Part 17

The State of Virginia having sent for arms and artillery necessary for their defence, and some advances being absolutely necessary to obtain the supply, I ventured to advance fifty thousand livres out of the public funds in my hands. Had not this demand pressed so much, I certainly should not have done this without the permission of Congress. But as it is, and though I expect the reimbursement before the articles I have ordered for the public will call for payment, yet I think it my duty to communicate this transaction, and submit it to the censure of Congress. I expect a complete cargo is by this time shipped in my department, consisting of blankets, shoes, tentcloth, sailcloth, and rigging for a vessel of five hundred tons. This cargo, with what went before, should contain ten thousand blankets. I have ordered twenty thousand more, which, with half of the freight, I am obliged to advance for the above cargo, will more than employ all the funds in my hands.

I have the honor to be, &c.

ARTHUR LEE.

_P. S._ _November 18th, 1778._ Every hour’s intelligence confirms the opinion, that the enemy will not obtain any Russian auxiliaries.

TO JAMES GARDOQUI.

Paris, December 4th, 1778.

Dear Sir,

I wrote you on the 10th ult. and have not been favored with anything from you since. Upon a supposition, that I should have funds sufficient in my hands, I desired your house to collect 20,000 or 30,000 blankets, which I intended to pay for without troubling our friends with you. But I find the clothing, shoes and stockings, which I was obliged to send from hence, have consumed most part of the money remitted to me, so that I shall be unable to pay for those blankets. Yet they are an article most essential to our army both in winter and summer. I must therefore beg you to beseech our friends to extend their order to them, and have them shipped as fast as they are collected by your house, _on the old plan_.

In consequence of what passed when we were at Burgos and Vitoria, I wrote that our vessels would be received at the Havanna, as those of the most favored nation. It is desired to know whether, under this, the produce of the States may be carried thither for sale, and prizes sold there or in any other of his Catholic Majesty’s ports in America. I shall be much obliged to you to get me an explanation on this head, as we would wish to avoid giving embarrassment or offence, by extending the liberty further than is meant. The ports being open in this manner would be certainly beneficial to both, but I am no judge how far it would be consistent with the policy of your commercial regulations.

Count d’Estaing’s fleet was refitted, and ready to sail from Boston the 3d of November. His officers and sailors have behaved there with the greatest decorum, and rendered themselves exceedingly agreeable to the inhabitants. The fray, of which our enemies make so much, was entirely accidental, and owing to some privateersmen wanting to get biscuit for a cruise. The readiness of our enemies to hope, from every little incident, a dissolution of our foreign connexions, serves only to show how much they apprehend from a continuance of them.

There is no certain intelligence of the enemy’s fleet or army.

I have the honor to be, &c.

ARTHUR LEE.

TO THE COMMITTEE OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS.

Paris, December 5th, 1778.

Gentlemen,

I had the honor of writing you on the 14th of April, May the 9th, 20th, and 23d, June the 1st, 9th, 15th, and 17th, July the 6th, 16th, 20th, 28th, and 29th, August the 21st, and 31st, September the 9th and 30th, October the 5th and 19th, November the 4th, 18th and 20th, with various enclosures, among which were triplicates of Mr Williams’s accounts, and quadruplicates of the state of the Swiss militia.

From Lord Suffolk’s speech on the address, it appears, that they have adopted a dernier plan for conducting the war against you, which, I am informed, is to burn and destroy every thing they approach. The example of Colonel Butler is to be pursued on all the frontiers accessible to the Indians, to whom small bodies of regulars are to be joined. The fleet and armies are to lay waste the sea coast and its vicinities. Lord Suffolk is the mouth of the king of Great Britain, and his advisers, Lords Bute and Mansfield, and Mr Wedderburne. What he says may therefore be depended on as their resolution.

From the enclosed piece (copies of which have been sent from Holland) you will be able to judge of the nature and situation of the dispute in Holland. The friends to themselves and us are for augmenting their marine, the purchased advocates of England, and the dependants of the Stadtholder, are for increasing their army.

To make them and other neutral nations feel the necessity of supporting the privileges of their flags against the English, this Court has declared its determination to make prize of all goods belonging to the enemy, found in neutral ships, as long as the same is permitted to be done by the British cruisers, with regard to the effects of France in the same situation. This is such a blow to their interests as, it is imagined, must rouse the Dutch to vigorous exertions against Great Britain, in support of their privileges as common cruisers.

The Court of Spain has published its intention of admitting the sale of prizes, made by the French, and the entrance of all American vessels upon the footing of all other neutral nations.

