MADAME DE BEAUMARCHAIS
Now that his anxieties for his family were allayed, Beaumarchais was not idle, for his stay in Hamburg was occupied in drawing up memoirs upon matters of public utility, in commercial negotiations, and in agreeable companionships with distinguished émigrés who like himself were anxiously awaiting the moment when they could return to France.
As for Beaumarchais, the affair of the 60,000 guns had ended, distressingly enough for his coffers, by the English carrying them off. They consented, however, at the urgent request of the merchant friend, to pay an arbitrary sum which was, however, far below their real value, but saved Beaumarchais from complete ruin. The affair ended, his only desire was to return home. This he was prevented from doing because of the proscription unjustly continued against him, which all the efforts of his friends and his family had been as yet unable to have removed.
Finally a member of the committee which he was serving, the same Robert Lindet before mentioned, wrote in his behalf to the minister of police, Cochon, the following letter:
“You have asked me to enlighten you regarding the second mission of Citizen Beaumarchais, and upon the exact time when that mission ended or should end.
“In charging the Citizen Beaumarchais with a mission, the committee of public safety proposed to itself two objects. The first was to procure the 60,000 guns deposited in the armory at Tervère, as objects of commerce; the second was to prevent these guns from falling into the power of the enemy.
“The Committee was obliged to pay for them only at the agreed price on condition that they should be delivered and placed at their disposition in one of the ports of the Republic, within five or six months, The negotiation might take longer, but these terms were used to excite the zeal of the Citizen Beaumarchais.
“Before the expiration of the term he sent from Holland to Paris, the Citizen Durand, his friend, who had accompanied him on his journey, to give an account of the obstacles which delayed the execution of the enterprise and to propose measures which he thought were needful.