TO THE COMMITTEE OF SECRET CORRESPONDENCE.
Paris, 4th March, 1777.
Gentlemen,
We send you herewith the draft of a frigate by a very ingenious officer in this service, which appears to us peculiarly suitable for our purpose, and we are in hopes of being able to ship cordage, sailcloth, and anchors, &c. sufficient for five or six such frigates, by the time you can have them built.
Deprived of any intelligence from you, since the first of last November, and without remittances, we are left in a situation easier to be conceived than described. The want of intelligence affects the cause of the United States in every department; such accounts of our affairs, as arrive in Europe at all, come through the hands of our enemies, and whether defeated or victorious we are the last, who are acquainted with events, which ought first to be announced by us. We are really unable to account for this silence, and, while we are affected with the unhappy consequences of it, we must entreat the honorable Congress to devise some method for giving us the earliest and most certain intelligence of what passes in America.
The ship, by which this is sent, is loaded with clothing, cordage, and duck; not having a full cargo of the former, we ordered Mr Williams, who acts for us at Nantes, to complete it with the latter, for which we have obtained a short credit. Mr Williams will write you by this opportunity. He has been of great service to us at Nantes, and, it is but justice to say, that his knowledge of business, probity, activity, and zeal, for the interests of his country, with the good opinion justly entertained of him by gentlemen in business at Nantes, render him very serviceable in our affairs there, and proper to be employed in commercial transactions.
We apprehend that letters to Mons. Schweighauser have not had fair play, and therefore advise you to write to him, charging the captain, who carries your letters, to deliver them with his own hand, if he arrives at Nantes, and if at any other port, that he send them under cover to us. We are filling a packet, by which we shall write more particularly in a few days. Mr Lee wrote us last week from Bordeaux, on his way to Spain.
We present our most respectful compliments to the honorable Congress, and are, gentlemen,
Your most obedient and very humble servants,
B. FRANKLIN,
SILAS DEANE.