The Empress of Russia has determined to take part with the King of Prussia in the German war, which the House of Austria seems resolved to support against their united forces. As Hanover, and the other German princes, are pledged to assist Prussia, our enemy can hardly expect any aid from thence. Though it is therefore impossible to conceive how they can maintain the war in their very exhausted state, and without one effectual ally, yet it is certain, that they mean to try another campaign.

I send you some charts of the Continent of America, and of the Islands, lately published, and reckoned extremely accurate, from which perhaps Congress may think proper to have others engraved for the use of the navy. They consist of three volumes folio, with a quarto volume of directions.

We are in daily expectation of the final pleasure of Congress, on the several important matters relating to our missions.

I have the honor to be, &c.

ARTHUR LEE.

TO COUNT DE FLORIDA BLANCA.[40]

Paris, December 17th, 1778.

Sir,

I have the honor of enclosing to your Excellency a true copy of a proclamation and manifesto lately issued in America by the British Commissioners. The plan of desolation and cruelty announced in it has been approved in Parliament, by one of his Britannic Majesty’s principal Secretaries of State, the Earl of Suffolk; and a majority in both Houses of Parliament have given their sanction to the manifesto itself by refusing to disclaim it. Upon these grounds it may justly be considered the act of the nation.

The intentions of Great Britain, derogatory at once of all the sacred rights of humanity, and of the honor of God, and of the established laws of civilized nations, are thus declared in the manifesto. “The policy as well as the benevolence of Great Britain have thus far checked the _extremes of war_, when they tended to distress a people still considered as our fellow subjects, and _to desolate_ a country shortly to become again a source of mutual advantage. But when that country professes the unnatural design, not only of estranging herself from us, but of mortgaging herself and her resources to our enemy, the whole contest is changed, and the question is how far Great Britain may, by every means in her power, destroy or render useless a connexion contrived for her ruin, and for the aggrandizement of France. Under such circumstances, the laws of self-preservation must direct the conduct of Great Britain; and if the British Colonies are to become an accession to France, will direct her to render that acquisition of as little avail as possible to her enemy.”

The pretext here alleged for carrying war to all extremities, which the laws of humanity and of nations forbid, and of _desolating_ merely for the purpose of desolation, is, that the country is to be monopolised by France. That this is merely a pretext is manifest from the treaty itself on which they ground it, in which it is declared, that the United States are at liberty to make the same treaty with all nations.

Your Excellency knows too, how unjust this imputation is in our most secret transactions. By one of those strange absurdities, into which men blinded by bad passions are often betrayed, they denounce this desolation against the people at large, who they in the same breath assert have not ratified the treaty. Thus, if we are to credit their own assertions, the ground of their rage is pretended, and the objects of it innocent.

It is therefore most clear, that the threatened cruelties are not out of policy, but out of revenge. And as nothing is more odious than this spirit, nothing more dangerous to all that is deemed dear and sacred among men, than an open avowal of such a principle, and an exercise of the barbarities which it suggests, such a conduct ought to arm all nations against a people, whose proceedings thus proclaim them to be _hostis humani generis_.

It is not that they can add to the cruelties they have already exercised; desolation and massacre have marked their steps wherever they could approach. The sending of those captives, whom they pretend now to be their fellow subjects, into perpetual slavery in Africa and India; the crowding of their captives into dungeons, where thousands perish by disease and famine; the compelling of others, by chains and stripes, to fight against their country and their relations; the burning of defenceless towns; and the exciting of the savages, by presents and bribes, to massacre defenceless frontier families, without distinction of age or sex, are extremities of cruelty already practised, and which they cannot exceed. But the recovery of what they called their rights, and the reduction of those who had renounced as they alleged a just supremacy, was then avowedly the object of the war. These cruelties were, it was pretended, incidental severities, and necessary to the attainment of a just object. But now destruction alone is the object. It is not profit to themselves, but injuries to others, which they are pursuing. Desolation for the pleasure of destroying is their only purpose. They will sacrifice to disappointed vengeance what their injustice lost, and their power cannot regain.

There cannot be a greater violation of those laws, which bind civilized nations together, which are the general property, and which distinguish their wars from those of savages and barbarians, than this manifesto. All civilized nations are called upon, as well by their own interests as those of humanity, to vindicate its violated laws. Your Excellency will therefore permit me to hope, that so daring and dangerous a procedure will call forth a declaration from the king of Spain, whose pre-eminent character among princes for piety, wisdom, and honor, will render him a fit avenger of the common cause of mankind. It is not America only, that is wronged by this savage proclamation, but the feelings of humanity, the dictates of religion, the laws of God, and of nations.

Your Excellency will also give me leave to request, that this representation may be laid before his Majesty, and enforced with such arguments as your Excellency’s greater knowledge, and the favor you have had the goodness to manifest for our just cause may suggest.

I have the honor to be your Excellency’s very humble servant,

ARTHUR LEE.

