Volume 4, Chapter 23, Getting Aid from France
To open the ports of America to trade for munitions and with the West Indies, the Americans were required to take a step toward independence almost as momentous as throwing open the ports in defiance of the Navigation Acts.
They had to negotiate as a separate country with the European countries supplying the munitions, especially with the major supplier, France.
As early as July 1775, the Continental Congress began its first diplomatic efforts by sidestepping the British government and speaking directly to their fellow subjects.
An address stating its wish for equal liberty was sent to the city of London.
Appeals to the people of Canada and Jamaica to join in the colonial cause
and a particularly noteworthy address sent to the people of Ireland
were the first attempts to export the revolution overseas.
Congress noted the grievances of the Irish under British rule
and suggested that both peoples should engage in a common struggle for liberty, albeit within the framework of the British Empire.
The subservient Irish Parliament, however, merrily moved to endorse the British War of Suppression against the colonies.
At the same time, Congress was moving toward liberty and independence, however, it was taking some steps at home toward oligarchic rule.
Of necessity, it had already begun to function through various standing committees to discharge its vital responsibilities for the war effort.
Generally, these functioned under the strict control of Congress itself and were always open to its guidance and supervision.
But in late 1775, Congress created two secret committees, and as their name implies, they
acted in secret and on their own initiative, without checking with Congress.
Instead, Congress only had the power, largely unexercised, to ask for their records at its
discretion.
A great deal of working power was thereby put into the hands of a few men who dealt
for the more in the particularly sensitive area of foreign affairs.
On September 18, Congress created the Nine Man Secret Committee to handle the deals with
foreign countries for munitions.
On November 29, it created the Five, later Six, Man Committee of Secret Correspondence
to correspond with our friends abroad.
An omen for the future was the highly conservative complexion of the Committee of Secret Correspondence
consisting of John Jay, John Dickinson, Benjamin Harrison and Thomas Johnson, who were arch-conservatives,
and Benjamin Franklin, a thorough-going opportunist with highly conservative instincts.
The establishment of this committee came as a response to the prodding by John Adams,
Patrick Henry and Samuel Chase of Maryland to open full diplomatic relations with France.
Soon the two secret committees were able to work very closely and cozily together.
This close working relationship was embodied in the person of the young Philadelphia merchant
Robert Morris, destined to become the great Mephistophelian figure of the revolutionary
era.
At the turn of the year, he became a member of both committees.
He virtually ran the Committee of Secret Correspondence himself throughout 1776 and quickly became
the leading figure in the secret committee.
He was, in fact, to serve as the second chairman of the latter committee, succeeding his friend
and Partner, Thomas Willing, of the firm of Willing and Morris. Thus catapulted to the
very seat of power in the American colonies, the highly conservative Morris was able to
make himself the center of a veritable plunder bond, which unabashedly and systematically
looted the public purse for their private profit.
One of the first deeds of the Secret Committee was to substitute for regular market purchases
A system of contracting, the ancestor of modern cost-plus government contracts. Under this
system some favored firms were selected by the government to purchase or to produce certain
goods which the government pledges to buy at a rate that will give the merchants a guaranteed
margin of profit, a lucrative special privilege eagerly fought for by businessmen then and
The Secret Committee established a handsome rate of profit on such mercantile purchases
and often advanced the merchants the initial capital to buy the supplies.
Moreover, Congress had thoughtfully allowed only merchants specifically to purchase supplies
abroad and, as we have seen, this condition obtained until April 1776.
This authorization came from the secret committee, and it was soon clear enough that control
of this committee was the open sesame to special privilege and high guaranteed fortunes to
be made out of the revolutionary effort. Control of the committee Morris and Willing had, and
they lost no time in exploiting their position. One of the very first acts of the committee
was to grant heavy contracts to the firm of Willing and Morris. These commission contracts
were not the only form of subsidy the company enjoyed. The committee now quickly granted
it a startling contract for supplying gunpowder, guaranteeing a high flat price of $14 a barrel,
whether or not the powder reached American stores safely. This assured Willing and Morris
A clear profit of $60,000 without even a fleeting risk of loss. Other members of the Secret
Committee also came in for their share of the loot. John Langdon of New Hampshire provided
contracts to his own firm. Philip J. Livingston routed contracts to Livingston and Turnbull
of New York. Silas Dean of Connecticut furnished commissions to his brother Barnabas. But heading
and the associates in plunder were Willing and Morris.
All in all, the secret committee paid out over $2 million in war contracts from 1775
to 1777, and of these nearly $500,000 or one-fourth of all disbursements went directly to the
firm of Willing and Morris.
Morris also directly shared with fellow members of the committee the largesse of nearly $300,000
$1,000 in other contracts. Morris and Willing soon established a far-flung network of agents
and followers, including leading merchants Benjamin Harrison, a member of the Committee
of Secret Correspondence, and Carter Braxton, both of whom consequently received handsome
contracts from the Secret Committee. Two particularly important Committee agents were soon to double
People as Congressional Envoys to the French, William Bingham of Philadelphia and Silas
Dean of Westfield, Connecticut. Dean was a prototype of the young lawyer with a keen
eye to the main chance. He had launched his career by marrying the widow of a wealthy
merchant, then capped that by divorcing her and marrying a member of the powerful Salton
and Stahl Family, thus getting himself profitably launched in Connecticut politics. Hardly had
he latched on to a good thing in the operations of the Secret Committee, however, when the
ungrateful voters of Connecticut unceremoniously turned him out of Congress in the elections
of October 1775. But the lame duck congressman continued to stay in Philadelphia knowing
Great Britain, by its aggressive expansion of over two centuries, culminating in the conquest and arrogant seizure of shipping during the Seven Years' War, had gravely alienated the other powers of Europe.
