The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution Volume IX Part 27

WILLIAM CARMICHAEL TO C. W. F. DUMAS.

Havre, January 21st, 1777.

Dear Sir,

Were I to acknowledge the receipt of all the letters you mention having written, it would be necessary to apologise for my silence; this I fear would require a detail long enough to need still another apology, which would be making it a labor _ad infinitum_. I shall, therefore, only say, that from the heart of Germany, I am now on the borders of the Atlantic, and that I have been on the gallop ever since I parted with you at Leyden. No Saint in the calendar ever ran through countries with more zeal to gain inhabitants for heaven, than I have to do miracles on earth. But unfortunately it is not an age for miracles. I am at present here to botch up a piece of work, which was originally well imagined but badly executed.

You will no doubt have our Paris news from the prophet, who draws down fire from heaven. I shall, therefore, only give you my comment on the text, which is, that France has done too much and much too little. Too much, since she alarmed England, and made that country put itself in a better posture of defence than before; or at least, strengthened the hands of her Ministers for that purpose; much too little, because, depending even on that little, we looked not out elsewhere in time.

I am, &c.

WILLIAM CARMICHAEL.

ARTHUR LEE TO C. W. F. DUMAS.

Paris, January 26th, 1777.

Dear Sir,

My having quitted London some time since to join my colleagues here, is the reason you did not hear from me, as you complain in your last letter to Mr Deane. As I am soon to leave this place for one very remote,[26] I am afraid this will be the last letter I shall have the honor of writing to you.

There are so many and more immediate calls for the attention of the Congress, that we are not surprised at not receiving any intelligence from them. We learn too, from Havre, that despatches for us have been intercepted at sea, so that we remain totally uninformed by authority relative to the state of things in America. We hope the best, and if the powers of Europe are not so totally blind to their own interest as to refuse maintaining that freedom and enjoyment of our commerce, which our declaration of Independence offers them, their support will save us much distress and blood. The liberties, however, and redemption which we work out through labor and endurance will be more precious.

By accounts from London, the press for seamen produces little, though their merchant ships are stopped in their ports, and insurance from Jamaica, with convoy, is risen to twentyfive per cent. During the last war it never amounted to more than seven.

Our cruisers, therefore, appear to do their duty. Had we anything of a fleet to a.s.sist them, England would soon repent of a war, they have so unjustly engaged in, and from which they have not wisdom to retreat.

No nation seems more interested in opening our commerce, by abolishing the British monopoly, than the Dutch. The carrying trade by which they flourish must be greatly increased by the change. It would also very infallibly reduce that natural power and superiority at sea, which the English exercise with so much insolence, and the sinews of which are derived from America by their usurpation and tyranny; and yet, such is the pusillanimity of the times, the States are crouching to the English, and in effect aiding them in confirming that tyranny and those advantages. It is astonishing, that the smallest power in Europe should fear Great Britain, at a time when she is set at defiance by America alone, yet in its infancy, and laboring under so many disadvantages.

I wish you every happiness, &c.

ARTHUR LEE.

FOOTNOTES:

[26] A journey to Spain.

B. FRANKLIN TO C. W. F. DUMAS.

Paris, January 29th, 1777.

My dear friend may be a.s.sured, that the omission of writing to him for so long a time either by Mr Deane, or myself, was not in the least owing to any want of respect, or change of sentiment towards him, but merely from the extreme hurry we have been engaged in ever since my arrival, which has prevented our writing to many other of our correspondents. I now enclose several letters, one of which was written by me when in Philadelphia, and sent via Martinique; Mr Deane has but this day received it; another that I wrote soon after my arrival, which has been mislaid.

I hope you and yours are in good health, and good spirits, as we are, not doubting of the success of our affairs, with G.o.d's blessing. We have nothing to complain of here.

I have taken a lodging at Pa.s.sy, where I shall be in a few days, and hope there to find a little leisure, free from the perpetual interruption I suffer here, by the crowds continually coming in, some offering goods, others soliciting offices in our army, &c. I shall then be able to write you fully. Be of good cheer, and do not believe half what you read in the English gazettes.

With great esteem, I am ever,

B. FRANKLIN.

WILLIAM LEE TO C. W. F. DUMAS.

London, March 21st, 1777.

Sir,

Government here has received within these ten days past, several expresses from General Howe, at New York, in North America, as late as the 19th of last February, which are, in every respect, very disagreeable indeed. He writes in severe terms against General Heister, whom he calls _an old woman_ in the field, and a stupid and incorrigible blockhead in the cabinet; he also says, that the Hessians and other Germans are the worst troops under his command, and are not fit to be trusted in any business; he has, therefore, desired several particular English officers to be sent to command them; some of them that he has pointed out have refused to go on such a forlorn hope; but General Burgoyne, much against his will, is, it seems, obliged to go, and one Colonel Charles Gray, who was only a Lieutenant-Colonel upon half pay, has agreed to go, being appointed to a regiment, with the rank of a Major-General in America.

General Howe has with some difficulty and considerable loss got his troops back to New York, that had attempted to make good their situation at Brunswick, in the Jersies. He has recalled the greater part of those troops that had been sent to Rhode Island. At New York they were in the greatest distress for all kinds of fresh provisions and vegetables; at the same time, a fever, similar to the plague, prevailed there, that in all probability before the Spring will carry off to the Elysian shades, at least one half of the troops that remain there, and prepare an immediate grave for the Germans, and all the other troops that are about to be sent to that infected place. At the same time we learn that the American army under General Washington increases in numbers every day, and being accustomed to the climate, have kept the field in all the severe weather. Notwithstanding this melancholy prospect of affairs, our papers talk of a foreign war, but in my opinion we are in no condition to engage in one, for you may be a.s.sured, that we have not in the kingdom sailors enough to man fifteen ships of the line, though you may see thirty or forty ships put in commission, as the public prints will tell you. And as to soldiers, the draft for America has been so great, that we have not ten thousand in the whole island, yet our Ministers have lately attempted to bully the States of Holland by a high flying memorial relative to the conduct of some of their governors in the West Indies. It might, however, be attended with very serious consequences if the Hollanders were to take their money out of the English funds.

WILLIAM LEE.

_P. S._ If you please, insert the foregoing in the Dutch, Brussels, Francfort and Hamburg papers.

SILAS DEANE TO C. W. F. DUMAS.

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 disburs.e.m.e.nts 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 disburs.e.m.e.nts, and to a.s.sure 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 Abbe 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.