[40] This letter was forwarded to Count de Florida Blanca, through the agency of Count d’Aranda, Spanish Ambassador in France.

TO THE BARON DE SCHULENBURG.

Paris, December 25th, 1778.

Sir,

I had the honor of receiving your Excellency’s favor of the 1st. I am extremely sorry for having troubled you with a representation, which seems to have given offence, instead of obtaining redress. Neither the character of a merchant, nor that of all the merchants of Europe, can weigh against the evidence of one’s senses. I do assure your Excellency upon my honor, that the musket, which is the specimen of those sent for the best Prussian arms, and which have cost me five livres a piece more than the best arms in France, is one of the worst that I ever beheld. I have seen most of the troops in Europe, and I never saw such a musket in a soldier’s hand. It has this remarkable in it, that it is neither of the old nor the new model; but seems to have been a barrel spoiled in attempting to new model it, and this put into a stock of such wood, and of such fashion, that nothing can be imagined worse. There is no mark upon it of its having been examined. In short, a mistake between the new and the old model is out of the question.

But your Excellency will give me leave to observe, that if my demand was not explicit, it is a little surprising, that the house of Splittberger, in the correspondence that passed between them and Mr Grand, before the order was executed, did not ask an explanation, whether the old or the new model was meant. They knew, though we did not, that there were different kinds of arms of the Prussian make, and therefore that a mistake might happen. As to myself, I had seen the troops at Berlin, and the arsenal furnished with arms of the new model. I had conversed with sundry officers upon the preference due to arms of the Prussian make, and never found any one who by that term did not understand those of the new model. Not knowing, therefore, that there was any possibility of mistake, I did not conceive I could be more explicit. Upon the whole, instead of the best arms in Europe, which I promised, I sent the worst, if the rest are like the specimen sent me.

I hope your Excellency will pardon me for having given you the pain of reading one letter on this subject, and I should not have added a second, but that there was a sort of censure thrown upon me, which I most assuredly did not deserve. I should have thought myself censurable, if I had concealed from your Excellency a proceeding on the part of those gentlemen, which appeared so flagrant to me. You thought I was alone to blame, in which I cannot in any degree whatsoever concur.

I have the honor of enclosing to your Excellency a copy of a manifesto, which the avowedly savage intentions of our enemies have compelled Congress to make. The previous resolution will show your Excellency with what reluctance Congress has adopted retaliation. As long as it was possible to impute the barbarities committed, to the unauthorised malignity of individuals, they entreated forbearance. But when a solemn avowal on the part of his Britannic Majesty’s Commissioners, of their determination to exercise the extremes of war, and to desolate for the sole purpose of destroying, had deprived them of the apology they had too generously made for the actions of their enemies, their duty to the people, to humanity, to the nations, called from Congress this resolution of retaliation.

This conduct of our enemies will, like all their other follies and persecutions, knit more firmly our confederation. The inhuman purpose of massacre and desolation, upon a pretext of our being mortgaged to France, which the very treaty to which they allude expressly contradicts, has armed every heart and hand against them. It has confirmed the wavering, animated the timid, and exasperated the brave. The laws of nations are the Common property of all civilized people. Our liberties, which _were_ the object of the war, are secure; we are _now_ fighting the battles of humanity and of nations, against the avowed and bitter enemies of both.

I have the honor to be, with the greatest respect, your Excellency’s, &c.

ARTHUR LEE.

TO COUNT DE FLORIDA BLANCA.

Paris, December 27th, 1778.

Sir,

I have the honor of enclosing to your Excellency a manifesto from Congress, in answer to that of his Britannic Majesty’s Commissioners. You have also enclosed a copy of a former resolution of Congress on this subject, from which it will appear how earnestly they have shunned this shocking extremity. As long as it was possible to impute the barbarities committed to the unauthorised intemperance of individuals, Congress exhorted the suffering people to lenity and forbearance. But when they became acts of authority, avowed and ordered, Congress must not only stand justified before God and man, but would have been culpable in the eyes of both, had they longer withheld the order for retaliation. Permit me to hope, that your Excellency will represent these things to his Majesty, and that they will produce an immediate declaration, which is most likely to arrest the sanguinary progress of our enemy, and compel them to relinquish the devastation of our country for the defence of their own.

I have the honor to be, &c.

ARTHUR LEE.

TO COUNT DE VERGENNES.

Chaillot, January 3d, 1779.

