SECRET CORRESPONDENCE.

Paris, 12th March, 1777.

Gentlemen,

It is now more than four months since Mr Franklin's departure from
Philadelphia, and not a line from thence written since that time has
hitherto reached either of your commissioners in Europe. We have had
no information of what passes in America but through England, and the
advices are, for the most part, such only as the ministry choose to
publish. Our total ignorance of the truth or falsehood of facts, when
questions are asked of us concerning them, makes us appear small in
the eyes of the people here, and is prejudicial to our negotiations.

In ours of the 6th of February, of which a copy is enclosed, we
acquainted you that we were about purchasing some cutters to be
employed as packet boats. We have succeeded in getting one from Dover,
in which we purpose to send our present despatches. Mr Hodge, who went
to Dunkirk and Flushing, where he thought another might be easily
found, has not yet acquainted us with his success. We promised that
when we had a conveyance, which, by its swiftness, is more likely to
carry safely our letters, we would be more explicit in accounts of our
proceedings here, which promise we shall now fulfil as follows.

In our first conversation with the minister, after the arrival of Mr
Franklin, it was evident that this Court, while it treated us
privately with all civility, was cautious of giving umbrage to
England, and was therefore desirous of avoiding an open reception and
acknowledgment of us, or entering into any formal negotiation with us,
as ministers from the Congress. To make us easy, however, we were told
that the ports of France were open to our ships as friends, that our
people might freely purchase and export, as merchandise, whatever our
States had occasion for; vending, at the same time, our own
commodities; that in doing this, we should experience all the
facilities that a government disposed to favor us could, consistent
with treaties, afford to the enemies of a friend. But though it was at
that time no secret that two hundred field pieces of brass, and thirty
thousand fusils, with other munitions of war, in great abundance, had
been taken out of the king's magazines, for the purpose of exportation
to America; the minister, in our presence, affected to know nothing of
that operation, and claimed no merit to his Court on that account. But
he intimated to us that it