The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. 01

by Unknown

TO THE PRESIDENT OF CONGRESS.

Philadelphia, 12th October, 1778.

Sir,

In the extracts from the letters of the honorable Mr Izard, I find charges which respect me, supported by his opinions, and by what he declares to have heard from the honorable Arthur Lee, who, by his own account, is my irreconcilable enemy. I find also charges against the honorable Dr Franklin and myself jointly, supported on the same grounds, with this difference, that almost every complaint against us lies equally against Mr Lee, and it is worthy of remark, that where the charge lies equally against us all, Mr Izard leaves Mr Lee wholly out, and fixing it solely on Dr Franklin and myself, proceeds to represent the Doctor as entirely under my influence. My situation has, through the whole been peculiarly unfortunate, and in nothing more so than in this, that Mr Izard's letters, written as much with the design of impeaching Dr Franklin's conduct as mine, now operates solely against me.

Mr Izard says, in his letter of the first of April, "That if the whole world had been searched, it would have been impossible to have found a person more unfit than I was for the trust, with which Congress had honored me." It does not become me, and possibly not even Mr Izard himself, to determine on my competency to that trust, and I have only to observe, that both of us were appointed by the authority of Congress, with this only difference, that I had the honor of being personally known to the members who composed that body, and I can add with pleasure, that I always paid respect to Mr Izard from the choice they had made of him, which I doubt not was on good information. I shall feel no uneasiness on my own account, that Mr Izard's opinions of me remain on the journals of Congress, whilst on the same records there will be found that of his Most Christian Majesty, of his Minister, and Secretary of State, and of my venerable colleague, revered through Europe as the first of patriots, as well as philosophers, whom this age has produced. I find but two charges which respect me personally; the first is, the exercising such a degree of hauteur and presumption as to give offence to every gentleman with whom I transacted business. I transacted none with Mr Izard, and therefore must appeal from his opinion to the business I transacted, and the worthy and honorable persons with whom I transacted it, and who, from the first of my acquaintance with them to my leaving the kingdom, honored me with their friendship and their confidence. I desire it may be remembered, that, when I went abroad, charged with the transaction of political and commercial business for Congress, in the year 1776, I arrived at Paris as late in the season as the month of July, without funds, uncertain of remittances, without credit, ignorant of the language and manners of France, and an utter stranger to the persons in power and influence at Court; that I had not the patronage of any person of importance, and had no correspondence or connexions established in any part of Europe. The news of our misfortunes in Canada arrived in France with me, and that of our subsequent misfortunes immediately after, and was, as usual, exaggerated by the British Ambassador and his emissaries. In a word, without remittances, or even intelligence from Congress, and under all these disagreeable circumstances, I had to oppose the artifice, the influence, and the power of Great Britain; yet I have the pleasing reflection that before the first of December following, I procured thirty thousand stand of arms, thirty thousand suits of clothes, more than two hundred and fifty pieces of brass artillery, tents, and other stores to a large amount, provided the ships to transport them, and shipped a great part of them for America. Many of these supplies fortunately arrived at the commencement of the last year's operations, and enabled my brave countrymen, in some parts of America, to make a good stand against the enemy, and in the north to acquire immortal renown by the defeat and surrender of General Burgoyne and his whole army, an event peculiarly fortunate in its consequences, as it accelerated the completion of that alliance, to which the honorable Congress, with every true friend to the United States, have given their approbation. During this short period I had established a very extensive correspondence for the service of my country, not only in France but in Holland, at the Court of Russia, and elsewhere in Europe; and though the grant of money by the Court of Versailles was not at this time actually made, I had entered upon the negotiation and laid the foundation for obtaining it. These facts, without mentioning others of no less importance, will shew what business I transacted; and the character given me by those great personages, with whom I was in my public character connected, will evince the degree of reputation in which I stood. It is my misfortune that Mr Izard was of a different opinion.

The second charge is, that Mr Arthur Lee had assured him, that his despatches to Congress, and even one of his private letters had been opened by me. I am surprised Mr Arthur Lee never intimated this to me, and that he should communicate it to Mr Izard, to be reported in this manner. I think it however sufficient for me to say here, what I shall say elsewhere, and on all occasions, that this is a groundless calumny, which I should not have expected, even from an enemy, at least not from a candid or generous one.