Sir,

I have the honor to send to your Excellency the copy of a letter, which I received yesterday. It is from the same person as the other, which I had the honor of communicating to you through Mr Grand. It is fourteen months since the writer has been proposing a rendezvous with Mr Franklin and myself, for the purpose of arranging the conditions of an accommodation. This gentleman, who is named Berkenhout, has since that time been sent to America with the British Commissioners. He has been imprisoned in Philadelphia on suspicion of the object of his mission, and released for want of proofs. He has again, as you see, returned to his country, and to his endeavors to seduce, by offers of emoluments and _titles of honor_, which we call in our language, _honors_.

If your Excellency is of opinion, that it would be of any utility to endeavor to obtain proofs of authority for what he offers, I will answer him accordingly; if otherwise, I will not return him any answer. This is also the opinion of my colleagues.

I have the honor to be, &c.

ARTHUR LEE.

COUNT DE VERGENNES TO ARTHUR LEE.

Translation.

Versailles, January 4th, 1779.

Sir,

I did not find annexed to the letter you did me the honor of writing to me yesterday, the one from England, which you mentioned, and which you say is from Dr Berkenhout, who rendered himself suspected at Philadelphia. But without seeing this letter, I think, Sir, that after what has passed between Congress and the English Commissioners, it would be unbecoming the dignity of your commission to grant a rendezvous to agents, who did not bring the palm of sovereign independence in their hands. My opinion would be, therefore, that you should answer in plain terms to this agent, that unless he assures you of the most entire acknowledgment of your independence, and brings you propositions conformable to the fidelity, with which your nation and government glory in fulfilling their engagements, that you cannot consent to any interview with him, or with any other emissary. You and your colleagues both perceive, that these people wish to negotiate with you, not for the purpose of granting you suitable conditions, but to hold up an appearance that there is little agreement between you and us, by means of which illusion the purse of the English is drained.

I have the honor to be, &c.

DE VERGENNES.

TO COUNT DE VERGENNES.

Chaillot, January 8th, 1779.

Sir,

I have the honor to send to your Excellency the answer, which I should have written to Dr Berkenhout, had I sent one. I have studied the Court of London and its agents very much, and for a long time, and I conceive, that it is most for our interest to treat them with pride, if not with an appearance of contempt.

I have the honor to be, &c.

ARTHUR LEE.

_P. S._ My letters from England announce, that a fleet of one hundred and twenty sail, with provisions for the English Islands, is to sail from Cork in a short time, with an escort of two sail of the line and one frigate.

TO THE COMMITTEE OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS.

Paris, January 5th, 1779.

Gentlemen,

My despatches of April the 14th, May the 9th, 20th and 23d, June the 1st, 9th, 15th and 17th, July the 6th, 16th, 20th, 26th and 29th, August the 21st and 31st, September the 9th and 30th, October the 5th and 19th, November the 4th, 18th and 20th, and December the 5th, remain unanswered.

Nothing material has since happened in Europe. The late proceedings in Holland discover, that the English party have gained ground there. The truth is, that the English borrow their money and then bribe them with it; for it is so manifestly their interest to join against England, and their advantages from the trade of America, being free, are clearly so much greater than those of any other nation, that unless their rulers were blinded by some powerful application, it is impossible but that they should be active and earnest in promoting this revolution. The Court of France is acting with firmness and wisdom to restrain them by powerful motives of interest.

There does not at present seem any probability of an accommodation in Germany. The ordinary of the expense our enemy is to incur this year stands thus.

Exchequer bills to be paid off, £2,500,000 British troops, 3,640,000 Foreign do. 713,000 Navy, 4,589,000 Militia, 700,000 ----------- £12,142,000

To this add transport service and extraordinaries, which cannot be less than 5,000,000 ----------- £17,142,000

Troops. ------- They purpose having on the British establishment 82,744 Foreigners, 24,800 Augmentation to the British by new levies, 14,400 Militia, including fencible men, 39,701 American Tories, 6,000 Irish establishment, 14,685 ------- 181,685

Though they will never be able to realise this number, or near it, yet the expense will not therefore be diminished. With their taxes doubled, and such an enormous increase of expense while her commerce is so greatly abridged, it may easily be judged how long Great Britain can continue so ruinous a contest. Nothing seems more sure, than that she will not get even the stipulated number of recruits from Germany; much less has she any chance of an augmentation.

Yet all the advices concur in assuring us, that the Cabinet is determined on pushing the war in America, for which purpose they propose sending the following regiments; 1st and 2d battalions of Royals; 3d, 11th, 13th, 19th, 25th, 30th, 32d, 36th and 69th. The 18th, 66th and 67th from Ireland. These fourteen regiments may contain from five to six thousand men. One of my correspondents, in whom I have much reliance, thinks they will be sent to the West Indies, and not to the Continent. In truth, I believe they will wait till the operations of Count d’Estaing enable them to decide whether they can venture to send them to New York, or must necessarily re-enforce the troops in their islands in order to preserve them.