Besides the above duties, which may be considered strictly naval in character, the American representatives had other business closely related to their admiralty work, but which was also intimately connected with their diplomatic and commercial work. For instance, dealings with breaches of neutrality committed by American ships had to do equally with diplomatic and naval affairs. The selling of colonial products which the Commercial Committee of the Continental Congress exported to France, and the buying of French manufactures which the American representatives shipped to America, were of course commercial duties. These transactions, however, came into contact with naval affairs when the goods purchased in France happened to be naval stores, or when naval ships carried the goods or convoyed the merchantmen which carried them. For the sake of obtaining a complete view of the admiralty work of the American representatives in France, this chapter will touch upon naval duties of all sorts even though their diplomatic and commercial aspects stand out the most prominently. The first naval business of the Colonies in France fell to Silas Deane, a political and commercial agent of the Continental Congress, who arrived at Paris in July, 1776. In December, 1776, Deane was succeeded by three American commissioners to the Court of France, Benjamin Franklin, Silas Deane, and Arthur Lee. These three men shared the naval duties of their office until the spring of 1778, when Deane was superseded by John Adams. In February, 1779, Franklin, who had been chosen Minister Plenipotentiary at the Court of France, fell heir along with the other duties of the commissioners to those of a naval character; and he continued in this office until the end of the Revolution. Of the first three commissioners Silas Deane had the most to do with the naval business. He says that the management of the Continental ships of war and of their prizes which was a “most complicated and embarrassing part of our affairs” fell entirely upon himself.[315] When Deane was superseded, it would seem that his naval duties fell to Franklin rather than to Adams. Franklin had at all times the chief part of the work of exchanging naval prisoners with Great Britain; and Adams excelled the other commissioners in transmitting to the home government naval intelligence.