To John Jay from Silas Deane, 16 October 1780
From Silas Deane
Paris Octo 16th 1780—1
My Dr. Sir
Yours of the 2d. I received last Evening, am much surprized at the miscarriage of my Letter of the 28th. of August nor can I account for it as it actually went under Cover by the Courier from Court, the Contents were not secret though important ^to me,^ & containing a Letter of Don Juans to the Minister at Madrid, its loss cannot be repaired, I trust you will yet receive it.—2 Ct. Harding arrived before I left Virginia but I left Philada: soon after You, my Letters in future will come under Cover as You advise— Dr. Bancroft can best Account for his not Answering Mr. Carmichaels Letters, tho’ from what the Doctr. has told me, I am surprized that the latter should be at any Loss at all on the Subject.3 I do not well understand Your proposed Addition of by,4 & therefore must write in my former method untill You explain it more fully.— I have now replyed to Yours, & having made out a Letter as long and as Circumstantial as Yours, might subscribe myself Yours &c., but I cannot do it without first telling you that I feel myself a little piqued at the shortness of your Letter, in reply to Two long ones of mine. I am equally desirous ^with you^ of knowing many little, & some great Circumstances, which as Your Friend & Countryman I am Interested in. The Affair of Mr Laurens, you are acquainted with by the public Papers, for which it is a fruitful, & seasonable Subject as that of Electioneering is exhausted in England, his Son sailed Ten Days before him for Europe but has not been heard of.5 our forces in so. car[olina]. under gates have been defeated. our loss is great. Baron de Kalb killed and abt. 2500 killed & prisoners. the acct. is I hope exaggerated6 j. a. is in holld & has power to supply the place of h. laurens. Mr. Searle is in holld— You have the general American News as early probably as we have in France but as I see almost every Week some one from thence, I must tell you our affairs are not in a better state than when you left ph[iladelphi]a. many Intrigues are on foot in france & in london as well as in am[erica]: & I know so much of them as to caution you not to be alarmd at any thing. a rev[olutio]n. may happen in 3 months at present not suspectd on either party—7 being but a passenger, I have leisure for Observation and from my past Experience & former as well as present Connections am able to see as much of the Game as some who play the great hands— My best Wishes are for the Peace, Safety & Liberty of America. ^this was^ Our early prayer ^as^ You ^must^ remember—a lee was at ph[iladelphi]a publishing of a New Edition of common sense with Additions &c8 Nothing that he can say or congress resolve can alter Facts, & havg suffered so much injustice & ingratitude from, & seen so much practised by congress on others I am become indifferent in some Degree to what either of them can say or do. I know the Weakness of congress to say no worse of it & the Malignity of a. lee & Associates. but the state of am[eric]a. wrings my very soul ruined on the one party9 by weak distracted councils & betrayd on the other by those in whom it has confided it is to hard. but Adieu to Politics, I promise to meddle no more with them in Our future Correspondance but to follow the Example you have set me in your Letters & write only on indifferent Subjects. Your happiness & prosperity can never be of this kind with me, and from that motive I wish to know at least the Outlines of your Situation—but perhaps you think me Gloomy, if ^not^ disaffected, I can never be so to the Interests of America, & America will soon be sensible of it, But I am not cheerful, except when I am in the Company of my Freinds & find them happy, or hear that they are so, and when I can cease reflecting on certain Subjects, this is sometimes the Case, I hope it will soon be intirely so. My Complimts: to Mrs. Jay and Col. Livingston, and am on all Occasions my Dr Sir Your Affectionate Friend and very Humble Servt
S. Deane
The Honl. Jno Jay Esqr.
LS, NNC (EJ: 7781). Endorsed by JJ: “ . . . answ. 1 Nov. 1780.” Partly in code, decoded by JJ. LbkC, CtHi (EJ: 2895), printed in , 4: 244–46, with numerous errors due to the incorrect rendering of the code. Encoded in Jay-Deane code (EJ: 7590). See “John Jay’s Use of Codes and Ciphers” (editorial note) on p. 9.
