Secretary of State, and of my venerable colleague,
revered through Europe as the first of patriots, as well as
philosophers, whom this age has produced. I find but two charges which
respect me personally; the first is, the exercising such a degree of
hauteur and presumption as to give offence to every gentleman with
whom I transacted business. I transacted none with Mr Izard, and
therefore must appeal from his opinion to the business I transacted,
and the worthy and honorable persons with whom I transacted it, and
who, from the first of my acquaintance with them to my leaving the
kingdom, honored me with their friendship and their confidence. I
desire it may be remembered, that, when I went abroad, charged with
the transaction of political and commercial business for Congress, in
the year 1776, I arrived at Paris as late in the season as the month
of July, without funds, uncertain of remittances, without credit,
ignorant of the language and manners of France, and an utter stranger
to the persons in power and influence at Court; that I had not the
patronage of any person of importance, and had no correspondence or
connexions established in any part of Europe. The news of our
misfortunes in Canada arrived in France with me, and that of our
subsequent misfortunes immediately after, and was, as usual,
exaggerated by the British Ambassador and his emissaries. In a word,
without remittances, or even intelligence from Congress, and under all
these disagreeable circumstances, I had to oppose the artifice, the
influence, and the power of Great Britain; yet I have the pleasing
reflection that before the first of December following, I procured
thirty thousand stand of arms, thirty thousand suits of clothes, more
than two hundred and fifty pieces of brass artillery, tents, and other
stores to a large amount, provided the ships to transport them, and
shipped a great part of them for America. Many of these supplies
fortunately arrived at the commencement of the last year's operations,
and enabled my brave countrymen, in some parts of America, to make a
good stand against the enemy, and in the north to acquire immortal
renown by the defeat and surrender of General Burgoyne and his whole
army, an event peculiarly fortunate in its consequences, as it
accelerated the completion of that alliance, to which the honorable
Congress, with every true friend to the United States, have given
their approbation. During this short period I had establ