Chapter 1

known, and may be judged of with certainty at this time, and the settlement of mine and the commissioners' accounts (which I have repeatedly solicited) will demonstrate what my commercial conduct has been. If, in the commercial, I have not acted with prudence and integrity, if I have neglected to supply these States with stores to the utmost of my power, and have either wasted or embezzled the public monies, the interest of the public requires that speedy justice be done, and the settlement of the commissioners' accounts will at once acquit or condemn me. If in my political department I have in any instance neglected or betrayed the interests of my country, if I have conducted weakly or wickedly, or both, the public ought to know it, and I ought to be punished. If, on the contrary, I sacrificed all private considerations, and put my life as well as fortune to the hazard, to procure relief and assistance for these States from abroad; if, unsupported by remittances from hence, without credit or friends, and a stranger to the language and manners of the country I was sent to negotiate in, I surmounted every obstacle, and in a few months obtained and sent out large supplies; if I was assiduous and indefatigable for the space of near two years in France, in the commercial as well as political affairs of these States, at times even to my personal danger; if, so far from having embezzled the public monies, I neglected my private fortune, and received nothing but my necessary expenses whilst transacting this business; if a principal share of the political negotiations fell on me, and if jointly with my colleagues I brought them to a happy and honorable issue, and individually acquired the confidence and esteem of His Most Christian Majesty and his ministers, as well as of the nation in general; and if, at my private solicitations (in part) after my recall, a strong fleet and armament were sent out to the relief of these States; if these are facts, which they certainly are, and the greater part of them long since fully ascertained, and the others ascertainable by the settlement of the commissioners' accounts, (which I have from the first requested) I flatter myself justice will be done by Congress, and that the artifices of interested and wicked men will not prevail to delay it, and thereby injure the public and their servant more essentially, than injustice itself would do.

I, therefore, with the sensibility of an innocent yet injured man, and with the firmness of a free independent citizen, ask for justice, fully confident that Congress will not refuse or delay it. I owe too much to those great personages, who generously patronized and protected me in Europe, to my countrymen and to myself, to suffer my character and conduct to remain longer under any uncertainty. When the