From Benjamin Franklin to Vergennes, 11 October 1784
To Vergennes
LS:8 Archives du Ministère des affaires étrangères
Passy, Oct: 11. 1784.
Sir,
I beg leave to lay before your Excellency the enclos’d Papers,9 complaining of the improper Proceedings of the Admiralty at Nantes, in deciding on a Cause between the Captain of an American Ship and one of his Sailors, which ought only to have been judg’d by our Consul;1 and moreover in arresting the said Ship just on the Point of Departing for Virginia. I make no doubt but your Excellency will see the Reasonableness of my earnest Request, that an Order of Government may immediately issue for the Discharge of the said Arrest, & Permission of Departure for the Ship, as her Detention must occasion great Charges, & Loss to the Owners. I am with great & sincere Respect, Sir, Your Excellency’s most obedient and most humble Servant2
B. Franklin
His Excellency the Count de Vergennes.—
Endorsed: M De R.
8. In L’Air de Lamotte’s hand. BF added the last six words of the complimentary close and the line below the signature.
9. BF sent the originals of Limozin’s and Carrol’s letters of Oct. 4 (above), and the petition that Carrol enclosed. JW, who was staying at Passy while WTF was in England, numbered and labeled them.
1. BF’s assertion was unsupported. When the admiralty court reached its decision in March, 1784, no consular convention was in place. Moreover, the convention that BF and Vergennes signed the following July—which was never ratified—did not provide for consuls’ adjusting matters that had already been decided in court: XLI, 320–32; XLII, 454–6.
2. On Oct. 23, Limozin, acting on BF’s orders, appeared before the admiralty at Le Havre and posted a bond for the amount that the court held was due to Burk: Limozin’s brevet de cautionnement, Oct. 23, 1784, Archives départementales de Seine-Maritime. According to an official notation on that bond, the admiralty immediately ordered Carrol’s papers returned to him so that the Mariamne could sail.
Vergennes sent translations of the present letter and its enclosures to Castries on Oct. 21. On Oct. 30, Castries replied that he had written for “éclaircissemens,” and would inform Vergennes as soon as he knew more. (Both letters are at the AAE.)