Mr Izard complains that Dr Franklin and myself concealed from him, or attempted to conceal the opportunities of writing to America, as well as the intelligence received from thence. In reply to this, it need only be observed, that no packets or letters were sent by the commissioners to America and to Congress, without the knowledge and consent of Mr Arthur Lee, and no intelligence received to which he was not privy. That he was often with Mr Izard, and therefore it was naturally to be supposed would give him every necessary information; if Mr Lee did not acquaint Mr Izard, he is at least equally culpable with us, and if he did, there is no ground for the complaint. It is true, that neither Dr Franklin nor myself considered ourselves at liberty to communicate the treaty or its contents, until the consent of the Court should be had; we considered ourselves in the same situation as to the appointment of Mons. Gerard, and the sailing of the Toulon fleet. Mr Izard appears, however, to have been well informed of the former at least, and that very early, and of the latter on the day of our leaving Paris. Mr Arthur Lee knew of it sometime before, as he wrote many letters by his Excellency Mons. Gerard. In justice, therefore, the complaint ought not to have been made solely against Dr Franklin and Mr Deane, and particularly against the latter.

Mr Izard represents that there were dissensions and misunderstandings between the commissioners at Paris. It is true. He is of opinion that the interest of the public suffered by it, but in this he is mistaken, as the treaty itself and all our other public transactions will demonstrate. Mr Izard is of opinion that France might have been brought to have taken an active part much earlier. If circumstances, not in our power, had taken place earlier, they possibly might; but even in that case they would have done it under great disadvantages, as is evident from the representation I made to Congress when I had the honor of being heard on the 19th of August last. As the 11th and 12th articles of the treaty are complained of, and as this subject immediately interests the public, I have drawn up a concise narration of the whole of that transaction and have communicated it to his Excellency Mons. Gerard, who agrees to the truth of every part thereof, which has come to his knowledge. This I beg leave to present to Congress, as it will show that Mr Izard had not the best information, and that neither Dr Franklin or myself (though "born in New England") procured the insertion of those articles; it will further show that the Court of France never urged it, but on the contrary left us perfectly free to have them both inserted or both omitted. It will also appear, that Mr Lee himself wrote and signed the letter, desiring they might be inserted, and that he afterwards had a private conference with M. Gerard on the subject, and appeared perfectly satisfied. If any doubts arise on this subject, I shall be happy to refer for satisfaction on that head to Mons. Gerard, and also for what passed between Mr Lee and himself on the occasion, as well as for the pretended verbal promise that the article should be expunged if objected to by Congress. I have signed that narration, and shall sign these observations in which I have avoided taking those advantages of Mr Izard, which the passionate and partial complexion of his letters has given me, were I disposed to make use of them; because, I conceive it to be an abuse, if not an insult to trouble Congress with any thing merely personal, though I have provocation sufficient to justify me in the eyes of the world, and am by no means deficient in materials.

I recollect perfectly well the interview at Passy with Mr William Lee, at which Mr Izard was present, but I do not remember that any such letter as he describes was either desired or refused. I rather think that Mr Izard misunderstood Dr Franklin at the time, or that his memory has deceived him. The facts are these. The late Mr Thomas Morris had a commission to act as commercial agent; his commission was entirely distinct from, and independent of, the commissioners; he at least construed it so himself from the beginning. We were very early informed of his irregularities, and admonished him, and advertised Congress of them. As we could get no account of the disposition of the prizes brought into France, and the expense of repairing and equipping the vessels of war fell on the commissioners, Dr Franklin and myself (Mr A. Lee being then at Berlin) deputed Mr Williams to take the care of the prizes into his own hands, and ordered the Captains to account with him. On Mr William Lee's arrival at Nantes he joined with Mr Morris in writing a severe letter to the commissioners on what they had done, in which they complained, that the office or department of commercial Agent was broken in upon, and that we had no power over it. Dr Franklin, at the desire of Mr A. Lee and myself prepared an answer, in which the reason of our orders was given, and Mr Morris' conduct urged as our principal motive, but that as he, Mr William Lee, was there, we would recall our commission from Mr Williams. Mr Arthur Lee would not agree to the form of the letter, and after much dispute upon it, a second was written, when Mr Arthur Lee observed, that his brother was coming to Paris soon to receive his commission for Vienna and Berlin, and as there were then no prizes in port, or expected, the matter might rest. This was the reason why Mr W. Lee's letters were not answered. He came to Paris soon after, and represented the confused state in which affairs were at Nantes, and urged the interposition of the commissioners to put the whole agency into his hands. The situation of Mr William Lee at that time was precisely this; he had never received any commission either from Congress or their committee for the commercial agency, whilst Mr Thomas Morris was, and had been in the possession of a commission, and in the exercise of the agency.

