; but he was not the less positive and persistent in asserting it in his letters to members of Congress. Such accounts sadly puzzled that body; and it may be imagined to what a further hopeless degree of bewilderment this gathering of American lawyers and tradesmen, planters and farmers, must have been reduced by the extraordinary letters of the wild and fanciful Beaumarchais. The natural consequence was that the easier course was pursued, and no merchandise was sent to Hortalez. If affairs had not soon taken a new turn in France this error might have had disastrous consequences for the colonies. In fact, it only ruined poor Deane. [Note 41: Franklin's _Works_, vi. 199, 205; viii. 153, 183; Hale's _Franklin in France_, i. 53.] [Note 42: Hale's _Franklin in France_, i. 45.]