lic scandal at a time when the country was struggling for existence, needed all the moral and financial support it could obtain from Europe, and as yet saw no end to the Revolution.

One more point must be noticed. Lee commented with much sarcasm on the sudden prosperity of Jonathan Williams. He had been clerk to a sugarbaker in England, and was supposed to be without means; but as naval agent he soon began to call himself a merchant, and when waiting on the commissioners charged five Louis d'ors a day for the loss of his time. Lee, according to some of his letters, had been trying for some time to have a certain John Lloyd, of South Carolina, appointed in the place of Williams; and I shall quote part of one of these letters, which shows why Lee wanted Williams's place for one of his friends.

"My brother and myself have conceived that as the public allowance to the commercial agent is very liberal and the situation necessarily must recommend considerable business, the person appointed might with the most fair and conscientious discharge of his duty to the public make his own fortune." (Life of Arthur Lee, vol. ii. p. 144.)

He did not succeed in having Lloyd appointed, but he and his brother William secured the position for a friend of theirs called Schweighauser, on the dismissal of Williams, and this Schweighauser appointed a nephew of the Lees as one of his assistants.

It should be said that although Lee and Izard were constantly hinting at evil practices by Franklin, and sometimes directly stigmatized him as the

"father of corruption" and deeply involved in the most disreputable schemes, they never produced any proof that he had enriched himself or was directly engaged in anything discreditable. There seems to be no doubt that certain people were making money under cover of the loose way in which affairs were managed. Franklin must have known of this, as well as Adams and the other commissioners, but neither he nor they were enriched by it. Lee's pamphlet goes no farther than to say that Franklin had shielded his nephew. John Adams, it may be observed, assisted in this shielding, if it can with justice be so called, for he signed with Franklin the order allowing the money to be paid to Williams on condition that it should not be considered an approval of his accounts. Adams afterwards described very concisely the situation, and how he, with the others, was compelled to connive at peculations under the absurd system.

"I knew it to be impossible to give any kind of satisfaction to our constituents, that is to Congress, or their constituents, while we consented or connived at such irregular transactions, such arbitrary proceedings, and such contemptible peculations as had been practised in Mr. Deane's time, not only while he was in France, alone, without any public character, but even while he was associated with Dr. Franklin and Mr. Arthur Lee in a real commission; and which were continued in some degree while I was combined in the commission with Franklin and Lee, in spite of all the opposition and remonstrance that Lee and I could make." (Adams's Works, vol. i. p. 657.)

Franklin said and wrote very little on the subject. He sent no letters to members of Congress undermining the characters of his fellow-commissioners;

the few statements that he made were exceedingly mild and temperate, and were usually to the effect that there were differences and disputes which he regretted. He usually invited his fellow-commissioners to dine with him every Sunday, and on these occasions they appeared very friendly, though at heart cherishing vindictive feelings towards one another.

In truth, Lee and Izard wrote so much and so violently that they dug the graves of their own reputations. It was Dr. Johnson who said that no man was ever written down except by himself, and Franklin once shrewdly remarked, "spots of dirt. thrown upon my character I suffered while fresh to remain; I did not choose to spread by endeavoring to remove them, but relied on the vulgar adage that they would all rub off when they were dry."

General public opinion was then and has remained in favor of Franklin, and the prominent men of France were, without exception, on his side. They all in the end detested Lee, whose conduct showed a vindictive disposition, and who evidently had purposes of his own to serve. One of his pet suspicions was that Paul Jones was a rascal in league with the other rascal, Franklin, and he protests in a letter to a member of Congress against Jones being "kept upon a cruising job of Chaumont and Dr. Franklin." Jones, he predicted, would not return from this cruise, but would go over to the enemy.

Franklin's service in France may be divided into four periods. First, from his arrival in December, 1776, until February, 1778, during which two years

he and Deane conducted the business as best they could and quarrelled with Lee and Izard. Second, the year from February, 1778, until February, 1779, during which John Adams was in Paris in the place of Silas Deane. Third, some of the remaining months of 1779, during which, although Franklin was sole plenipotentiary to France, Lee, Izard, and others still retained their appointments to other countries, and remained in Paris, continuing the quarrels more viciously than ever. They were recalled towards the close of 1779, and from that time dates the fourth period, during which Franklin enjoyed the sole control, unassailed by the swarm of hornets which had made his life a burden.

I have already described most of the first period as briefly as possible; its full treatment would require a volume. All that remains is to describe the act with which it closed, the signing of the treaty of alliance. This treaty, which secured the success of our Revolution by giving us the assistance of a French army and fleet, was the result of unforeseen events, and was not obtained by the labors of Franklin or those of any of the commissioners.

France had been anxious to ally herself with us during the first two years of the Revolution, but dared not, because there was apparently no prospect that we would be successful. In fact, all the indications pointed to failure. Washington was everywhere defeated; had been driven from New York, lost the battle of the Brandywine, lost Philadelphia, and then the news arrived in Europe that Burgoyne was moving from Canada down the Hudson, and

would be joined by Howe from New York. This would cut the colonies in half; separate New England, the home of the Revolution, from the Middle and Southern Colonies and result in our total subjugation.

The situation of the commissioners in Paris was dismal enough at this time. They had been successful at first, with the aid of Beaumarchais; but now Beaumarchais was in despair at the ingratitude of Congress and its failure to pay him; no more prizes were coming in, for the British fleets had combined against the American war vessels and driven them from the ocean; the commissioners had spent all their money, and Franklin proposed that they should sell what clothing and arms they had been unable to ship and pay their debts as far as possible with the proceeds. At any moment they might hear that they had neither country nor flag, that the Revolution had collapsed, and that they must spend the rest of their lives in France as pensioners on the royal bounty, daring to go neither to America nor to England, where they would be hung as ringleaders of the rebels.

In their dire extremity they forgot their animosities, and one is reminded of those pictures of the most irreconcilable wild animals-foxes and hares, or wolves and wild-cats-seeking refuge together from a flood on a floating log. In public they kept a bold front, in spite of the sneers of the English residents in Paris and the shrugging shoulders of the Frenchmen.

"Well, doctor," said an Englishman to Franklin, "Howe has taken Philadelphia."