Beaumarchais and the War of American Independence Volume II Part 6

(Given by Gaillardet.)

Five days later; London, May 8, 1776.

... "I say then, the time approaches when the Americans will be masters at home.... If they have the upper hand, as everything seems to point to that end, will we not have infinitely to regret, Monsieur le Comte, not to have ceded to their prayers?

If, far from having acquired the right to their grat.i.tude, as we could easily do at small cost and without risk, we will have alienated them forever? As they will have conquered without us, they will revenge themselves for our hardness to them. What are two or three millions advanced without compromising ourselves?

Because I can engage my sacred faith to make any sum you wish reach them at second hand by way of Holland, without risk or other authorization than that which exists between us. A small effort will perhaps suffice, because I know that the Virginians have now an abundant manufacture of saltpeter, and that the Congress has decided that powder shall be made in every place instead of at Philadelphia as formerly. Beside this, Virginia has seven thousand regular troops, and seventy thousand militia, iron in abundance, and she makes almost as many arms as all the rest of America together.

"But engineers, engineers and powder! Or the money to buy them!"

(Gaillardet.)

Three days later, London, May 11, 1776.... "All the quarrels for the last eight days are in relation to the _quomodo_ of the evacuation of Boston. The opposition and the ministry are openly tearing out each other's eyes about it. The whole affair consists of the doctors deciding how the sick man died. Let them dispute over that great coffin. The couriers arrive at every moment.... To-morrow all the news of the American papers will be printed in the English ones. The whole affair begins to clear up. You were certainly very near me as you said, when I imagined you very very far." (Gaillardet.)

"London, May 17, 1776.

... Eight days ago a pack boat from Virginia sent by Lord Dunmore brought news to the government, but it was so bad that it was thought advisable to say that the chest containing the mail was washed overboard in a storm. Admirable ruse! Effort of superior genius! Yesterday another vessel arrived from Canada. A man jumped into a boat and the vessel pushed out again. That man hurried straight to London without stopping. No one can find out his errand. From these incidents comes the refrain; the news must be very black since it is kept such a mystery."

(Gaillardet.)

Thus ended the first phase of the activity of Beaumarchais in the cause of the Americans. In a few more days he was back in France ready to turn the force of his mind, the power of his intellect and all the energy of his being into the development of that vast mercantile establishment which was for a time to supply the colonies with munitions of war and other necessities.

As a proof that no one ever was able to pa.s.s from grave to gay with more facility than Beaumarchais, we will close the present chapter with a rather lengthy extract from an article which appeared in the London _Morning Chronicle_ shortly before his return to France:

From the _Morning Chronicle_, London, May 6, 1776.

"Monsieur, the Editor:

"I am a stranger, full of honor. If it is not to inform you absolutely who I am, it is at least to tell you in more than one sense who I am not.

"Day before yesterday, at the Pantheon, after the concert and during the dance, I found under my feet a lady's mantle of black taffeta, lined with the same and bordered with lace. I am ignorant to whom this mantle belongs, never having seen, even at the Pantheon, her who wore it and all my investigations since have not enabled me to learn anything in relation to her.

"I therefore beg you, M. the Editor, to announce in your paper this lost mantle so that it may be returned faithfully to whomever shall reclaim it.

"But that there may be no error in relation to it, I have the honor to announce to you that the person who lost it wore a pink plume that day in her hair; I think she had diamond pendants in her ears, but I am not so sure of that as of the rest. She is tall and well formed, her hair is a silvery blonde; her complexion dazzlingly white; her neck is fine and gracefully set; her form slender, and the prettiest little foot in the world. I have even remarked that she is very young. She is lively and distracted; her step is light and she has a decided taste for the dance.

"If you ask me, M. the Editor, why, having noted her so well, I did not at once return her mantle, I shall have the honor to repeat what I said to you before, that I have never seen this person; that I do not know either her features, or her eyes, or her costume, or her carriage, and do not know who she is, or what she is like.

"But if you insist upon knowing how I am able to so well define her, never having seen her, I in turn will be astonished that so exact an observer as you do not know that the simple examination of a lady's mantle is sufficient to give of her all the notions by which she could be recognized.

"Now suppose, Monsieur, that on examining this mantle, I found in the hood some stray hair of a beautiful blonde attached to the stuff, also some bits of down escaped from the feathers, you will admit that a great effort of genius would not be needed to conclude that the hair and the plume of that blonde must in every way resemble the samples which have detached themselves. You feel that perfectly. And since similar hair never grew from skin of uncertain whiteness, a.n.a.logy will have taught you as it has taught me, that this beautiful silvery hair must have a dazzling complexion, something which no observer can dispute with us without dishonoring his judgment.

"It is thus that a slightly worn spot in the taffeta on the two lateral parts of the interior of the hood which could not have come from anything but a repeated rubbing of two small hard bodies in movement, showed me that, not that she wore the pendants on that particular day, but that she does so ordinarily; and that it is hardly probable between you and me, that she would have neglected this adornment on a day of conquest or of grand a.s.sembly, both which are one. If I reason badly do not spare me, I beg you. Rigor is not injustice.

