man's zeal is not to be discouraged by such means, he determines to go and serve as a volunteer, if he cannot be employed immediately as an officer: but I wish and hope your excellency may find a better situation for him, and that he will be an useful officer. He has the advantage of understanding English, and will soon speak it intelligibly. He also speaks German and some other European languages, and the Latin. With the truest esteem and respect, I have the honor to be, &c. B. FRANKLIN. To the same. Paris, June 13, 1777. SIR, THE person who will have the honor of delivering this to your excellency, is Monsieur le baron de Frey, who is well recommended to me as an officer of experience and merit, with a request that I would give him a letter of introduction. I have acquainted him that you are rather overstocked with officers, and that his obtaining employment in your army is an uncertainty, but his zeal for the American cause is too great for any discouragements I can lay before him, and he goes over at his own expense, to take his chance, which is a mark of attachment that merits our regard. He will shew your excellency the commissions and proofs of his military service hitherto, and I beg leave to recommend him to your notice. SIR, With the sincerest esteem and respect, &c. B. FRANKLIN. To Richard Peters, Esq.* Passy, near Paris, September 12, 1777. THE bearer Monsieur Gerard is recommended to me by M. Dubourg, a gentleman of distinction here, and a * Mr. Peters now judge Peters, was secretary to the board of war. hearty friend to our cause. I enclose his letter that you may see the favorable manner in which he speaks of Mr. Gerard. I thereupon take the liberty of recommending the young gentleman to your civilities and advice, as he will be quite a stranger there, and to request that you would put him in the way of serving as a volunteer in our armies. I am, Sir, &c. B. FRANKLIN. TRANSLATION. M. Dubourg to Dr. Franklin. MY DEAR SIR, Paris, September 8, 1777. I SHOULD be much obliged to you if you would be so good as to give a letter of recommendation to some one of the chiefs of your army, in favor of a young man full of courage, and also of distinguished talents, who is at Bourdeaux, ready to embark for America, where he proposes to settle himself in Pennsylvania, after having served in quality of volunteer, or otherwise, during the war. His name is Gerard. He carries with him a little adventure, sufficient for supporting him some years, and afterwards, if it is there customary, his father will make over to him his portion. I interest myself particularly in his favor, because he is the brother-in-law of one of our honestest commissaries. I have the honor to wish you a good day, and to reiterate the assurances of my inviolable attachment. DUBOURG. SIR, James Lovell, Esq. Paris, December 21, 1777. I SEE in a vote of congress, shewn me by captain Franval, that Mr. Deane is disowned in some of his agreements B with officers. I who am upon the spot, and know the infinite difficulty of resisting the powerful solicitations here of great men, who, if disobliged, might have it in their power to obstruct the supplies he was then obtaining, do not wonder, that being then a stranger to the people, and unacquainted with the language, he was at first prevailed on to make some such agreements, when all were recommended, as they always are, as officiers experementés, braves comme leurs epeés, pleins de courage, de talents, et de zele pour notre cause, &c. in short, mere Cæsars, each of whom would be an invaluable acquisition to America. You can have no conception how we are still besieged and worried on this head, our time cut to pieces by personal applications, besides those contained in dozens of letters by every post, which are so generally refused, that scarce one in an hundred obtain from us a simple recommendation to civilities. I hope, therefore, that favourable allowance will be made to my worthy colleague, on account of his situation at the time, as he has long since corrected that mistake, and daily approves himself, to my certain knowlege, an able, faithful, active, and extremely useful servant of the public. A testimony I think it my duty to take this occasion of giving to his merit unasked, as, considering my great age, I may probably not live to give it personally in congress, and I perceive he has enemies. You will see the general news in the papers. In particular, I can only say at present that our affairs go well here, and that I am, with much respect, Sir, &c. B. FRANKLIN. SIR, Henry Laurens, Esq. President of Congress. Passy near Paris, March 13, 1778. MY colleague Mr. Deane being recalled by congress, and no reasons given that have yet appeared here, it is apprehended to be the effect of some misrepresentations from an enemy or two at Paris or Nantes. I have no doubt that he will be able clearly to justify himself; but having lived with him now fifteen months, the greatest part of the time in the same house, and being a constant witness of his public conduct, I cannot omit giving this testimony, though unasked, in his behalf, that I esteem him a faithful, active, and able minister, who, to my knowledge, has done in various ways, great and important services to his country, whose interests I wish may always, by every one in the employ, be as much and as effectually promoted. With my dutiful respects to the congress, I have the honor to be, Sir, &c. B. FRANKLIN. James Lovell, Esq. SIR, Passy, July 22, 1778. I received your favor of May 15, and was glad to find that mine of December 21, had come to hand. Mr. Deane's brother writes that it was not signed, which was an accidental omission. Mr. Deane himself is I hope with you long before this time, and I doubt not but every prejudice against him is removed. It was not alone upon the proceedings of congress I formed my opinion that such preju dices existed. I am glad to understand that opinion was groundless, and that he is like to come back with honor, in the commission to Holland, where matters are already so ripe for his operations, that he cannot fail (with his abilities) of being useful. You mention former letters of the committee, by which we might have seen the apprehensions of the resentment of foreign officers, &c. Those letters never came to hand, and we on our part are amazed to hear that the committee had had no line from us for near a year, during which we had written I believe five or six long and particular letters, and had made it a rule to send triplicates of each, and to replace those that we happened to hear were lost, so that of some there were five copies sent; and as I hear that captain Young is arrived, who had some of them, I think it probable that one at least of each must have come to your hands before this time. Mr. Deane's informations, however, may supply the want of them, whose arrival, as he went with a strong squadron of men of war, is more likely than that of this vessel, or any single one by whom we might send more copies. The affair with Mr. Beaumarchais will be best settled by his assistance after his return. We find it recommended to us, but we know too little of it to be able to do it well without him. There has been some inaccuracy in sending us the last dispatches of the committee, two copies of the contract with Mr. Francy and the invoices came by the same vessel, captain Niles. And though one of your letters mentions sending enclosed a resolution of congress, relative to two articles of the treaty, that resolution is not come to hand. There are circumstances in the affair of those articles, that make them in my opinion of no consequence if they stand, while the proposing to abrogate them has an unpleasing appearance, as it looks like a desire of having it in our power to make that commercial kind of war, which no honest state can begin, which no good friend or neighbor ever did or will begin, which has always been considered as an act of hostility that provoked as well as justified reprisals, and has generally produced such as have rendered the first project as unprofitable as it was unjust. Commerce among nations as well as between private persons should be fair and equitable, by equivalent exchanges, and mutual supplies; the taking unfair advantage of a neighbor's necessities, though attended with a temporary success always breeds ill blood; to lay duties on a commodity exported which our friends want, is a knavish attempt to get something for nothing.The statesman who first invented it, had the genius of a pickpocket, and would have been a pickpocket if fortune had suitably placed him; the nations who have practised it have suffered for it fourfold, as pickpockets ought to suffer. Savoy by a duty on exported wines lost the supplying of |