[Paris, May 25] 1776 2
Monseigneur
The absolute impossibility of procuring, by any other means, good arms for the defence of our friends, compels me to implore your powerful protection. I most urgently beg you to intercede on their behalf with the Count de St Germain, in order to obtain the favour which the Sire de la Tuillerie requests, 3 ー to come to their assistance in so critical and so pressing a conjuncture. I have the honour to send his memoire herewith. If I was not afraid of abusing your goodness, I would beg you also to ask the same minister for a licence to travel, for 3 or 4 years, for the Sire de Boisbertrand, 4 whose courage and zeal will ever lead him in the path of honour. I am, with the most profound respect, Monseigneur [&c.] Barbeu Dubourg These fifteen thousand muskets will be drawn from the magazines of Lyons, or others equally far from the sea, and will come down the Loire well packed. At Nantes they will be stored in magazines outside the town and finally embarked without making the slightest extraordinary sensation.
1. Stevens, ed., Facsimiles, No. 567.
2. The letter was endorsed by Vergennes "without date as to month." Stevens cited Doniol's Histoire de la Participation de la France a l'etablissement des J!:.tats Unis d'Amerique, I, 508, as dating it the end of June. The May 25 date is more likely. The contract of sale
for the fifteen thousand muskets between de la Tuillerie and Penet & Pliarne is dated
June 1, 1776, and could only have been negotiated after the former's memoir to Ver
gennes had been.approved. And on June 12, 1776, Dubourg wrote Franklin that "The
first part of those muskets is already on the route to Nantes."
3. M. de Ia Tuillerie, a manufacturer of arms, whose memoir promised to replace the fifteen thousand within a year.
4. In his letter to Franklin of June 12, Dubourg states that he was providing passage only to Boisbertrand, "a youth full of honour, courage & zeal." This statement also eliminates the end of June as tbe date of tbe letter.
