He was not a member of the commission which had charge of French affairs, and yet, in the loose way in which all the foreign business of the colonies was being managed, it was perhaps natural that, as an energetic and able man and an American, he should wish to be consulted occasionally by Franklin and Deane. In a certain way he was directly connected with them, for he had to obtain money from them for some of his expenses incurred in attempting to go to Tuscany, and on this subject he quarrelled with Franklin, who thought that he had used too much. He was also obliged to apply to Franklin for certain papers to enable him to make a commercial treaty with Tuscany, and these, he said, Franklin had delayed supplying. He complained further of Franklin’s neglect to answer his letters and obstructing his means of sending information to America. Franklin afterwards admitted that he might have saved himself from Izard’s enmity by showing him a little attention; his letters to both Izard and Lee were very stinging; in fact, they were the severest that he ever wrote; and Izard’s charge that he delayed answering letters was probably true, for we know from other sources that he was never orderly in business matters. At any rate, the result of his neglect of Izard was that that gentleman’s hatred for him steadily increased to the end of his life, and years after Izard had left Paris he is described as unable to contain himself at the mention of Franklin’s name, bursting out into passionate denunciation of him like the virtuous old ladies we are told of in Philadelphia. Then there was William Lee, brother of Arthur Lee, appointed envoy to Berlin and Vienna, which places he could not reach for the same reason that prevented Izard from going to Tuscany. So he also stayed in Paris, assisted his brother Arthur, became a commercial agent, and had no love for either Franklin or Deane. There was also Dr. Edward Bancroft, who had no regular appointment, but flitted back and forth between London and Paris. He was intimate with Franklin, assisted Deane, knew the secrets of the American business in Paris, which knowledge Lee tells us he used for the purpose of speculating in London, and Bancroft the historian says that he was really a British spy. Thomas Morris, a younger brother of Robert Morris, was a commercial agent at Nantes, wrecked himself with drink, and started what came near being a serious dispute between Robert Morris and Franklin; and Franklin himself had his own nephew, Jonathan Williams, employed as naval agent, which gave Lee a magnificent opportunity to charge that the nephew was in league with the uncle and with Deane to steal the public money and share with them the proceeds of the sale of prizes.