Congress had made Mr William Lee their commissioner to the courts of Vienna and Berlin, each of which places is at least a thousand miles from the scenes of our commerce, without saying anything about his former appointment, from which it was natural to suppose his former appointment had been considered as superceded by the new. We had received intelligence, that the information we had given of Mr Morris's conduct, had been received and read in Congress, and that Congress notwithstanding chose to continue him in this situation. We thought it very extraordinary that we should be applied to, to interfere where Congress, knowing the facts, had declined to interfere, and still more so, that we should be requested to put (what indeed was not in our power) the commercial agency into the hands of a gentleman, who must execute it by deputies; himself at a distance too great either to see or correct the abuses that might be practised. The letter referred to by Mr Izard was a letter to this purpose, and I remember well (for I avoided bearing any considerable part in the conversation) Doctor Franklin's reply, which was to this purpose, that Congress by disregarding the information we had given, and continuing Mr Morris, had impliedly censured our conduct. That Mr Morris had treated us ill personally for what we had done, and that Mr William Lee ought to remember, that he had himself jointly with Mr Morris complained of our interfering as he thought in that department; and therefore he did not incline to subject himself to any further censures, or as he expressed it "raps over the knuckles" for meddling in the affair. We were indeed as much surprised as Mr Izard appears to have been on the occasion, but our surprise arose from another cause; it was to find Mr William Lee desirous of holding such a plurality of appointments, in their own nature incompatible with each other, and impossible to have been executed by the same person. But as one of the places was supposed to be a lucrative one, the subject was too delicate to be touched on by us.

Mr Izard says that Mr William Lee complained that parties had been excited against him at Nantes, and that so far from having been supported by the commissioners in the execution of his duty, these gentlemen had as much as possible contributed to perplex him in the discharge of it; that he had frequently written, &c. His letters have been taken notice of already, and the reason mentioned why they were not answered. The rest of this complaint is, as far as I know anything about the matter, totally groundless; it must appear so to every one acquainted with the following particulars. Mr William Lee never had a commission to the commercial agency, though he is now executing it by his agents. Mr Lee's caution was such, that he never even answered my letters to him in February or March, informing him that Mr Robert Morris had written to me, that he was appointed; nor did I learn anything from him of his intentions, until he arrived at Paris the summer following, where also he acted with the greatest caution, while he waited the return of his brother from Berlin. Before and after his being at Nantes, he went so far as even to desire Mr Williams and others at Paris and at Nantes not to let it be known, that he had anything to do in American affairs, as he said it would greatly prejudice his interest in London; and so far was he from ever executing, or publicly attempting to execute, that agency, until after the news of General Burgoyne's defeat had arrived in France, that he did nothing that ever I heard of, which could have prevented his returning to the exercise of his Aldermanship in London.

Mr Izard is pleased to say, that "to let Mons. Gerard go away without giving him the least intimation of it, was a very high insult to Congress." It was not in our power to permit or prevent Mons. Gerard's going away, and if we did not, circumstanced as we then were, think ourselves authorised to communicate it to Mr Izard, I cannot conceive this to be a high insult to Congress; certain it is, we meant no such thing; we meant to serve, not insult that honorable body. "The object," he says, "of these gentlemen is to have Mr Deane come back in a public character, if not to France, perhaps to Holland, or some other part of Europe, and therefore they are afraid of having reasons given why this should not be the case." And he adds, "I am of opinion that he is upon every account an improper person to be employed by Congress." I have already appealed from this gentleman's opinions, so I shall say nothing further about them; his reasons, if he offers any, are to be judged of by Congress. I find, however, he had more apprehensions than reasons in this part of his letter; his apprehensions as well as opinions were in part at least groundless; he was apprehensive lest my venerable colleague would solicit some appointment for me; I do not learn that he has done it, I never desired or expected that he would. Mr Izard, I presume, knew that I had a very extensive correspondence with gentlemen of the mercantile and monied interest and character in Europe, but particularly in Holland, where I had long before been preparing the minds of such men in favor of a loan. He knew that there was not merely a correspondence, but a strict personal friendship subsisting between certain gentlemen in Amsterdam and at the Hague and myself, and that I had proposed to go there on the subject of the loan, as well as for other purposes. I presume also he knew, that the French Ambassador in Holland, the Duke de Vauguyson, who spent last winter in Paris, honored me with his acquaintance, and with all the politeness as well as zeal for the interest of the United States of North America, which make part of that nobleman's character, urged me to go there, assuring me of every personal service and civility, which should be in his power. My recall prevented the execution of the plan, and Mr Izard doubtless apprehended that I should solicit for the appointment. His apprehension was groundless; the honorable Congress know that I have not solicited for any appointment; my life and fortune, with what abilities I am blessed with, have been from the first, and will ever be devoted to the service of my country, who are most certainly the best judges in what department they can be most useful; or if they can be of any use at all, and to their judgment I most cheerfully submit.

I have the honor to be,

With the most respectful attachment, &c.

SILAS DEANE.