"Were I to form my opinion of the ministry from the treatment that I experienced while at Brest, or from their want of confidence in me afterward, exclusive of what has taken place since I had the misfortune to enter this port, I will appeal to your Excellency as a man of candour and ingenuousness, whether I ought to desire to prolong a connection that has made me so unhappy, and wherein I have given so little satisfaction? M. de Chev. de Lironcourt has lately made me reproaches on account of the expense that he says France has been at _to give me reputation_, in preference to twenty captains of the royal navy, better qualified than myself, and who, each of them, solicited for the command that was lately given to me! This, I confess, is quite new and indeed surprising to me, and had I known it before I left France I certainly should have resigned in favour of the twenty men of superior merit. I do not, however, think that his first assertion is true, for the ministry must be unworthy of their places were they capable of squandering the public money merely to give an individual reputation! and as to the second, I fancy the court will not thank him for having given me this information, whether true or false. I may add here that, with a force so ill-composed, and with powers so limited, I ran ten chances of ruin and dishonour for one of gaining reputation; and had not the plea of humanity in favour of the unfortunate Americans in English dungeons superseded all considerations of self, I faithfully assure you, my lord, that I would not have proceeded under such circumstances from Groix. I do not imbibe hasty prejudices against any individual, but when many and repeated circumstances, conspiring in one point, have inspired me with disesteem toward any person, I must see very convincing proofs of reformation in such person before my heart can beat again with affection in his favour; for the mind is free, and can be bound only by kind treatment. "You do me great honour, as well as justice, my lord, by observing that no satisfaction can be more precious to me than by giving new proofs of my zeal for the common cause of France and America; and the interest that you take to facilitate the means of my giving such proofs by essential services, claims my best thanks. _I hope I shall not, through any imprudence of mine, render ineffectual any noble design that may be in contemplation for the general good._[31] Whenever that object is mentioned, my private concerns are out of the question, and where I can not speak exactly what I could wish with respect to my private satisfaction, I promise you in the meantime to observe a prudent silence. "With a deep sense of your generous sentiments of personal regard toward me, and with the most sincere wishes to merit that regard by my conduct through life." The following extract from a letter to Robert Morris well indicates how his treatment by the French ambassador rankled: