Lee’s charge against Franklin was that he had connived at the acts of his nephew and done everything possible to shield him and enable him to get possession of the balance of money he claimed. Readers must draw their own conclusions, for the matter was never officially investigated. It would have been unwise for Congress to inaugurate a public scandal at a time when the country was struggling for existence, needed all the moral and financial support it could obtain from Europe, and as yet saw no end to the Revolution. One more point must be noticed. Lee commented with much sarcasm on the sudden prosperity of Jonathan Williams. He had been clerk to a sugar-baker in England, and was supposed to be without means; but as naval agent he soon began to call himself a merchant, and when waiting on the commissioners charged five Louis d’ors a day for the loss of his time. Lee, according to some of his letters, had been trying for some time to have a certain John Lloyd, of South Carolina, appointed in the place of Williams; and I shall quote part of one of these letters, which shows why Lee wanted Williams’s place for one of his friends. “My brother and myself have conceived that as the public allowance to the commercial agent is very liberal and the situation necessarily must recommend considerable business, the person appointed might with the most fair and conscientious discharge of his duty to the public make his own fortune.” (Life of Arthur Lee, vol. ii. p. 144.) He did not succeed in having Lloyd appointed, but he and his brother William secured the position for a friend of theirs called Schweighauser, on the dismissal of Williams, and this Schweighauser appointed a nephew of the Lees as one of his assistants. It should be said that although Lee and Izard were constantly hinting at evil practices by Franklin, and sometimes directly stigmatized him as the “father of corruption” and deeply involved in the most disreputable schemes, they never produced any proof that he had enriched himself or was directly engaged in anything discreditable. There seems to be no doubt that certain people were making money under cover of the loose way in which affairs were managed. Franklin must have known of this, as well as Adams and the other commissioners, but neither he nor they were enriched by it. Lee’s pamphlet goes no farther than to say that Franklin had shielded his nephew. John Adams, it may be observed, assisted in this shielding, if it can with justice be so called, for he signed with Franklin the order allowing the money to be paid to Williams on condition that it should not be considered an approval of his accounts. Adams afterwards described very concisely the situation, and how he, with the others, was compelled to connive at peculations under the absurd system.