[ [40] This letter was forwarded to Count de Florida Blanca, through the agency of Count d’Aranda, Spanish Ambassador in France.
[ [41] When Mr Deane’s address reached Paris, Mr Lee ascertained that it was intended to be published in the Courier de l’Europe, and he wrote to Count de Vergennes requesting him to order it to be suppressed. The following answer was returned.
Versailles, February 9th, 1779.
Sir,
I received the letter, which you did me the honor of writing to me the 7th instant. I had no knowledge of the writing it mentioned, and yesterday I was about taking measures that it should not be inserted in the Courier de l’Europe, just as that paper was sent to me, wherein I found the writing in question, so that it was out of my power to second your wishes. Do not doubt, Sir, of the regret I experience on account of this disappointment.
I have the honor to be, &c.
DE VERGENNES.
[ [42] See Silas Deane’s Correspondence, Vol. I. p. 139, 148.
[ [43] Mr Lee wrote a very long letter to the President of Congress, dated February 10th, vindicating himself against statements of Silas Deane. This letter, somewhat altered, was published under the title of “Extracts from a Letter written to the President of Congress, by the Honorable Arthur Lee, in Answer to a Libel published in the Pennsylvania Gazette, of the 5th of December, 1778, by Silas Deane; in which every Charge or Insinuation against him in that Libel is fully and clearly refuted. Philadelphia, 1780.”
[ [44] In a letter to Mr Lovell, one of the Committee of Foreign Affairs, dated June 2d, 1779, Dr Franklin writes as follows.