18 Decr. [1777]
Dear Sir
A Packet arriving this Week directed to the Committee of Correspondence, and containing only a Letter from Berlin for Congress,
1
I took the freedom of opening one directed to our worthy Friend S Adams in yr. Brother A’s handwriting, of which I send you a copy so far as was material to the Public.
Paris July 31st "Journeys to the Courts of Spain & Berlin have satisfied me that the determined system of Europe is to let us struggle through this War as we can with the warmest Professions of Friendship, with the strongest declarations of their being interested in our success and therefore ardently wishing it. Nothing can move them from their quietism & caution which are carried to a perfectly ridiculous extreme. Spain is totally occupied with its little Portuguize War; France is governed by Timidity in the excess; and the 3 great northern Powers are immersed in schemes of plundering the Turk & the Pole, and dividing the spoil. In this situation of Europe, notwithstanding the justice of our cause has rendered all men in our favour, it is not wonderful that you are left, like Hercules in his cradle, to strangle the Serpent that is the terrour of Europe.
"In this Situation it is happy for us that the extravagance of the enterprise has already so exhausted the means of our Enemies that, it is certain, this is the last campaign of vigour they can make against us.
"When our point is secured by the energy of our own exertions, we shall think it happy that the fears & occupations of the powers of Europe have prevented them from forming treaties with us, when our situation would have given them infinite advantages.
"When our distresses are past & our fears subsided, we shall be enabled to see & to follow our interests in the alliances we form; which I do not think would be intirely the case at present."
Besides this public matter of your Brother’s letter he adds a Note. "A Mr. Carmichael obtained from me a letter to you under a pretence of his going immediately to America. I have since found him to be a very unworthy person, whom I can by no means recommend to your patronage." You will see more sentiments of this kind written to Coll. Francis. I wish these hints had come before our late Action of Mr. C - - .
2
One of Monticu’s Vessels has arrived at Portsmouth with the following articles for the Continental Account.
Beaumarchais’s Secretary Francy 3 is arrived at Portsmouth & is expected here daily; perhaps he will bring letters from the Gentlemen at Paris to our Committee, but they cannot be later than Sept. Mr. Geary has one dated Nantes the 5th of that month, which speaks of the cowardly disposition of the French Court. I do not count this an absolute contradiction of Bingham’s letter of Octr. 13th because a Gentleman from America trading at Nantes Sepr 5th might be a Stranger to ministerial measures entered into time enough to reach Mr. B thro’ the General of Martinique by Octr. 13th. However, Sir, tho’ I attempt to reconcile these accounts so as to make the Story of war stand, yet I am very far from being sanguine in the belief of it. Your Brothers history of the Temper of the several Courts seems by far the most natural of any other which has come to hand.4
I expect we shall have an enormous mercantile account from De Francy, I suppose it is the House of Hortales which your Brother Wm. hints his fears about. You see how necessary his presence was near Mr. D.
5 A letter from this same Gentleman to Mr. Morris came open to Mr. Hancock but the letter covering appeared to be private, so that the inclosed was sent on to Mr. M without Congress coming to the Knowledge of the Contents.6
--- NOTES: Receiver’s copy, American Philosophical Society. In Lovell’s hand, though not signed.
1 Arthur Lee’s June 11, 1777, letter to the Committee of Secret Correspondence, endorsed "Recd. Decr. 16th. 1777," is in PCC, item 83, fols. 71 - 74, and Wharton, Diplomatic Correspondence, 2:335 - 36.
2 On November 28 William Carmichael had been elected secretary to the commissioners at Paris. JCC, 9:975. See also Lovell to John Adams, February 10, 1778, note 1.
3 Jean Baptiste Lazarus Theveneau de Francy (d. 1783), who arrived in York in February 1778 to settle the accounts of Hortalez & Co. and to act as Caron de Beaumarchais’ resident agent in the United States. See Committee of Commerce to Robert Morris, 21 February 1778, note 2.
4 Lovell’s doubts about the intentions of France were confirmed later this month. See Lovell to Lee, 28 December 1777.
5 That is, Silas Deane.
6 Silas Deane’s 23 September and 1 October 1777, letters to Robert Morris, with several enclosures, are in NYHS Collections 20 (1887): 145 - 63.