July 8. I had long since determined to look at France, with a steady Eye and obtain as much Information as I could of her Manners, Institutions and History: but there was another branch of Enquiry in which all America at this time was compleatly uninformed, I mean the Ne-146gotiations and Dispatches of Ambassadors. The Powers of Europe in general have kept the Letters and Memorials of their Ambassadors locked up in the Cabinetts of their Courts: very few of them have ever been collected and published. The Policy of France has been different. There are extant more Publications of their negotiations, than of all the rest of Europe.… I purchased D'Avaux, D'Estrades, Dossat, Jeannot,2 Torcy, Noailles, The Diplomatick Dictionary, The Principles of Negotiation of the Abby De Mably, the Public Law of Europe founded on Treaties by the same Author, The Corps Diplomatique, and all other Books I could find relative to the office of an Ambassador as Wickefort &c. Grotius, Puffendorf, Vattell &c. I had read before in America. An Historical Collection of the Acts, Negotiations, Memorials and Treaties from the Peace of Utrecht, to the Year 1742 by Mr. Rousset in Volumes, The History of the Congress and of the Peace of Utrecht as also of that of Rastadt and of Bade in Volumes.

These Writings contain a great deal of the History of France, especially of her foreign Relations, but as I wished to know as much of their internal Concerns as possible I purchased Veilly, Mezerai, De Thou and other Histories of France, and especially all the memoirs I could find of the civil Wars in France, among many others The Memoirs to Serve for the History of Ann of Austria, the Consort of Louis the Thirteenth King of France, by Madam De Motteville one of her Favorites in Volumes, and the Memoirs of Mademoiselle de Montpensier, Daughter of Gaston of Orleans Brother of Louis the thirteenth in Volumes, and all the original Memorials I could find of the Times of the League and the Fronde.3

It will be easily understood, that with my superficial Knowledge of the French Language, and with all the Business on my hands and Amusements that were inevitable, these Writings were not to be read in a short time. I resolved however to read as much of them as I could, and in fact I did read a great deal and endeavoured to get as good a general Idea of their Contents as possible. The Information obtained from these Books and the Observations I there made on the Manners and Character of the French People, together with my general Reading on the Nature and forms of Government, enabled me Eight or ten Years afterwards to form a pretty correct Judgment of the wild Project of demolishing the Monarchy and instituting a Republick, especially a Republic in one Representative Assembly, in France. But more, much more of this hereafter.

July 9. 1778. We wrote the following Letters

These two Letters are in the hand Writing of Mr. Arthur Lee, in my Book and are the first that were so.

I began now to think it high time to attend to my Friends in America and on this day I wrote the following private Letters. The first to Mr. James Lovell a Member of Congress.

This Letter requires a Commentary.…. The Reasons for believing that it came with the Privity of the King, were derived wholly from Dr. Franklin, who affirmed to me that there were in the Letter infallible Marks, by which he knew that it came from the King, and that it could not have come from any other without the Kings Knowledge. What these Marks were he never explained to me. I was not impertinently inquisitive, and he affected to have reasons for avoiding any more particular devellopement of the Mystery. Many other hints have been dropped by Franklin to me, of some Mysterious Intercourse or correspondence between the King and him, personally.…. He often and indeed always appeared to me to have a personal Animosity and very severe Resentment against the King. In all his conversations and in all his Writings, when he could naturally and sometimes when he could not, he mentioned the King with great Asperity. He wrote certain Annotations on Judge Fosters discourse on the Legality of the Impressment of Seamen, in the Margin of the Book, and there introduced his habitual Accrimony against his Majesty. A thousand other Occasions discovered the same disposition. Among the ancient disputes between Franklin and the Proprietary Governors of Pensilvania, I have read, that Franklin, upon hearing of a report in Circulation against his Election as Agent for the Province at the Court of St. James's that he had no Influence with the Ministry, and no Acquaintance with Lord Bute, broke out into a Passion and swore, contrary to his usual reserve, “that he had an Influence with the Ministry and was intimate with Lord Bute.” It is not generally known that the Earl of Bute was a Philosopher, a Chymist and a natural Historian. That he printed seven 151or Eight Volumes of natural History of his own Composition, only however for the Use of his particular confidential Friends. This kind of Ambition in the Earl might induce him to cultivate the Acquaintance with Franklin, as it did afterwards Rochefoucault, Turgot and Condorcet in France. And at the Earl of Butes some mysterious Conferences between the King and Franklin might have been concerted: and in these Interviews Franklin might have conceived himself deceived or insulted. I mention this merely as conjecture, Suggestion or Surmise. Franklins Memorials, if they ever appear may confirm or confute the Surmise, which however after all, will be of very little Consequence. Without the Supposition of some kind of Backstairs Intrigues it is difficult to account for that mortification of the pride, affront to the dignity and Insult to the Morals of America, the Elevation to the Government of New Jersey of a base born Brat.3

