Beaumarchais and the War of American Independence Volume II Part 8

Silas Deane replied:

"Paris, Hotel Grand-Villars, July 20, 1776.

"Monsieur:

"Conformably with your demand in our interview yesterday, I enclose a copy of my commission and an extract of my instructions, which will give you the cert.i.tude that I am authorized to make the acquisitions for which I addressed myself to you....

"In regard to the credit which we demand and which I hope to obtain from you, I hope that a long one will not be necessary. A year is the most that my compatriots are in the habit of asking; and Congress having engaged a great quant.i.ty of tobacco in Virginia and Maryland which will be embarked as soon as s.h.i.+ps can be procured, I do not doubt but considerable returns in nature will be made within six months, and the whole be paid for within the year. I shall press Congress for this in my letters.

Nevertheless, events are uncertain, and our commerce is exposed to suffer; but I hope that whatever comes you will soon receive sufficient returns to be enabled to wait for the rest. In case that any sum whatever remains due after the expiration of the accepted credit, it is of course understood that the usual interest will be paid you for the sum.

"I am with all the respect and attachment possible, your, etc.

"Silas Deane."

In his reply to this letter Beaumarchais after accepting the conditions offered by the agent of Congress ends thus:

"As I believe I have to do with a virtuous people, it will suffice for me to keep an exact account of all my advances.

Congress will be master to decide whether I shall be paid in merchandise at their usual value at the time of their arrival or to receive them at the buying price, the delays and a.s.surances with a commission proportional to the pains and care, which is impossible to fix to-day. I intend to serve your country as though it were my own, and I hope to find in the friends.h.i.+p of a generous people the true recompense for my work which I consecrate to them with pleasure."

In a lengthy letter written the 24th of July, 1776, the agent of Congress set forth the difficulties of the enterprise in which they are engaged.

He manifested also with warmth his grateful recognition of the services of Beaumarchais. He wrote to him:

"Paris, July 24th, 1776.

"Monsieur:

"I have read with attention the letter which you have done me the favor to write the 22nd, and I think that your propositions for the regulation of the price of merchandise are just and equitable. The generous confidence which you place in the virtue and justice of my const.i.tuents inspires me with the greatest joy and gives me the most flattering hopes for the success of this enterprise, for their satisfaction as well as yours, and permit me to a.s.sure you again that the United Colonies will take the most effective measures to send you returns, and to justify in all respects the sentiments which animate you toward them.

"Silas Deane."

Nothing could be clearer and more explicit than the understanding arrived at between Beaumarchais and Deane. The latter possessed full power to act, and the former relied unreservedly upon the good faith of the American Congress. In the meantime Deane wrote, introducing his new friend to the Committee of Secret Correspondence.

"Paris, August 18, 1776.

" ... I was directed to apply for arms, etc., for 25,000 men....

This I wished to get of the ministry direct, but they evaded it and I am now in treaty for procuring them through the Agency of M. Chaumont and M. Beaumarchais, on credit of eight months, from the time of their delivery. If I effect this as I undoubtedly shall, I must rely on the remittance being made this fall and winter, without fail, or the credit of the colonies will suffer...." (Spark's _Diplomatic Correspondence_, V. I, p. 28.)

Three days earlier he had written, "I find M. de Beaumarchais possessed of the entire confidence of the ministry; he is a man of wit and genius, and a considerable writer on comic and political subjects. All my supplies come through his hands, which at first greatly discouraged my friends...."

At the same time Beaumarchais, inflamed with zeal for the cause of liberty, and wholly unconscious of the effect which his sincere but fantastic letters would have upon the unexpansive nature of the men to whom they were addressed, wrote the following to Congress:

"Paris, August 18, 1776.

"Gentlemen:

"The respectful esteem which I bear towards that brave people who so well defend their liberty under your conduct has induced me to form a plan concurring in this great work by establis.h.i.+ng an extensive commercial house ... to supply you with necessaries of every sort that can be useful for the honorable war in which you are engaged. Your deputies, gentlemen, will find in me a sure friend, an asylum in my home, money in my coffers, and every means of facilitating their operations whether of an open, or of a secret nature. I will, so far as possible, remove all obstacles that may oppose your wishes, from the politics of Europe.... The secrecy necessary in some parts of the operations which I have undertaken for your service, requires also on your part a formal resolution that all vessels and their demands should be directed constantly to our house alone, in order that there may be no idle chatting or loss of time, two things that are the ruin of affairs....

" ... I shall facilitate your unloading, selling, or disposing of that which I do not wish.... For instance, five American vessels have just arrived in the port of Bordeaux laden with salt fish; though this merchandise coming from strangers is prohibited in our ports, yet as soon as your deputy had told me that these vessels were sent to him by you to raise money by the sale for aiding him in his purchases in Europe, I took such care that I secretly obtained from the government an order for the landing without notice being taken....

"I shall have a correspondent in each seaport town, who on the arrival of your vessels shall wait on the captain and offer every service in his power.... Everything which you wish to arrive safely in any country in Europe ... shall go with great punctuality through me, and this will save much anxiety and many delays. I request you, gentlemen, to send me next spring, if it is possible, ten or twelve thousand hogsheads or more if you can of tobacco of the best quality from Virginia.

