Paris, April 2d, 1777.
Sir,
Mr Carmichael, who has regularly corresponded with you, has given you the salutation from time to time for myself. I have really had no leisure for several months to write a single letter, but what the instant necessity of the time required, and am much obliged to you for the regular information we have through him from you. Enclosed I send you a bill for one thousand florins, which you will receive, and credit the Congress for the same. As you have said nothing, at any time, on the subject of your disbursements for the Congress, the Commissioners are ignorant of your situation in that respect, and have desired me to send you the enclosed bill, and to ask of you to favor them with the general state of your disbursements, and to assure you that they are too sensible of the services you are rendering their country, to wish you to remain without an adequate reward. We have no intelligence of any kind from America since the 1st of March last, and you have been informed of the situation of our affairs at that time.
I am, &c.
SILAS DEANE.
TO THE COMMITTEE OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS.
The Hague, April 12th, 1777.
Gentlemen,
The letter of the date of October 24th, 1776, with which you have honored me, did not arrive till the 4th of February of this year. Sensible, as I ought to be, Gentlemen, of the great honor you do me in charging me to continue with you the correspondence, which Dr Franklin commenced and maintained with me on the affairs of the United States, I am only able to repeat, what I have written to him and to the honorable Committee of Foreign Affairs, of which he was then a member, that I will ever impose on myself a sacred law to answer your confidence and expectation. You will have here annexed a copy of letters, which have been written to me by the French Ministers at the Hague, the Abbé Desnoyers and the Duc de la Vauguyon. You will easily conjecture the contents of those, which I wrote to them, and which are too long to recite here; moreover, a copy of the whole was not preserved.
As to what you add, Gentlemen, that my expenses and labors shall be reimbursed and compensated, I have the honor to say to you, that I should esteem myself the most happy of men, in being able to make without return all the advances and services of which you have need, to sustain this memorable war. The Supreme Being, who sees the depth of my heart, is witness to the truth of this sentiment in all its extent. But to my great regret, although without shame, I avow myself as poor in means as rich in good will. The draft remitted to me by Dr Franklin, of one hundred pounds sterling, on London, has been paid. On the other hand, since I received Dr Franklin's letter and the orders of the Committee, I have not hesitated to sacrifice to a commission so important, so honorable, and so agreeable to my principles and taste, not only a small running pension of sixty pounds, which a bookseller paid me for a part of my time, that was devoted to a work, an account of which I communicated to Dr Franklin some years since, but also about seventy pounds, which I have already received for part of the work delivered, without which, considering my other actual duties, it would have been impossible for me to have time to attend to the execution of these orders. If I add to this at least fifty pounds, that I have spent in postages, travelling charges, and other expenses, I find myself at this time seventy pounds at least in advance. But I should be very sorry, Gentlemen, that what I say here, should turn you an instant from the important duties requiring your constant attention. For the same reason, I have been unwilling to interrupt with these details the occupations of our gentlemen at Paris. If (which God forbid) America have not the success which my heart desires, her misfortunes will afflict me infinitely more than my loss. But if, on the contrary, I shall have the satisfaction to see liberty established and her prosperity secured, I doubt not she will render me an ample indemnity and reward.