I have the honor to be, with perfect attachment, Sir, your most obedient, humble servant,
Durival.
Letter from Mr. Durival to Mr. Grand.
Versailles, September 10, 1786.
I have laid before the Count de Vergennes, as you, Sir, seem to desire, the letter which you did me the honor to write yesterday. The Minister persists in the opinion that the receipt, the copy of which you request, has no relation to the business with which you are entrusted on behalf of Congress, and that this price would be useless in the new point of view in which you have placed it. Indeed, Sir, it is easy for you to prove that the money in question was not delivered by the Royal Treasury into your hands, as you did not begin to be charged with the business of Congress until January, 1777, and the receipt is of the date of the 10th of June, 1776.
I have the honor to be, with perfect attachment, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Durival.
Extract of a letter from Benjamin Franklin to Mr. Grand, banker at Paris, dated Philadelphia, July the 11th, 1786.
‘I send you enclosed some letters that have passed between the Secretary of Congress and me, respecting three millions of livres acknowledged to have been received before the treaty of 1778, as don gratuit, from the King, of which only two millions are found in your accounts; unless the million from the Fanners General be one of the three. I have been assured that all the money received from the King, whether as loan or gift, went through your hands; and as I always looked on the million we had of the Farmers General to be distinct from what we had of the crown, I wonder how I came to sign the contract acknowledging three millions of gift, when in reality there were only two, exclusive of that from the Farmers. And as both you and I examined the project of the contract before I signed it, I am surprised that neither of us took notice of the error. It is possible that the million furnished ostensibly by the Farmers, was in fact a gift of the crown, in which case, as Mr. Thomson observes, they owe us for the two ship-loads of tobacco they received on account of it. I must earnestly request of you to get this,matter explained, that it may stand clear before I die, lest some enemy should afterwards accuse me of having received a million not accounted for.’
Letter from Dr. Franklin to Charles Thomson.