"Can we have, by direct communication, arms and munitions of war, and free entrance and exit for our vessels in French ports?" But whatever reliance they may have placed on the French emissary, the Committee were unwilling to confine themselves to this as the only means of opening communication with European powers. During a visit to Holland, Franklin had formed the acquaintance of a Swiss gentleman of the name of Dumas,--a man of great learning and liberal sentiments, and whose social position gave him access to sure sources of information. To him he now addressed himself with the great question of the moment:--"If we throw off our dependence upon Great Britain, will any court enter into alliance with us and aid us for the sake of our commerce?" Such, then, was the starting-point of our diplomatic history, the end and aim of all our negotiations: alliance and aid for the sake of our commerce. But we should greatly mistake the character of the times, if we supposed that this point was reached without many and warm debates. When the question was first started in Congress, that body was found to be as much divided upon this as upon any of the other subjects which it was called upon to discuss. With Franklin, one party held, that, instead of asking for treaties with European powers, we should first conquer our independence, when those powers, allured by our commerce, would come and ask us; the other, with John Adams, that, as our true policy and a mark of respect from a new nation to old ones, we ought to send ministers to all the great courts of Europe, in order to obtain the recognition of our independence and form treaties of amity and commerce. Franklin, who had already outlived six treaties of "firm and lasting peace," and now saw the seventh swiftly approaching its end, might well doubt the efficacy of those acts to which his young and impetuous colleague attached so much importance. But in Congress the majority was with Adams, and for a while there was what Gouverneur Morris called a rage for treaties. The Committee of Secret Correspondence, as I have already said, was formed in November, 1775. One of its first measures was to appoint agents,--Arthur Lee for London, Dumas for the Hague, and, early in the following year, Silas Deane for France. Lee immediately opened relations with the French Court by means of the French Ambassador in London; and Deane, on his arrival in France in June, followed them up with great intelligence and zeal. A million of livres was placed by Vergennes in the hands of Beaumarchais, who assumed the name of Hortalez & Co., and arranged with Deane the measures for transmitting the amount to America in the shape of arms and supplies.