The New-Jersey gazette — Burlington [N.J.], 1778-12-23 00:00:00, page 1

NEW-JERSEY GAZETTE.
From the Pennsylvania Packet, Dec. 15.
To SILAS DEANE, Esq.
AFTER reading a few lines of your address
to the public in the Pennsylvania Packet
of December 6th, I can truly Gy, that
concern got the better of curiosity, and
I felt an unwillingness to go through it.
Mr. Deane must very well know that as I
have no interest in, io likewise am I no stranger to
his negotiations and contrasts in France, his difference
with his colleagues, the reason of his return to Ame
rica, and the matters which have occurred since.
All these are to me familiar things; and while l ean
but be furprized at the conduct of Mr. Deane, I la
ment the unnecessary torture he has imprudently oc
casioned. That disagreements will arise between
individuals, even to the perplexity of a State, is
nothing new, but that they should be outrageously
brought forward,by one, whose Ration abroad ihould
have taught him a delicacy of manners and even an
excess of prudence, is something strange. The mind
of a living public is quickly alarmed and easily tor
mented. It not only fuffers by the stroke, but is
frequently fretted by the cure, and ought therefore
to be tenderly dealt with, and never ta be trifled with.
It feels firft, and reasons afterwards. Its jealousy
keeps vibrating between the accused and the accuser,
and on a failure of proof always fixes on the latter.
Had Mr. Deane's address produced no uneasiness in
the body he appeals to, it would have been a sign,
not of tranquillity, but death ; and though it is pain
ful to fee it unnecessarily tortured, it is pleasant to
contemplate the living cause.
Mr. Deane is particularly circumstanced. He has
advantages which seldom happen, and when they do
happen, ought to be'ufed with the nicest care and
the Urictelt honor. He has the opportunity of telling
his own tale and there is none to reply to him. Two
of the gentlemen he so freely censures are three thou
sand miles off, and the other two hefo freely affronts
are Members of Congress, one of them likewise, Col.
R. H. Lee is absent in Virginia, and however painful
may be their feelings, they must attend the progres
sive conduct of the house. No Member in Congress
can individually take up the matter without being in
consistent, and none of the public understands it
fufficiently. With these advantages Mr. Deane ought
to be nicely and dritliy the gentleman, in his lan
guage, his assertions, his intimations and his facts.
He presents himfelf, as his own evidence, upon his
honor, and any misrepresentation or disingenuous
trifling in him will be fatal.
Mr. Deane begins his address with a general dis
play of his services in France, and strong insinuations
against the Hon. Arthur and William Lee, he brings
his complaints down to the time of signing the treaty,
and from thence to the fourth of March, when he
received the following order of Congress which he
inserts at large.
I am obliged to tell Mr. Deane that this arrange
ment is somewhat uncandid, for on the reading it,
it creates an opinion and likewise carries an appear
ance that Mr. Deane was only sent for, as the neces
sary and proper person from whom Congress might
obtain a history of their affairs, and learn the cha
racters of their foreign Agents, Commissioners and
Ambassadors, after which Mr. Deane was to return.
Is Mr. Deane so little matter of address as not to
know that censure may be politely conveyed by an
apology : For however Mr. Deane may chufe to re
present or misrepresent the matter, the truth is, that
his contracts and engagements in France, had so in
volved and embarrassed Congress, that they found
it necessary and resolved to recall him, that is ordered
him borne, to give an account of his own conduct,
and likewise to save him froma train of disagreeable
"WHEREAS it is of the greatest importance
" that Congress Ihould at this critical conjuncture be
" well informed of the state of affairs in Europe.
" And whereas Congress have resolved that the Hon.
" Silas Deane, Esq. be recalled from the Court of
" France, and have appointed another Commissioner
"to supply his place there. Ordered, that the Com
" mittee for foreign correspondence, write to the
" Hon. Silas Deane, and direct him to embrace the
" firft opportunity of returning to America, and upon
" his arrival to repair with all pofiible dii'patch to
" Congress."
Mr. Deane then lays, " and having placed my pa
" pers and yours in fafety, I left Paris the 30th to
" embark for my native country, on board that fleet
" which your great and generous ally lent out for
" your a ffiftance, in full confdence that I ihould not
" be detained on the business I was sent for."