"You will understand well that my commerce with you is carried on in Europe; that it is in the great ports of Europe that I make and take returns. However well founded my house may be and though I have appropriated many millions to your trade alone, yet it would be impossible for me to support it, if all the dangers of the sea, of exports and imports were not entirely at your risks....

"Your deputy shall receive as soon as possible full power and authority to accept what I shall deliver to him, to receive my accounts, examine them, make payments upon them or enter into engagements which you shall be bound to ratify as the head of the brave people to whom I am devoted. In short, you may always treat of your interests directly with me.

"Notwithstanding the open opposition which the King of France and his ministers show, and ought to show, to the violation of foreign treaties ... I dare promise you, gentlemen, that my indefatigable zeal shall never be wanting to clear up all difficulties, soften prohibitions, and, in short, facilitate all operations of commerce....

"One thing can never diminish; it is the avowed and ardent zeal which I have in serving you to the utmost of my power....

"Look upon my house, then, gentlemen, henceforth, as the chief of all useful operations to you in Europe and my person as one of the most zealous partisans of your cause, the soul of your success, and a man most deeply impressed with the respectful esteem with which I have the honor to be, etc.

"Roderigue Hortales et Cie."

"It must be admitted," says Lomenie, "that the letters of Beaumarchais were curious enough by their medley of patriotism and commercialism, both equally sincere with him, to inspire distrust in the minds already prejudiced. Imagine serious Yankees, who nearly all before having made war had been merchants, receiving ma.s.ses of stuff, embarked often in secret, during the night, and whose bills presented in consequence certain irregularities, accompanied with letters in which Beaumarchais a.s.sociated protestations of enthusiasm, offers of limitless services, political counsels and demands for tobacco, indigo, and salt fish.

"The calculating minds of the Yankees were naturally inclined to think that a being so ardent and fantastic, if he really existed, was playing a commercial comedy concurred in by the government and that one might with all security of conscience utilize his remittances, read his amplifications, and dispense with sending him tobacco," which, as we shall soon see, was exactly what happened.

Infinite difficulties and complications, however, were to arise before even the first s.h.i.+pments could leave the ports of France, and in August the cargoes were not yet collected.

The sixteenth of August Beaumarchais wrote to Vergennes:

"It is decided that all vessels coming from America shall be addressed to the house of Hortales.... So many things must be carried on together without counting the manufacture of cloth and linen, that I am forced to take on more workers. This affair _politico-commercante_ is becoming so immense that I shall drown myself in details as well as the few aids which I have employed up to the present time, if I do not add more. Some will travel, some reside in the seaports, the manufactories, etc.

"I have promised tobacco to the Farmers-General, and I ask it of the Americans. Their hemp will be a good commodity. At last I begin to see the way clear for my business. The only thing which I do not see are those fatal letters-patent of which I have neither wind nor news.... M. de Maurepas tells me every time he sees me, 'It is attended to, it is finished.' ... I should have had them Tuesday. Here it is Friday, but the letters have not come. At the end of the session of parliament this delay of three days makes me lose three months, because of vacation. I am not angry but distressed to see my condition so equivocal and my future uncertain." (Doniol, V. I, p. 513-14.)

As shown in the above letter, Beaumarchais while beginning his extraordinary operations for the Americans was not forgetful of his own interests. He was still a civilly degraded man with no solid basis upon which to build. Gudin, in his history of Beaumarchais, says: "Arriving from London, May, 1776, he presented a pet.i.tion to the council in order to obtain letters of relief; that is, letters of the king by which it was permitted him to appeal from the judgment rendered against him, although the delay accorded by law had long expired.

"The development of his projects called him to the west coast of France; he did not wish to go until his request was admitted.

"'Go all the same,' M. de Maurepas said to him. 'The council will p.r.o.nounce very well without you.'"

The projects alluded to by Gudin were, of course, his mercantile operations for supplying the Americans with munitions of war. But so well did Beaumarchais guard his secret, that his dearest friend knew as little of the real nature of his enterprise as the rest of the world. In his visit to the ports of France during the summer of 1776, Gudin accompanied him. Their reception at Bordeaux is described by the latter.

Here as elsewhere, Beaumarchais hid his real occupation under the show of seeking amus.e.m.e.nt.

"When it was known," says Gudin, "of our arrival, invitations poured in upon us from every side; the women received him as the most amiable of men, the merchants as the most intelligent, the crowds as the most extraordinary; we pa.s.sed several days in the midst of festivities....

All the while Beaumarchais was preparing new commercial combinations.

"One evening, on entering, he found several letters from Paris; he read them while I was preparing for bed, hurried by fatigue to repose myself.

I asked him if he was satisfied with his news.

"'Very well,' he said to me without the least emotion. I was soon asleep. In the morning I felt myself pulled by the arm; I wakened, recognized him and asked if he were ill.

"'No,' he replied, 'but in half an hour we leave for Paris.'

"'_Eh, pourquoi?_ What has happened? Have you been sent for?'