“I knew it to be impossible to give any kind of satisfaction to our constituents, that is to Congress, or their constituents, while we consented or connived at such irregular transactions, such arbitrary proceedings, and such contemptible peculations as had been practised in Mr. Deane’s time, not only while he was in France, alone, without any public character, but even while he was associated with Dr. Franklin and Mr. Arthur Lee in a real commission; and which were continued in some degree while I was combined in the commission with Franklin and Lee, in spite of all the opposition and remonstrance that Lee and I could make.” (Adams’s Works, vol. i. p. 657.) Franklin said and wrote very little on the subject. He sent no letters to members of Congress undermining the characters of his fellow-commissioners; the few statements that he made were exceedingly mild and temperate, and were usually to the effect that there were differences and disputes which he regretted. He usually invited his fellow-commissioners to dine with him every Sunday, and on these occasions they appeared very friendly, though at heart cherishing vindictive feelings towards one another. In truth, Lee and Izard wrote so much and so violently that they dug the graves of their own reputations. It was Dr. Johnson who said that no man was ever written down except by himself, and Franklin once shrewdly remarked, “spots of dirt thrown upon my character I suffered while fresh to remain; I did not choose to spread by endeavoring to remove them, but relied on the vulgar adage that they would all rub off when they were dry.” General public opinion was then and has remained in favor of Franklin, and the prominent men of France were, without exception, on his side. They all in the end detested Lee, whose conduct showed a vindictive disposition, and who evidently had purposes of his own to serve. One of his pet suspicions was that Paul Jones was a rascal in league with the other rascal, Franklin, and he protests in a letter to a member of Congress against Jones being “kept upon a cruising job of Chaumont and Dr. Franklin.” Jones, he predicted, would not return from this cruise, but would go over to the enemy.