“Beaumarchais.”
Although no longer made use of as intermediary, the former agent of the government was not wholly abandoned by Vergennes.
A few days previously Beaumarchais had written:
“M. le Comte: I felt yesterday the sweet influences of your goodness. If I did not obtain what I asked for, at least I could judge by the gentle tone of the prohibitions that they were less directed against me than forced by events and promises already made. To lose much money is a great evil, when one has very little; but to carry in one’s heart the mortal sorrow of displeasing when one has done one’s best, and even the best that could be done, under the circumstances, is a state which kills me. Receive, M. le Comte the warmest testimony of my gratitude.”
On the 22nd of January, 1778, the discarded agent handed in the résumé required of him by the ministers. In writing to Vergennes he said: “This sorrowful Memorial (Mémoire Particulière, pour les ministres du Roi, et une manifeste pour l’Etat) which at another time, and on another subject, I could have finished in two hours, has taken me eight days to write, my head being so confused by the frightful medley of objects which it contains, and in regard to which I claim your justice while invoking your mercy.
“I even thought for four days that it had become useless through delay, and abandoned everything to work upon my consular balance-sheet. By a tour de force, I put myself on my feet for twelve or fifteen days;—But grand Dieu, is this to live? The more I assume a tranquil air, the more my secret torment increases. I have examined myself well, I have not done the least wrong, and in going over my papers to assure myself of my state, I have been frightened at all it has been necessary to overcome in the last two years, to arrive where I am. If I am to be aided, you cannot do it too quickly or too secretly for the letters of change are like death, they wait for no one.... If I am not to be, Amen—I have done what I ought, and more than what I could. I learn by sure news that my two vessels of Marseilles are certainly at Charlestown. This, in spite of France and England. Sixty-six cannons, twenty-two mortars, bombs and bullets in proportion; eighty thousand weight of sulphur and my poor guns which have not yet been paid for. All this is in America, by my indefatigable labor, and I have had to deceive all the world, with unbelievable pains, in order to make this shipment secretly. Ah, M. le Comte, it is my balance sheet which will show what an active man you have allowed to be lost and dishonored if you permit this fearful misfortune to accomplish itself. I have no courage to talk of England, because in truth I am dying of sorrow.”
GENERAL BARON VON STEUBEN
That the Comte de Vergennes did not lend an altogether deaf ear to this cry of despair, may be judged from the following letter, dated February 15, 1778,