complied with, the immediate destruction of the French commerce would have been the consequence. All the navy, all the army contracts are made for five years in England. Letters of marque were given to contractors and friends of Government, for what? To cruise against our trade? No; but to be ready, at a signal given, to enrich themselves by the first captures on the French nation; for the gleanings of our commerce are no object to a private adventurer, assured as the English Ministry are of the pacific intentions of this Court. From the quarter I mentioned to you in my last, they will try his patience, and they do right, for the only hope they now have of conquering us is to deprive us of the means of resistance, and the hopes of foreign aid which keeps up the spirits of the people. If the Amphitrite is really lost, General Washington will open the campaign without any of their military stores, so long promised and so vainly expected, except about twelve thousand muskets. We expect with impatience direct news from America; the moment it arrives I will communicate it to you. The gentlemen are well, and beg me to present compliments. I am, dear sir, yours, &c., WILLIAM CARMICHAEL. P. S. You will not mention publicly, for particular reasons, the history of the little privateer. When the Captain of our small privateer boarded the transport, and told him he was his prisoner, he very insolently asked where his ship was, not conceiving that any person would have crossed the ocean in so small a boat. TO THE COMMITTEE OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS. Gentlemen, June 14th, 1777. I have escaped, as much as I am able, from my chains, to make journeys to the Hague, Amsterdam, and Rotterdam, in order to maintain and increase useful acquaintances; and when I obtain any light, I communicate it to friends. The great majority, almost the whole of our merchants are for you. The regencies of our cities, and among others, Amsterdam, seem to take part with the Court, which is allied with and friendly to England. But all this is precarious, and will change with your fortune. Let us hear of a successful campaign, and your friends will show themselves, your partizans will multiply; they will lose by degrees this panic of terror for a Power that is not loved by the 'multitude. These persons are chiefly large annuitants, whose hearts are in the sources of their income. Another important truth which I have learned at Amsterdam is, that no banking house is willing to take part, to the amount of a shilling, in the loan of five millions sterling which England has raised, because they were not content with the offered premium, and with her solidity, nor sure of selling the stock in detail. Distrust increases here in proportion as England sinks. The premium ought to be two and a half per cent., but we know that in England even the bankers are content with their sales in detail at five eighths per cent. I have made acquaintance and connexion with a house to whom I shall address in future all my despatches for you, and under cover to whom you may in safety address to me your letters, viz., Messrs. Laland & Fynge, merchants, Amsterdam. If you will send me regularly, by your vessels going to St. Eustatia and Curaçoa, one at least of your best public papers to the address above pointed out, or in the packets of friends in France, I will make good use of it for your service in our periodical papers. They complain everywhere of knowing nothing of your affairs but what the English wish Europe should know; and on this subject we have often to wait some months before the truth is unfolded from a heap of impostures, which do not fail sometimes to answer the malice of your enemies in leaving false impressions on minds, which I wish to be able to destroy in their birth. I have the honor to be, &c., DUMAS. TO THE COMMITTEE OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS. August 22d, 1777. Gentlemen, In spite of my extreme circumspection, your enemies are not altogether without knowledge of me, and, not able to persecute me openly, are endeavoring secretly to deprive me of my post in this country. I sent an account yesterday to Paris, and to-day to a certain person at the Hague, of what has happened to me. I am sustained in all my losses by the firm resolution to live and die the faithful servant of United America, and by consequence, also, with the most profound respect for the honorable general Congress and yourselves. God bless your just arms. September 5th.-It would be useless for me to give you copies of the last letters that I wrote to Paris. They chiefly concern myself; and I await their answers. I will say only in general here, that, from the moment when I was first honored with your orders and your confidence, I have devoted to you, in every event, my person, services, and fidelity; and this for the love I bear to your cause, and on the most perfect conviction of its justice. I have conducted myself in the execution of your orders with all imaginable prudence, circumspection, and patience. At last, however, I am the victim of the suspicions and implacable hatred of your enemies. They have found it an easy task to injure me indirectly in the sordid, ungrateful, and treacherous heart of a person on whom my fortune depended, and who is devoted to them. I should be ruined, with my family, if I had not firm confidence of receiving in your service the annual stipend allotted for their subsistence of which I have been deprived. To this injustice they have added