Note 660 — Chapter VIII

Beaumarchais was one of the most picturesque figures of that theatrical period. He is generally known to-day only as the author of the operas, The Barber of Seville and the Marriage of Figaro. His suit was to recover a debt for supplies furnished the Americans during the Revolution. Silas Deane, for our Government, made the original contract with Beaumarchais. In addition to the contest before the courts, in which Marshall was Beaumarchais's attorney, the matter was before Congress three times during the claimant's life and, through his heirs, twice after his death. In 1835 the case was settled for 800,000 francs, which was nearly 2,500,000 francs less than Alexander Hamilton, in an investigation, ordered by Congress, found to be due the Frenchman; and 3,500,000 livres less than Silas Deane reported that America owed Beaumarchais.

Arthur Lee, Beaumarchais's enemy, to whom Congress in 1787 left the adjustment, had declared that the Frenchman owed the United States two million francs. This prejudiced report was the cause of almost a half-century of dispute, and of gross injustice. (See Loménie: Beaumarchais et son temps; also, Channing, iii, 283, and references in the footnote; and Perkins: France in the American Revolution. Also see Henry to Beaumarchais, Jan. 8, 1785; Henry, iii, 264, in which Henry says: "I therefore feel myself gratified in seeing, as I think, ground for hope that yourself, and those worthy and suffering of ours in your nation, who in so friendly a manner advanced their money and goods when we were in want, will be satisfied that nothing has been omitted which lay in our power towards paying them.")