[Vol. I.]
In C ONGRE S S, December 8, 1777.
WEDNESDAY, December 23, 1778.
consequences, which must have arisen to him had he
continued in France. I would not be supposed to
insinuate, that he might be thought unfafe but unfit.
There is a certain and necessary association of dignity
between the person and the employment which per
haps did not appear when Mr. Deane was considered
the Ambassador. His address to the public confirms
the justness of this remark. The spirit and language
of it differs exceedingly from that cool penetrating
judgment and refinement of manners and expression
which fits, and is absolutely necessary in the Pleni
potentiary. His censures are coarie and vehement,
a^d when he speaks of himfelf, he begs, nay almolt
weeps to be believed. —It was the intricacy of Mr.
Deane's own official affairs, his multiplied contracts in
France before the arrival of Dr, Franklin or any of the
other Commissioners : His affirming authorities, and
entering into engagements, in the time of his Com
mercial Agency, for which he had neither commission
nor inftruCtion, and the general unsettled state of his
accounts that were among the reasons that produced
the motion for recalling and superseding him.—Why
then does Mr. Deane endeavour to lead the atten
tion of the public to a wrong objeCt, and to bury the
real reasons, under a tumult of new and perhaps un
necessary suspicions ?
Mr. Deane in the beginning of his address to the
public fays, " What I write to you I would have
"said to your Representatives, their ears have been
" shut against me, by an attention to matters, which
" my refped for them induces me to believe were of
" more importance."
In this paragraph Mr. Deane's excuse becomes his
accuser, and his juftification is his offence, for if
the greater importance of other matters is supposed
and given by himfelf as a reason, why he was not
heard, it is likewise a fufficient reason why he ought
not to have complained that " their ears were Jbut,"
and a good reason why he ought to have waited a
more convenient time. But besides the inconsistency
of this charge, there is something in it that will fuffer
by an enquiry, and I am sorry that Mr. Deane's im
prudence has obliged me to mention a circumstance
which affeds his honour as a gentleman, his reputa
tion as a man. In order to be clearly understood on
this head, I am obliged to go back with Mr. Deane
to the time of his quitting France on account of his
being recalled. " i left Paris, fays Mr. Deane, on
" the 30th of March, 1777, to embark for my na
" tive country, having placed my papers and yours
" in fafety," would any body have supposed that a
gentleman in the character of a public Commercial
Agent, and afterwards in that of a public Minister,
would return home after feeing himfelf both recalled
and superseded, and not bring with him his papers
and vouchers, and why he has done so must appear
to every one exceedingly unaccountable ? After Mr.
Deane's arrival he had two audiences with Congress
in August last, in neither of which did he offer the
leaf tcharge against the gentlemen he has so loudly
upbraided in his address to the public, neither has
he yet accounted for his expenditure of public mo
ney, which as it might have been done by a written
state of accounts, might for that reason have been
done at any time, and was a part of the business
which required no audience.
There is something curiously intricate and evasive
in Mr. Deane's faying in his address, that he left
France " in full confidence that he ihould not be de
" tained on the business he was sent for." And the
only end it can answer to him is to furnifh out a pre
sent excuse for not producing his papers. Mr. Deane
had no right, either from the literal or implied sense
of the resolution itfelf to suppose that he ihould re
turn to France in his former public character; or that
he was "sent for," as he stiles it, on any other per
sonal business than that which related to himfelf.
Mr. Deane must be fenlible, if he will but candidly
reflect, that as an Agent only, he greatly exceeded
his line, and embarrassed the Congress, the conti
nent, the army and himfelf.
Mr. Deane's address to the public is dated Nov. —,
but without any day of the month, and here a new
feene of ungenteel evasion opens. On the last day
of that month, viz. the 30th, he addressed a letter
to Congress fignifying his intentions of returning to
France and pressing to have his affairs brought to
some conclusion, which, I presume, on account of
the absence of his papers could not well be done,
therefore Mr. Deane's address to the public must be
written before the 30th, and consequently before his
letter to Congress, which carries an appearance of
its being only a feint in order to make a confufed
diversion in his favor at the time his affairs ihould
come under consideration.
