William Durer,
Jean Baptiste Lazarus Theveneau de Francy.
Signed, sealed and delivered in the presence of
Charles Thomson,
Secretary of Congress.”
ROBERT MORRIS
Naturally enough, having obtained a contract of such precise stipulations, signed, not as formerly, by an agent three thousand miles from the seat of Congress, but by a committee chosen from the bosom of that body, de Francy thought the greatest difficulty of his mission already accomplished, and Beaumarchais, when he received the glad tidings, set about with renewed vigor, the gathering together and dispatching of supplies. The Americans, however, still found reasons for delaying the fulfillment of their part of the contract; and it was only after two more months of ceaseless activity that de Francy succeeded in getting enough tobacco to freight the Fier Roderigue for its return voyage. Which cargo, the second that had reached Beaumarchais, was destined when it arrived in France to be seized upon by Lee, as that of the Amphitrite had been, with the same results. In a letter to Beaumarchais, June, 1778, de Francy announced the order which he had received for the delivery of the tobacco, “The rest of the letter,” says Bigelow, “is filled with complaints of the bad faith of these republicans, who refuse him the vessels they had promised to carry off his tobacco, and urges Beaumarchais to send out at least six himself.”
A letter dated July 11th is filled with still more bitter complaints. “In spite of the most formal engagements,” he wrote, “these people find the means of obstructing all business, the pretext for breaking promises the most solemn.” In a word, he thinks it better to suspend business until “laws better established put a bridle upon the bad faith which reigns in the country.” A little later he wrote: “If this business were to be continued, which I do not advise unless you have special reasons, it would be one of the greatest commercial operations ever engaged in, if one could only rely upon the good faith of these republicans. But they have no principle and I desire sincerely to see all your accounts closed with them.