To Benjamin Franklin from Barbeu-Dubourg, [August? 1778]
From Barbeu-Dubourg
ALS: University of Pennsylvania Library
[August?,2 1778]
Mon cher Maitre
Je prens la liberté de vous recommander encore diverses affaires dont j’ai eu l’honneur de vous parler.
1° Celle de M. Coder qui est tres interessante et qui requert celerité.
2° Celle des toiles a voiles et autres marchandises que l’on offre de fournir aux prix courants soit au Congrés, soit aux armateurs particuliers, et de recevoir en payement des papiers du Congrés.
3° De la place sans emolumens de Consul des Etats unis en Normandie pour M. Gregoire, homme tres honnete et tres recommandable.3
4° N’y auroit-il pas moyen de faire echanger mon petit Neveu fait prisonier par les Anglois sur le navire le d’Argentré, dans son passage pour l’Amerique avec un brevet d’officier dans les troupes de la Georgie? N’est il pas consequemment reputé Americain, et dans le cas de l’echange, en vertu du cartel, pour un officier de même grade, c’est à dire sous lieutenant des troupes Angloises? Vous m’obligeriez et toute la famille tres sensiblement. Je suis de tout mon coeur avec un attachement inviolable Monsieur et cher Ami Votre tres humble et tres obeissant serviteur
Dubourg
Cyjoint une notte pour Monsieur Adams et une lettre pour M. de la Balme et des vers de M. Quillan.4
2. Dubourg raises four points. The first probably has to do either with his and Coder’s scheme of attacking British commerce, which is explained above, XXVI, 655–6 n, or with their plan to raid the English and Irish coasts (for which see our annotation of Coder’s letter of Sept. 15, below). The second is unidentifiable. The third is a recommendation that he made intermittently until August, 1779, and therefore is no help in dating this letter. The fourth gives a clue, though a faint one: his plea for his great-nephew sounds like a fairly immediate sequel to that on Aug. 1. Hence our tentative dating.
3. The Grégoire brothers submitted an undated memorandum arguing that their firm, Veuve Grégoire & fils, should represent the U.S. in Normandy. They offered to serve without reward in money or privileges, to be responsible for U.S. subjects who found themselves in trouble, to uphold the rights of the nation with local authorities, and to keep the American minister in Paris informed of whatever he should know. Dubourg reintroduced the application on a number of occasions (see below, Oct. 21), and sent an undated reminder to the commissioners mentioning that France had appointed a consul in the U.S., which Gérard indeed had done in July: XXV, 238 n. Dubourg finally explained his recurrent insistence on the matter of the Grégoire firm in a letter to BF of July 29, 1779: Grégoire was a close relative of Dubourg’s friend Agatange Le Roy, to whom he was obligated. All these documents are in the APS.
4. Quillan we cannot identify, but Col. Augustin Mottin de la Balme was among the Frenchmen then serving with the U.S. army: XXIII, 36–7 n.