In pursuance of this promise Franklin wrote on August 9 a full narrative of the entire matter; it was a fair and temperate statement of facts which it was his duty to lay before Congress.[75] Before sending it he wrote to Adams that de Vergennes, "having taken much amiss some passages in your letter to him, sent the whole correspondence to me, requesting that I would transmit it to Congress. I was myself sorry to see those passages. If they were the effects merely of inadvertence, and you do not, on reflection, approve of them, perhaps you may think it proper to write something for effacing the impressions made by them. I do not presume to advise you; but mention it only for your consideration." But Adams had already taken his own measures for presenting the case before Congress. [Note 75: Franklin's _Works_, vii. 110-112.] Such is the full story of Franklin's doings in this affair. His connection with it was limited to an effort to counteract the mischief which another had done. Whether he thought that the "inconvenience" which "_ought_ to fall" only on Americans could be arranged to do so, does not appear; probably he never concerned himself to work out a problem entirely outside his own department. As a diplomatist, who had to gain time for angry people to cool down for amicable discussion, he was content to throw out this general remark, and to express confidence that his countrymen would do liberal justice. So far as he was concerned, this should have been the end of the matter, and Adams should have been grateful to a man whose tranquil wisdom and skillful tact had saved him from the self-reproach which he would ever have felt had his well-intentioned, ill-timed act borne its full possible fruit of injury to the cause of the States. But Adams, who knew that his views were intrinsically correct, emerged from the imbroglio with an extreme resentment against his rescuer, nor was he ever able to see that Franklin did right in not reiterating the same views. He wished not to be saved but to be vindicated. The consequence has been unfortunate for Franklin, because the affair has furnished material for one of the counts in the indictment which the Adamses have filed against him before the bar of posterity.