sums of money"
which had been expended, at the further great sums which were still to
be paid, and at the lack of any proper books of accounts, so that he
could not learn "what the United States have received as an equivalent."
He did not in direct words charge the other commissioners with culpable
negligence; but it was an unavoidable inference from what he did say.
Undoubtedly the fact was that the accounts were disgracefully muddled
and insufficient; but the fault really lay with Congress, which had
never permitted proper clerical assistance to be employed. Adams soon
found this out, and appreciated that besides all the diplomatic affairs,
which were their only proper concern, the commissioners were also
transacting an enormous business, financial and commercial, involving
innumerable payments great and small, loans, purchases, and
correspondence, and that all was being conducted with scarcely any aid
of clerks or accountants; whereas a mercantile firm engaged in affairs
of like extent and moment would have had an extensive establishment with
a numerous force of skilled employees. When Adams had been a little
longer in Paris, he also began to see where and how "the prodigious
sums" went,[64] and just what was the full scope of the functions of the
commissioners; then the censoriousness evaporated out of his language.
He admitted that the neglects of subordinate agents were such that it
was impossible for the commissioners to learn the true state of their
finances; and he joined in the demand, so often reiterated by Franklin,
for the establishment of the usual and proper commercial agencies. The
business of accepting and keeping the run of the bills drawn by
Congress, and of teasing the French government for money to meet them at
maturity, would still remain to be attended to by the ministers in
person; but these things long experience might enable them to manage.

[Note 64: _Diplomatic Corresp. of Amer. Rev_. iv. 249, 251.]

No sooner had Adams scented the first whiff of the quarrel-laden
atmosphere of the embassy than he expressed in his usual self-satisfied,
impetuous, and defiant way his purpose to be rigidly impartial. But he
was a natural fault-finder, and by no means a natural peacemaker; and
his impartiality had no effect in assuaging the animosities which he
found. However, amid all the discords of the embassy there was one note
of harmony; and the bewildered Congress must have felt much satisfaction
in fin