What favours this opinion is, that on the next day 4
THE
On the appearance of Mr. Deane's address of the
fifth, the public became jealously uneasy, and well
they might. They were unacquainted with the train
of circumstances that preceded and attended it, and
were naturally led to suppose, that Mr. Deane, on
account of the station he had filled, must be too
much a gentleman to deceive them. It was Mr.
Deane's particular fortune to grow into consequence
from accident. Sent to France as a Commercial
Agent under the appointment of a Committee, he
rote as a matter of convenience to the station of a
Commissioner of Congress ; and with what dignity
he might fill out that character, the public will judge
from his conduct since ; and perhaps be led to sub
stitute convenience as an excuse for the appointment.
A delicacy of difficulties likewise arose in Congress
on the appearance of the said address; for setting
aside the matter, the irregular manner of it, as a pro
ceeding, was a breach of decency ; and as Mr.
Deane, after being notified to attend an enquiry
into foreign affairs, had circumstantially withdrawn
from that mode, by appealing to the public, and at
the fame time said " their ears were Jbut against him,"
it was therefore given as a reason by some, that to
take any notice of Mr. Deane in the interim would
look like suppressing his public information, if he
had any to give, and consequently would imply dif
honour on the House ; and that as he had transferred
his case to the public, before it had been rejected by
the Congress, he ought therefore to be left with the
public, till he had done with them and they with
him ; and that whether his information was true or
not, it was an insult on the people, because it was
making them the ladder, on which he insulted their
Representatives, by an unjust complaint of neglect.
Others who might anticipate the anxiety of the pub
lic, and apprehend difeontents would arise from a
supposed inattention, were for adopting measures to
prevent them, and of consequence inclined to a dif
ferent line of conduct, and this division of sentiment
on what might be supposed, the honour of the
House, occasioned the then President, Henry Laurens,
Esq. who adhered to the former opinion, to resign
the chair; the majority on the sentiments was a single
vote. In this place I take the liberty of remarking,
for the benefit of succeeding generations, that the
Honorable President bed re-mentioned having filled
that station for one year in Odober last, made his
resignation of the Presidency at the expiration of the
year, left any example taken from his continuance
might hereafter become inconvenient. I have an
additional fatisfadion in mentioning this ufeful histo
rical anecdote, because it is done wholly unknown
to the gentleman to whom it relates, or to any oth<r
gentleman in or out of Congress. He was replaced
by a unanimous vote. But to return to my narration.
In the Pennsylvania Packet of Dec. Bth, Francis
Lightfoot Lee, Esq. brother to the gentlemen so
rudely treated in Mr. Deane's publication, and the
only one now present, put in a short address to the
public, requeuing a suspension of their judgment
till the matter could be fully investigated by those
whose immediate business it became; meaning Con
gress. And Mr. Deane in the paper of the ioth, pub
lished another note, in which he informs, “ that the
" Honorable Congress did, on Saturday morning the
" sth instant, aflign Monday evening to hear him."
But why does Mr. Deane conceal the resolution of
Congress of December ift, in consequence of which
he was notified to attend regularly an enquiry into
the state of foreign affairs ? By so ' doing, he endea
vours to lead the public into a belief that his being
As an enquiry into the state of foreign affairs na
turally and effectually included all and every part of
Mr. Deane's, he was thereupon regularly notified
by letter to attend; and on the fourth he wrote again
to Congress, acquainting them with his having re
ceived that notification and expressed his thanks ;
yet on the day following, viz. the fifth, he published
his extraordinary address in the news-papers, which
on account of its unsupported matter, the fury of
its language and temper, and its inconsistency with
other parts of his conduct, is incompatible with that
character (which on account of the station he had
been honoured with, and the sense that Ihould have
impressed him in consequence thereof,) he ought to
have maintained.
that is, December id, and partly in consequence of
Mr. Deane's letter to them on the 30th, the Congress
entered the following refolutioa.
In CONGRESS, December 1, 1778.
" Resolved, That after to-morrow Congress will
" meet two hours at least each evening, beginning
" at fix o'clock, Saturday evenings excepted, until
" the present state of their foreign affairs be fully
" considered."
[Numb. 55.]