d I saw
that M. Dubourg was so far from sounding the views of his superior in
this manoeuvre, that he was, with the best intentions in the world, in
danger of counteracting his own wishes, the extent of which were, to
obtain the supplies of merchants and manufacturers on the credit of
the Colonies, in which the strictest punctuality and most scrupulous
exactness would be necessary, and which under the present difficulties
of remittance, I feared would not be lived up to.

As I had learned, that in the late reform of the French army, they had
shifted their arms for those of a lighter kind, the heavy ones, most
of which were the same as new, to the amount of seventy or eighty
thousands, lay useless in magazines, with other military stores, in
some such proportion, I apprehended it no way impossible to come at a
supply from hence, through the agency of some merchant, without the
ministry being concerned in the matter. In such case the merchant
would be accountable to the ministry, and the Colonies to the
merchant, by which means a greater time of payment might be given, and
more allowance in case of our being disappointed. With this in view I
went to Versailles on Wednesday, the 17th, and waited on M. Gerard,
first secretary of foreign affairs, and presented to him the enclosed
memorial,[2] which led to a very particular conversation on the
affairs of America, and which I turned finally on this subject, to
which he would not then give me any immediate answer, but promised me
one in a day or two. Returning to town, I found Messrs Dubourg and
Beaumarchais had a misunderstanding, the latter giving out that he
could effect every thing we wished for, and the former, from the known
circumstances of M. Beaumarchais, and his known carelessness in money
matters, suspecting he could procure nothing, and the more so as he
promised so largely. They parted much displeased with each other, and
Mons. Beaumarchais went directly to Versailles. On M. Dubourg's coming
and informing me what had passed, I immediately wrote to M. Gerard the
enclosed letter,[3] and in return was desired to come with M. Dubourg
the next morning to Versailles.

We went as desired, and after explaining many things to M. Gerard, had
a conference with his excellency, from whom I had fresh assurances of
the utmost freedom and protection in their ports and on their coasts;
that in one word, I might rely on whatever Mons. Beaumarchais should
engage in the commercial w