“As an American officer, and as a man, I affectionately love and respect the character and nation of France, and hope the alliance with America may last forever. I owe the greatest obligation to the generous praise of the French nation on my past conduct, and shall be happy to merit future favor. I greatly love and esteem his most Christian Majesty as the great ally of America, the best of kings, and the amiable friend and protector of the rights of human nature. Therefore he has few of his own subjects who would bleed, in his present cause, with greater freedom than myself, and none who are more disinterested. At the same time I lament the calamities of war, and wish, above all things, for an honorable, happy, and lasting peace. “My fortune is not augmented by the part I have hitherto acted in the revolution, although I have had frequent opportunities of acquiring riches. And I pledged myself to the worthy part of mankind, that my future conduct in the war shall not forfeit their good opinion. I am, with great and sincere affection, happy in your friendship.” Though Commodore Jones had not captured any prize, he fortunately met an American ship, the Livingston, laden with tobacco, which he convoyed into L’Orient. The Alliance was needed to convey stores to the United Colonies. But she was in need of very thorough repairs before she could safely spread sail on so important a voyage. The seas were covered with British war vessels of double her number of guns. It was therefore essential that she should be prepared for a rapid flight. There were fifteen thousand stand of good arms to be sent, and one hundred and twenty large bales of cloth for the army, with other freight of great value. The loss of these would prove a great calamity. Commodore Jones felt that it would be madness to undertake to cross the ocean, with so valuable a cargo, without putting the ship in the best possible trim. But the French court, which had been at great expense in fitting out its own ships, declined furnishing funds from an exhausted treasury; and the American commissioners in Paris, representatives of the feeble colonies, had neither money nor credit. There is true pathos in the letter which Dr. Franklin wrote the commodore on this occasion. “As to refitting your ship,” he wrote, “at the expense of this court, there is not the least probability of obtaining it; and therefore I cannot ask it. The whole expense will therefore fall upon me; and I am ill provided to bear it, having so many unexpected calls upon me from all quarters. I therefore beg you would have mercy on me. Put me to as little charge as possible, and take nothing you can possibly do without. I approve of your applying to Messrs. Gourlade and Moylan for what repairs you want, having an exceeding good opinion of those gentlemen. But let me repeat it, for God’s sake be sparing, unless you mean to make me a bankrupt, or have your drafts dishonored, for want of money in my hands to pay them.”