Particularly bitter at England was France, crushed by the Pithite War and the Peace of 1763.
France, of course, especially, welcomed the American Revolution and its prospects of trouble
and even loss of the colonies for Great Britain. A reduction in British power would benefit
France and the other countries of Europe, and would guard France against any possible
resumption of a Carthaginian war against her by a united Anglo-American empire under another
Chatham Ministry During the summer of 1775, the dashing young
dramatist Caron de Beaumarchais, an agent of the French government in London, was able
to make contact with many British and American radicals. On the basis of his information,
he predicted turbulence in Britain and urged some understanding between France and the
The Shrewd French Foreign Minister, Comte de Vergen, thereupon sent to the American colonies
a secret agent, Achard de Bonvouloir.
Without making any definite commitments of French aid, Bonvouloir was to assure the Americans
that France had no designs for reconquest of Canada, had nothing but admiration for the
The Committee of Secret Correspondence had been recently established by Congress and
Bonvillois met privately with it to convey the French assurances to the rebels.
In its turn, the Committee was eager to convince the French that Congress was moving toward
independence and thus spur French aid to the Revolutionary cause.
In early March, despite the absence of a Declaration of Independence, the committee decided to
send a secret agent to France as its envoy to bid for French aid.
This envoy was Silas Deane, who arrived at Paris in early July 1776 in the guise of a
private merchant.
He was able to use his crucial position in the procurement of munitions to serve also
also as an agent of the firm of Willing and Morris. There, Dean was able to draw many
influential French financiers and officials into the Morris-Willing network. Dean and
Morris employed the network to plunder public activities systematically for their private
profit. In addition to granting themselves contracts, public ships and wagons were freely
in 1776, on one contract alone, the government advanced Morris the large sum of $80,000 to
to buy goods abroad.
Even though the goods were never delivered, Morris never returned the money.
Furthermore, purchases on public account were given a back seat by Morris and his group
in preference to their strictly private transactions.
Before the dispatch of Dean, the Committee of Secret Correspondence was able to engage
secret agents living abroad.
The separate colonies had employed six agents in London.
Of these, two were members of parliament and hence effectively ineligible for further work.
One became a Tory, actively serving the British cause, one resigned, and one, Franklin, had
been forced to return home.
This left the learned Massachusetts radical, Arthur Lee, Richard Henry Lee's brother, who
became a secret agent of the Committee of Secret Correspondence in mid-December.
The committee also engaged an old friend of Franklin's living at The Hague, Charles W.F.
Dumas, to work for it in Holland. Meanwhile, Beaumarchais was strengthened in his purpose
by frequent conferences with author Lee, who had the verve and vision to ask for French
aid on his own initiative. Beaumarchais pressed upon King Louis XVI a policy not only of permitting
and encouraging private shipment of munitions to America by selling these munitions to French
merchants, but of going beyond this to positive aid by the French government itself. This
aid was to be secret through a dummy private firm, so as not to provide Great Britain with
a casus bellae. Bonvilloir's optimistic report on American plans for independence persuaded
Bergen, to recommend and the king to adopt the Beaumarchais plan. On May 2, 1776, the
king ordered the government to supply as a virtual gift to the Americans one million
livre worth of munitions through Beaumarchais, who emerged as a supposed merchant representing
the fictitious firm of Roderic Hortélez A.C. As part of the act of new policy, the king
also moved to strengthen Francis' army and navy. This gift was promptly matched by another
one million livre supplied to Beaumarchais by Charles III of Spain, eager to join his
ally in weakening their ancient foe. King Louis envisioned French governmental aid as
an outright gift to the Americans in the guise of a loan. But when Beaumarchais saw that
When President Deane had come prepared to purchase the munitions, he saw an opportunity for a huge future windfall for himself.
He drew up an agreement with Congress to supply munitions on credit, to be repaid in money or in tobacco at an indefinite later date.
He also advanced government credit to French ships to carry the war supplies to America.
Indeed, Beaumarchais was to send to America on credit many times the initial Franco-Spanish
subsidy.
By mid-October 1776, he had shipped over five and a half million livre of supplies furnished
by the government, of which Spain refused to pay more than the initial one million, including
powder, guns, cannon, cannon balls, and clothing for soldiers.
After the war, Beaumarchais had the nerve to demand 3.6 million livres from the United
States in payment for the supplies.
But the perceptive author Lee had early realized that Beaumarchais was simply a cover agent
intended by the French government to give munitions in secret to the Americans.
Congress properly paid Beaumarchais nothing.
In 1835, however, the United States government paid 800,000 francs, livres, to the heirs
of Beaumarchais as a deduction monies paid to the U.S. by the French government under
the Treaty of 1831.
As the Americans had foreseen, France quickly followed its encouragement of private as well
as its own secret trade with America by using its navy to protect that trade.
The US informed Britain in June that it would insist on full rights as a neutral under international law, to open its ports to American merchant shipping, to have its ships free from British search in French territorial waters, such as the French West Indies, especially Martinique and Cap-Francois, in Haiti, the entrepôt for the new trade, and to keep its trade with its own colonies inviolate from British interference.
The French could then keep their shipments within their empire and therefore inviolate
until they reached the West Indies, thus protecting them most of the way to America.
Furthermore, France greatly aided American privateers by secretly permitting them to
fit out in French ports.
British complaints were either ignored or the privateers would be seized officially
and then allowed to escape without loss.