the insult of tempting me by deceitful offers, which I have rejected with disdain, because I could not accept them without exposing your secrets, or at least degrading the character with which you have honored me in the eyes of those who have knowledge of it. My refusal has exasperated them against me; they will secretly ruin me as far as they are able. But I have said enough of myself. Your enemies have begun to take the Dutch vessels in Europe as well as in America; among others, one for St. Eustatia. They are impatient at Amsterdam to know how the Regency will take this; and they write me that this circumstance will probably be the cause of the detention of vessels bound for the Islands two months in this port. I have the honor to be, &c., DUMAS. TO THE COMMITTEE OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS. Gentlemen, The Hague, October 14th, 1777. If I do not speak to you in all my letters of the person with whom you know I am connected at the Hague, it is not because this connexion does not continue daily, but because it is sufficient to give an account of our conferences to your honorable commission in Europe, and also, considering the time that my packets are on the way, my reports would be as superfluous and useless to you as they would be long and difficult to decypher, or dangerous to transmit without cypher. The enemy alone would be able to profit by them. Moreover, I doubt not but your Commissioners transmit to you the result of all that passes. Our States-General are assembled, and they have begun with. labors which by no means please your enemies. The first was to make a claim directly, in the name of their High Mightinesses, upon the English Minister for the Dutch vessel destined for St. Eustatia, and taken in the Channel by an English vessel-of-war, under the pretext that the vessel was American built. (The Dutch had purchased her at Halifax.) Our States have sent instructions on this subject to their Envoy at London, with orders to have discontinued whatever process has been instituted by the captor before the English judges against this vessel; and an order also to the owners of the vessel and cargo not to plead before the judges, because they have proved here that they had conformed in all things to the laws of this country, and to its conventions with Great Britain. We are impatient here to learn the answer of England. Their second debate was on a petition in very strong terms, signed by a hundred of the principal commercial houses of Amsterdam, (except the house of Hope, devoted to England,) for the purpose of asking a convoy for their vessels going to the West Indies. I have all this from the best authority; as also that the party of your enemies in this country, though yet considerable, are visibly losing their influence, and cannot fail to succumb, especially if the English continue to seize our vessels, and if they wish to engage this Republic to involve itself in a war on their account; for we desire here to be at peace with all the world. I have the honor to be, &c., DUMAS. TO THE COMMITTEE OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS. Gentlemen, December 16th, 1777. I congratulate you and the honorable Congress, and all United America, with all my heart. This news (Burgoyne's capture) has VOL. V.-16 made the greatest possible sensation in this country; a deep consternation among those who have all their interest in England; a marked joy among those who hate your enemies. My correspondent at Amsterdam writes thus: Many thanks for the prompt advice of the affair so glorious for our friends. Letters from England received here this morning confirm it entirely. All was in motion to-day in our cafes and on the exchange. The Royalists here are entirely depressed, and even fear the like catastrophe for General Howe if he hazard himself further into the country." This news has made an astonishing impression every where; all is considered lost to the English. December 19th.-I have received advice from my correspondents, to whom I had forwarded packets according to your orders, by which they inform me, under date of 26th of September and 18th of October, of having received and forwarded my packets for you. My correspondent at Amsterdam who transmitted them to me, has pointed me to the following passage: "The Anti-Americans are not yet recovered from their fright; they see the Americans at present with a different eye, and desire strongly that the Ministry may be changed, that by mild means we may obtain peace as favorable as possible." Another writes from Rotterdam: "I received on the 11th the account of the victory of General Gates. It was pulled out of my hands. I pray you, as soon as you receive advice that Howe has done as well as Burgoyne, to let me have the great pleasure of knowing it first, that I may regale many persons with the news. You cannot think what a bustle there is yet in all companies and cafés about this affair, and how they fall on the English Ministers." We have confirmation from Germany of the increasing obstructions which the levying of recruits against America meets with. I this moment learn that the States-General have despatched messengers of State extraordinary to all the Provinces; and it cannot be doubted that the contents of their despatches, which are kept secret, relate only to the catastrophe which the English have suffered in America, and to the consequences which it is presumed it will have, as well on this side of the ocean as on the other. I have the honor to be, &c., DUMAS. |