1. Deane had first written the year as “1770.”
2. The correct date of Deane’s missing letter was 23 Aug.; see JJ to Deane, 2 Oct., above.
3. JJ received no explanation for Bancroft’s failure to reply to Carmichael’s letters, but in June 1780 Bancroft wrote Carmichael expressing his anger at Carmichael for failing while in Congress to defend him, as well as Deane, BF, Beaumarchais, and others, against allegations made during the Deane-Lee affair. In his reply Carmichael claimed he had said nothing negative about Bancroft to Congress but admitted he had not spoken up on Bancroft’s behalf and insisted that it would have done no good. Carmichael to Bancroft, 28 June 1780, Bancroft Cooke Salter Collection of Bancroft Family Papers in the possession of Anthony Bancroft Cooke and Alicia Salter; John Paul Jones to Carmichael, 22 Aug. 1780, in James C. Bradford, ed., The Papers of John Paul Jones, 1747–1792, 10 reels of microfilm with printed guide (Alexandria, Va., 1986). The editors wish to thank Professor Thomas J. Schaeper of St. Bonaventure University for information regarding these sources.
4. Here Deane used a cipher substituting letters for numbers (under which “bj” equaled “20”), as explained in JJ’s memorandum of codes used in 1780, NNC (EJ: 7590). In his letter of 2 Oct., above, JJ had suggested adding 20 to each number equivalent of the words included in the main code used in the Jay-Deane correspondence, but as indicated here, Deane did not find his instructions sufficiently explicit to attempt to apply that change.
5. This information was in error. Henry Laurens (1763–1821), Laurens’s younger son, was being educated in England; Lieutenant Colonel John Laurens, the older son, was at this time on parole following his capture by the British in the fall of Charleston in May 1780. He was officially exchanged in November 1780. On 21 Dec. 1780, Congress appointed him a minister to France to seek additional aid, but he did not sail for Europe until February 1781. See Deane to JJ, 8 Apr. 1781, below; John Laurens to JJ, 11 Mar. [Apr.] 1781, NNC (EJ: 7382); JJ to Laurens, 26 Mar. 1781, below, and 2 May 1781, ALS, PC (EJ: 12516), and Dft, NN (EJ: 7973).
6. See the President of Congress to JJ, 18 Dec., below.
7. Possibly a reference to changes in the French ministry and their relationship to declining French support for the American cause, on which see also Deane to JJ, November 1780, , 4: 261–63. The French council had been holding discussions on strategy with Spain over the summer; in September, Floridablanca demanded that France send 12,000 troops and at least 20 ships of the line to the West Indies to seize Jamaica. Montmorin explained that an economically strapped Spain believed it was capable of only one more campaign and that if France did not accept proposals to end the war with one more campaign, it would have to seek the least disadvantageous peace. The French council then divided over the question of whether the war should be continued. Necker favored peace. Maurepas had already approached the British and strongly supported seeking peace, but Vergennes was able to prevent the king from following Maurepas’s advice and suing for peace. Vergennes complained of Spain’s direct negotiations with Britain (the Cumberland negotiations) and told Montmorin that the council was inclined to accept Russian mediation. These differences of opinion triggered major changes in the French council, with Vergennes’s ally Sartine being replaced as naval minister by the marquis de Castries in October, and Montbarey, the war minister, being replaced in December by the marquis de Ségur. Both new appointees were aligned with Necker and with former foreign minister Choiseul. See , 197–202.
8. Thomas Paine, using his pseudonym “Common Sense,” had written several pieces attacking Deane and his associates in 1779. No reprint of those writings in 1780 sponsored by Arthur Lee has been identified, but Lee did publish Extracts from a letter to the president of Congress by the Honorable Arthur Lee, Esquire, in answer to a libel published in the Pennsylvania Gazette of the fifth of December, 1778, by Silas Deane, in which every charge or insinuation against him in that libel, is fully and clearly refuted (Philadelphia: Francis Bailey, printer, 1780; , no. 16818). He also published Observations on certain commercial transactions in France, laid before Congress (Philadelphia: Francis Bailey, printer, 1780; , no. 16819), which covered Lee’s allegations against BF and his grandnephew Jonathan Williams Jr.
9. The Jay-Deane code list had no numerical equivalent for “part,” so the number for “party” was used in cases where “part” seems to be the word intended.