Beaumarchais and the War of American Independence, Vol. 2

by Elizabeth Sarah Kite

“On the 16th of December a counter order was issued and sent to Havre and Nantes, prohibiting the officers from embarking and the vessels from setting out. But when the counter order reached Havre, l’Amphitrite, which bore the greater part of the officers and munitions, already had set sail. The Seine and the Romaine were alone sequestered, Beaumarchais then returned with all haste to Paris, in order to obtain the revocation of the counter order.” (Loménie II, p. 136.)

But in the meantime, an event had happened which, as soon as it became known, roused the French people to the highest pitch of enthusiasm, while it deepened the distrust and anger of the English Ambassador. This event was the arrival of Dr. Franklin upon the shores of France. Beaumarchais already had announced the fact in a letter to Vergennes. “The noise,” he said, “caused by the arrival of Mr. Franklin is inconceivable.... The courageous old man allowed the vessel to make two captures, in spite of the personal danger he ran.”

Though the French people might welcome with heartfelt enthusiasm, the venerable old democrat and philosopher, yet his presence at this moment was a serious matter to the Court of France. The Government was moving, it is true, directly towards open war with Great Britain, but she was as yet very unwilling that the English should have cause of offense in her attitude towards the country which had now declared itself free and independent. All the supplies which she was allowing to be sent by Hortalès et Cie. went out in vessels bound direct to her West Indian possessions, and were ostensibly intended for her own colonists, so that the English Government had no legal right to interfere. England therefore redoubled her watchfulness at the court of her rival, and knowing as she very well did that it was in every way to the interest of France to aid the Americans in their fight for liberty, she was all the more determined to harass and thwart every operation which tended in that direction.

All this time the Americans were far too deeply engrossed with the difficulties of their own situation to spend much thought upon those that surrounded their friends in Europe. On the 26th of September, Congress had appointed three commissioners to the Court of France. Silas Deane already on the spot had been retained; to him were added Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. The latter declining to serve, was replaced by Arthur Lee, who was still in London.

Immediately after setting foot in France, Franklin wrote to his cher, bon ami, the Doctor Dubourg, a letter full of warm expressions of friendship and of polite messages to Madame. He enclosed under the same cover a letter to Silas Deane, begging his dear friend to see to its speedy delivery. The letter to Deane informed him of his new appointment, and gave orders that Lee be summoned immediately to join them. He bore with him no letter from Congress, nor any message relating to the past services of Deane, news of which, in fact, had hardly reached the colonies at the time of the doctor’s embarkation.

Franklin had no personal interest in the work already accomplished, since his cher, bon ami had been set aside, as soon as Deane saw “where the confidence of the Government was placed.” From the first he had determined not to interfere in the quarrel that existed between Lee and Deane, and he steadily refused to enter into the merits of the zeal displayed by Beaumarchais under cover of Hortalès et Cie. Warned against him by so many of his friends, and having particular reasons for not showing marked favor to Deane (the suspicious jealousy of Lee’s character threatened from the start to thwart the entire object of the commission), he chose the course of ignoring all that already had been accomplished. For the moment Deane, himself, seemed alienated from Beaumarchais. Vexed at the delay in despatching the supplies (for he knew nothing of the counter-order issued by the Government), irritated by Lee, annoyed at the indifference of Franklin and dismayed by the silence of Congress, Deane in turn assumed an attitude of cold indifference which perplexed and disquieted his friend. The new duties which were forced upon him, the change in the character of his mission, occupied for the time all his thoughts.

As soon as the three commissioners were united in Paris, Franklin wrote asking for an audience with the minister of foreign affairs, M. de Vergennes. “Sir,” he wrote, “we beg leave to acquaint your Excellency that we are appointed and fully empowered by the Congress of the United States of America to propose and negotiate a treaty of amity and commerce between France and the said states.... (Doniol II, 112.)” The minister, however, really anxious to further the plans of Beaumarchais, was slow to give additional umbrage to the English Ambassador by receiving the three commissioners whose presence in Paris it was impossible to hide.

Already Franklin had taken up his quarters in Passy, where he held a little court of his own. Imbert de St. Amand, in his Les Beaux Jours de Marie Antoinette, has given a vivid picture of the impression made upon the inhabitants of Paris by the presence in their midst of the aged philosopher. “The idol of the day,” he says, “in that Paris, so capricious and so versatile, was Franklin—that peasant, that septuagenarian philosopher, that learned democrat, that man of the future—was acclaimed by the French aristocracy. The philanthropists, the apologists of perpetual peace, demanded war with loud cries. Louis XVI, notwithstanding his scruples of conscience, allowed himself to be won over. The apartments of Versailles filled themselves with solicitors of peril and of glory. All the young nobility wished to start at once. What transport! what madness! what valor in those paladin philosophers, those chivalrous democrats, having the double passion of glory and liberty, full of superb illusions, of generous follies, and so eloquent, so amiable, so brave! With what gaiety these quitted their pleasures, their châteaux, their theatres, to live the life of a soldier, to go to seek the other side of the Atlantic, perils and unknown dangers!”

All this excitement caused by the presence of Franklin did not tend to lessen the vigilance of the English, although from the first they had hope that if France could be prevented from aiding the Colonies, Franklin might in the end be obliged to enter into negotiations with England. It was precisely this fear which haunted the French Government and induced the King to revoke the counter-order issued to prevent the sailing of the ships of Hortalès et Cie. Happy at last in gaining permission to leave port, Beaumarchais thought only of despatching his retarded vessels, when he learned that the Amphitrite, the one ship that had set out before the arrival of the counter-order, was at Lorient, a seaport on the west coast of France, whither it had been brought by du Coudray “under the pretext that bad weather encountered in the channel had shown the defective condition of the vessel.” (Doniol II, p. 314.)

Beaumarchais, still deceived, wrote to Vergennes: “L’Amphitrite, after sixteen days of bad weather, has been obliged to return for a moment to take on fresh provisions, those on board having been saturated by the sea. This is what I have from M. du Coudray, who asks that it be kept secret, and who expects to depart in a few days.”