To summarize the exposition of that conscientious historian, Loménie: “Why,” he asks, “did the government insert this million in the list of those given directly to America? Was it simply a recapitulation of the accounts of the treasury made without thought of the inconvenience that might result for Beaumarchais; or did the government really intend Beaumarchais to render an account of it to the United States?... We have the right to affirm that the government never intended that he should be accountable for it to anyone but to the minister.
“By refusing constantly to name the person to whom the million had been given, the minister said implicitly; ‘I class this million with those given gratuitously because in effect it was given; but since it was not given to you, and as the man to whom it was given, engaged himself by his receipt to render an account of it to me, and not to you, that man cannot be accountable except to me. If I asked to have the million returned, you would then have the right to demand it of him who received it; but since I ask nothing, I am the one to decide whether that million, gratuitously given by me, shall profit you or the man to whom I gave it. It was given to aid in a secret operation very useful to you, but which, by your refusal to acquit and by losses which he has experienced in his commerce with you, seems to have been more harmful than fruitful to him.’” (See Loménie, Vol. II, p. 190.)
Of all this that was transpiring Beaumarchais knew nothing, nor could he obtain from Congress any explanation of their reason for totally ignoring their debt to him. At last his patience at an end, on the 12th of June, 1787, he wrote to the President of Congress as follows:
“A people become sovereign and powerful may be permitted, perhaps, to consider gratitude as a virtue of individuals which is beneath politics; but nothing can dispense a state from being just, and especially from paying its debts. I dare hope, Monsieur, that touched by the importance of the affair and by the force of my reasons, you will be good enough to honor me with an official report as to the decision of the honorable Congress either to arrange promptly to liquify my accounts, or else to choose arbiters in Europe to decide the points debated, those of insurance and commission as M. Barclay had the honor of proposing to you in 1785; or else write me candidly that the sovereign states of America, forgetting my past services, refuse me all justice: thus I shall adopt the method best suited to my interests which you have despised, to my honor which you have wounded, although without losing the profound respect with which I am of the General Congress and of you, Monsieur le President, the very humble, etc.
“Caron de Beaumarchais.”
It was at this juncture that Beaumarchais, stung by the reproaches of his own countrymen, made a ringing vindication of his acts in the cause of American independence, which will be given in the next chapter.
The reply which Congress made to the letter above quoted, was to appoint Arthur Lee to examine the accounts.
“The work was soon done,” says Loménie, “d’un tour de main. Arthur Lee pretended to discover that instead of 3,600,000 livres owing Beaumarchais, he not only had nothing to reclaim but on the other hand owed 1,800,000 francs to the United States!” The absurdity of this account could not fail to appear to Congress, and after four years more of protestations, in 1793 it confided a new examination of the debt to “that most distinguished American Statesman, Alexander Hamilton,” who established the sum owing Beaumarchais as 2,280,000 francs, but at the same time he proposed to suspend payment until the question of the lost million was settled.
In the meantime the Revolution was advancing upon France with awful strides. Already the royalistic government had fallen, that government whose greatest glory was its noble service to the cause of American independence.
When in 1794 Gouverneur Morris applied to Buchot, then minister of Foreign affairs for the new French government, there was no one left who knew or cared for the details that had prevented Vergennes from producing that famous receipt. At the demand of Congress, therefore, it was given to Morris.