This then is distinctly the subject of my complaint, that Mr Deane, who assumed to himself the management of those affairs, left them in such confusion, that neither was there any usual or satisfactory evidence of the thing said to have been delivered, nor were there any means left of knowing how to settle the accounts that remained unpaid, so as to do justice to the public. There were no books of accounts; nothing but a confused mass of motley refuse papers, without order, reference, or effect. I do not, nor ever did say, that Mr Deane has not these regular, responsible accounts and vouchers, but I said, and still say, he did not leave them with us. Perhaps they are among those he informs the public he had _placed in safety_; that is, in fitter hands than those of the Commissioners appointed by Congress. Mr Deane informs us, that there are but two sides of an account; but he ought to know, that there also ought to be to every mercantile account, receipts, invoices, and bills of lading. Had he ever taken the pains to procure these and left them for our satisfaction, he would have saved himself much discredit, and me much trouble; the public would have been secured and satisfied. Mr Deane lumps 244,285 livres, as had and expended in common by the Commissioners. But this is not the fact. I had nothing to do with what the other Commissioners received. What I took for my expenses I gave separate and distinct receipts for. By misstating what I say of my expenses, he would induce Congress to suppose, that I had half of that sum. This too is not a fact, as my receipts will show. When I said, that from my experience I judged a public minister could not live on less than three thousand a year, I did not mean that I had actually spent that sum; but that, as the expenses of a public Minister must be greater than those of a Commissioner, I could judge from my experience of the expense of the latter, what would be necessary for the former. I had not been a public Minister, and therefore could not speak from experience in that, or from any other judgment.[43] I have the honor to be, &c. ARTHUR LEE. [42] See Silas Deane’s Correspondence, Vol. I. p. 139, 148. [43] Mr Lee wrote a very long letter to the President of Congress, dated February 10th, vindicating himself against statements of Silas Deane. This letter, somewhat altered, was published under the title of “_Extracts from a Letter written to the President of Congress, by the Honorable Arthur Lee, in Answer to a Libel published in the Pennsylvania Gazette, of the 5th of December, 1778, by Silas Deane; in which every Charge or Insinuation against him in that Libel is fully and clearly refuted. Philadelphia, 1780._” TO THE COMMITTEE OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS. Nantes, March 7th, 1779. Gentlemen,