He was a clever ecclesiastic, become through the suppression of the Society of Jesus, an ex-Jesuit who was afterwards to become the first archbishop of Baltimore. Much reliance was placed on his intermediary overtures to the Canadian clergy. On their arrival at St. John’s the commissioners felt their first check. They had carried no hard cash with them. They were brought up at once against the fundamental difficulty. In their letter to congress on May 1st the commissioners wrote, “It is impossible to give you a just idea of the lowness of continental credit here from the want of hard money and the prejudice it is to our affairs. Not the most trifling service can be purchased without an appearance of instant pay in silver or gold. The express we sent from St. John’s to inform the general of our arrival there and to request carriages for La Prairie, had to wait at the ferry till a friend, passing, changed a dollar for us into silver.” This friend, a Mr. McCartney, had also to pay for the calèches for La Prairie or they would have had to remain stranded. They reached Montreal on April 27th and were received by Arnold with some ostentation at the Château, where guests among the French ladies were invited to meet them. That night after supper the commissioners lodged in Thomas Walker’s house. Walker’s house was that originally built by Bécancourt, which became the depôt of the Compagnie des Indes. It passed finally into the McGill family. It stood immediately west of the Château de Ramezay. It was demolished in 1903. With the commissioners there came about the same time the French printer, Fleury Mesplet. He was brought, along with his printing press, to spread campaign literature for the congress. His press was soon installed in the basement of the Château. It had been his press in Philadelphia from which the original proclamation of 1775 to the Canadians originated. He became the first printer of Montreal. The first book published by him is supposed to be “Réglement de la Confrèrie de l’Adoration Perpetuelle du Saint Sacrément et de la Bonne Mort, chez F. Mesplet et C. Berger, 1776.”[3] Another book bearing the same date, 1776, and published by Mesplet at Montreal, is “Jonathan et David, ou le Triomphe de L’Amitié,” tragedie en trois actes, representèe par les ecoliers de Montréal, a Montréal chez Fleury Mesplet et C. Berger, Imprimeurs et Libraires, 1776.