Gentlemen,
I received the remarks of Mr Deane, dated the 12th of October, 1778, on my letter of the 1st of June, 1778.[42]
Mr Deane endeavors to mislead Congress from the real point of my information, which is, that from the papers he left, no satisfactory account could be obtained of the millions that had been expended, to that of the banker’s accounts, the fairness and validity of which, as far as they go, I never questioned.
The banker’s account proves what I said, that millions have been expended; but it does not prove what I wanted to be satisfied of, that the value of this expenditure has been received by the Agents of Congress in Europe. Neither their receipts nor the bills of lading appeared among the papers he left at Passy. Upon a scrap of paper Mr Deane had left notes, that such and such sums were paid in general for such and such purposes. This was a manner of accounting equally mercantile and satisfactory. It was not even so explicit as the summary of the banker’s account he has subjoined to the remarks I am answering. It never specified the quantity, and not often the quality, of what the sums were paid for. It was not accompanied with accounts and receipts from the persons, to whom the money was said to have been paid; nor the receipts of our agent, to whom the things must be supposed to have been delivered. It is manifest why the agent, Mr Williams, did not and will not to this moment give receipts, specifying the quantity and quality of what he received for the public use, because such receipts would make him responsible to the public for their contents; which now he is not.
This then is distinctly the subject of my complaint, that Mr Deane, who assumed to himself the management of those affairs, left them in such confusion, that neither was there any usual or satisfactory evidence of the thing said to have been delivered, nor were there any means left of knowing how to settle the accounts that remained unpaid, so as to do justice to the public. There were no books of accounts; nothing but a confused mass of motley refuse papers, without order, reference, or effect. I do not, nor ever did say, that Mr Deane has not these regular, responsible accounts and vouchers, but I said, and still say, he did not leave them with us. Perhaps they are among those he informs the public he had placed in safety; that is, in fitter hands than those of the Commissioners appointed by Congress.
Mr Deane informs us, that there are but two sides of an account; but he ought to know, that there also ought to be to every mercantile account, receipts, invoices, and bills of lading. Had he ever taken the pains to procure these and left them for our satisfaction, he would have saved himself much discredit, and me much trouble; the public would have been secured and satisfied.
Mr Deane lumps 244,285 livres, as had and expended in common by the Commissioners. But this is not the fact. I had nothing to do with what the other Commissioners received. What I took for my expenses I gave separate and distinct receipts for. By misstating what I say of my expenses, he would induce Congress to suppose, that I had half of that sum. This too is not a fact, as my receipts will show. When I said, that from my experience I judged a public minister could not live on less than three thousand a year, I did not mean that I had actually spent that sum; but that, as the expenses of a public Minister must be greater than those of a Commissioner, I could judge from my experience of the expense of the latter, what would be necessary for the former. I had not been a public Minister, and therefore could not speak from experience in that, or from any other judgment.[43]
I have the honor to be, &c.