Franklin consulted with me, and We agreed first to do nothing without previously informing the French Court. Secondly as the Letter was supposed to come from a Friend of Franklin, at the desire or by the orders of the King, it was agreed that Franklin should write the Answer. He produced his draught to me and it was very explicit, decided and severe, and in direct terms asserted that by certain Circumstances in the Letter Franklin knew that it came from the King. We sent a Copy of the Answer to the Count de Vergennes as well as the original Letter and Project and asked his Excellencys Advice, whether We should send it or not.

In the Letter the Writer proposed that We should meet him at twelve O Clock precisely in a certain Part of the Church of Notre Dame, on a certain day in order to have a personal Conference upon the Subject. I know not that the Papers were ever returned from Versails. We received no Advice to send the Answer. The Day after the One appointed to meet the Messenger at Notre Dame the Count De Vergennes sent Us the Report of the Police of Paris, stating that at the Day, Hour and place appointed a Gentleman appeared and finding nobody wandered about the Church gazing at the Statues and Pictures and other Curiosities of that magnificent Cathedral, never loosing Sight however of the Spot appointed and often returning to it, looking earnestly about at times as if he expected Somebody: His Person, Stature, figure, Air, Complexion, Dress and every Thing about him was accurately and minutely described. He remained two Hours in the Church and then went out, was followed through every Street 152and all his motions watched to the Hotel where he lodged. We were told the Day he arrived there, the Name he assumed, which was Colonel Me Fitz—— something an Irish name that I have forgotten, the Place he came from and the time he sett off to return.

In my Letter to Mr. Gerry it is inaccurately said that Dr. Franklin sent an Answer. It was written and I supposed would be sent but it was not.

Whether the Design was to seduce Us Commissioners, or whether it was thought that We should send the Project to Congress and that they might be tempted by it, or that disputes might be excited among the People, I know not. In either case it was very weak and absurd and betrayed a gross Ignorance of the Genius of American People.4

An Aristocracy of American Peers! hereditary Peers I suppose were meant, but whether hereditary or for Life, nothing could be more abhorrent to the general Sense of America at that time, which was for making every Magistrate and every Legislator eligible and that annually at least.

An Aristocracy of American Peers! But this could not be simple: the King must have been intended to have a Negative upon the Laws no doubt: but was this Authority to have been executed by a Vice Roy to reside in Philadelphia? And were this Vice Roy and these two hundred Peers to have made all the Laws, without a Representation of the People by annual or other Elections? Even if there were to have been three Branches to the general Government, what was to become of State Governments? All abolished? Or all continued under some kind of Subordination to the General Government? Any of these Projects would have appeared to the People of America, at that time as extravagant and as tyrannical as any Thing the English had done. The English were strangely infatuated with an Idea, that Adams and Hancock, Washington and Franklin with a few others in the several States, 153as they had Influence enough to throw off the Authority of Great Britain, would have Influence enough to put it on again, as a Man who has Strength enough to throw off his Cloak may be supposed able to throw it again over his Shoulders. Nothing could be more erroneous: For none of these Leaders had any Influence but that which was given them by the Folly and Temerity of Great Britain: and if any of them had adopted and advocated any such Projects as these, he would not only have lost all Influence in America, but been obliged to fly to England for Protection among the Royalists and Refugees. These Speculations were however, all rendered unnecessary. Independence had been declared two Years, and all America, in a manner had renounced every modification of Government under Great Britain forever, fully convinced that no cordial Confidence or Affection could ever be restored on either Side. Besides a Treaty with France had been solemnly made. America was then a Virgin and her Faith sacred. And it would have been ridiculous to suppose that France would now consent that We should make a seperate Treaty and become subject again to England, that the reunited Empire might immediately fall upon France in a new War.

We thought the whole Subject so futile that I think We never transmitted any Account of it to Congress.