"The rest goes without saying. It can easily be seen that it was sufficient for me to examine the ribbon which was attached to the mantle at the neck, and to knot it at the place rumpled by the ordinary usage to see that the s.p.a.ce enclosed being small, the neck daily enclosed in that s.p.a.ce must also be very fine and graceful. No difficulty there.

"Suppose again, Monsieur, if on examining the body of the mantle you should have found upon the taffeta the impression of a very pretty little foot, marked in gray dust, would you not have reflected as I did, that had any other woman stepped on the mantle since its fall, she would certainly have deprived me of the pleasure of picking it up? Therefore it would have been impossible that the impression of the shoe came from any other person than her who lost the mantle. It follows, you would have said that if the shoe was small the foot must be smaller still.

There is no merit in my having recognized that; the most careless observer, a child would have found that out.

"But this impression made in pa.s.sing and even without being felt, announces, besides an extreme vivacity of step, a strong preoccupation of mind to which grave, cold, or aged persons are little susceptible. I therefore very simply concluded that my charming blond is in the flower of her age, very lively and distracted. Would you not have thought the same, M. the Editor?

"The next day in recalling that I had been able to pick up the mantle in a place where so many people pa.s.sed (which proves that it fell at the very instant) without having been able to see who lost it (which proves that she was already far away), I said to myself, 'a.s.suredly this person is the most alert beauty of England, Scotland and Ireland; and if I do not join America to the rest, it is only because they have become of late _diablement alerte_ in that country.'

"In giving you this mantle, M. the Editor, permit me to envelop myself in my own and that I sign myself,

"_L'Amateur francais._"

CHAPTER XVIII

_Look upon my house, gentlemen, from henceforward 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...._

_"Roderigue Hortales et Compagnie"

Beaumarchais to the Secret Committee of Congress, Aug. 15, 1776._

Memoir Explaining to the King the Plan of His Commercial House-Roderigue Hortales et Cie.-The Doctor Du Bourg-Silas Deane's Arrival-His Contract with Beaumarchais-Lee's Anger-His Misrepresentations to Congress-Beaumarchais Obtains His Rehabilitation.

On the 24th of May, 1776, Beaumarchais returned to France. He wrote to the Count de Vergennes the same night:

"Monsieur le Comte,

"I arrive very tired, completely exhausted. My first care is to ask you for your orders and the hour when you will be so good as to give me audience. It is three o'clock in the morning. My negro will be at your levee, he will be back for mine. I hope he will bring me the news which I desire with the greatest impatience, which is to go in person, and a.s.sure you of the very respectful devotion with which, I am,

M. le Comte, your very humble and very obedient servitor,

Beaumarchais." (Doniol.)

[Ill.u.s.tration: SILAS DEANE]

No written statement was ever made of the exact arrangement arrived at between the minister and his confidential agent. What is certain is that as soon as the latter understood the new plan of procedure he brought at once to the aid of the undertaking the whole force of his powerful mind as well as the experience of those years pa.s.sed under the tutelage of old Du Verney, and in his attempted enterprise at the court of Spain.

A letter without date, published for the first time by George Clinton Genet in the _Magazine of American History_, 1878, written by Beaumarchais to the King, gives a clear statement of how he proposed to proceed in founding this new mercantile house which should hide from all the world and even from the Americans themselves the connivance of the Government in the operations:

"To the King Alone:

"While state reasons engage you to extend a helping hand to the Americans, policy requires that Your Majesty shall take abundant precaution to prevent the secret succor sent to America from becoming a firebrand between France and England in Europe.... On the other hand, prudence wills that you acquire a certainty that your funds may never fall into other hands than those for whom you destined them. Finally, the present condition of your finances does not permit you to make so great sacrifice at the moment as pa.s.sing events seem to require.

"It becomes my duty, Sire, to present to you, and it is for your wisdom to examine the following plan, the chief object of which is to avoid, by a turn which is absolutely commercial, the suspicion that your majesty has any hand in the affair.

"The princ.i.p.al merit of this plan is to augment your aid so that a single million ... will produce the same results for the Americans as if your Majesty really had disbursed nine millions in their favor.... Your Majesty will begin by placing a million at the disposition of your agent, who will be named Roderigue Hortales et Cie.; this is their commercial name and signature, under which I find it convenient that the whole operation shall be carried out.... One half million exchanged into Portuguese pieces, the only money current in America, will be promptly sent there, for there is an immediate necessity for the Americans to have a little gold at once to give life to their paper money, which without means of making it circulate already has become useless and stagnant in their hands. It is the little leaven that is necessary to put into the paste to raise it and make it ferment usefully.

"Upon that half million no benefit can be obtained except the return of it in Virginian tobacco, which Congress must furnish to the house of Hortales, who will have made a sale in advance to the Farmers-General of France, by which they will take the tobacco from them at a good price; but that is of no great consequence.

"Roderigue Hortales counts on employing the second half million in the purchase of cannon and powder, which he will forward at once to the Americans."