[Extract]
My lord,

I saw M de Beaumarchais this morning, and following your express authorisation, I gladly conferred with him without reservation. Everyone knows his good sense, his talent, and no one gives more credit than myself for his honesty, his discretion, his zeal for everything that is great and good; I believe he is one of the men best suited to political negotiations, but perhaps at the same time least suied to the business of trade. He likes ostentation, he is said to support young ladies, he passes for a spendthrift finally, and there is not a single merchant or manufacturer in France who does not entertain this notion about him and does not hesitate a great deal to do business with him.

Therefore, I was quite surprised when he informed me that you had instructed him not only to advise you but also to center around him alone the whole and the detail of all trade operations for the export as well as the import either of war ammunition or usual goods, from France to the united Colonies, and from the Colonies to France, the management of all the business, the determination of prices, th settlement of deals, the contracts and the collections to qe made, the debts to be paid off &ca. I agreed with him that it might ensure somewhat better the secrecy of all these operations, but I objected to him that by taking hold of all this immense traffic and by excluding completely people who had gone to such an expense, endured so much fatigue and run so many risks at the service and by order of Congress, he would give them good reason to shout monopoly and deeply wrong them, whereas they deserved quite a different fate.² He told me that this would not cause any prejudice to them and made full use of his eloquence to prove it to me after a fashion. I confess that these particular motives would not weigh heavily enough in the balance against the necessity for secrecy in such a critical conjuncture; but may I doubt whether there are not other means, whether there are not even better means to ensure this important secrecy, because assuredly M.de Beaumarchais, with all the resources of his genius, could not qo without employing at the same time many subordinate agents who would always be less discreet than merchants whose chief aim isto conceal their speculations and to distrust continually every one. But I shall return to my first and most important reflection and I beg you, My lord, to give it all your consideration. There may be a hundred, perhaps a thousand persons in France who, although much less talented than M. deBeaumarchais, could better serve your views while inspiring more confidence to those with whom they would deal in trade, either French or American, in the cities, the ports, the factories &ca...³