To James Madison from Louis-Marie Turreau, 14 January 1807 (Abstract)
From Louis-Marie Turreau, 14 January 1807 (Abstract)
§ From Louis-Marie Turreau. 14 January 1807, Washington. Has the honor to remind JM that at the beginning of the previous year and during the session of Congress, Mr. Chevallié, attorney in fact for the heirs of Mr. de Beaumarchais, took various steps with the secretary of the treasury to obtain a liquidation of the debt contracted by the United States with Beaumarchais.1
At the request of the attorney-in-fact to whom the treasury opposed Beaumarchais’s receipt to place to the debt of his heirs one million livres tournois,2 Turreau addressed on 1 January 1806 to the secretary of the treasury an official note that left no doubt of the destination of the million in dispute,3 the employment of which, agreeably to the orders of the king, was consecrated to a special and secret service and consequently had not and could not have had any connection with the transactions, bargains, supplies and generally with any mercantile operations with the government of the United States of America in which Beaumarchais might have been concerned.4
This note, or rather this official declaration of the minister plenipotentiary of France, ought to have removed the only obstacle opposed to the entire liquidation with Beaumarchais’s heirs because the justice of their claim is demonstrated to conviction; and they were far from expecting that the secretary of the treasury would still retain doubts regarding the legitimacy of their credit.
The heirs of Beaumarchais now confide their interests to the protection of the French government as well as to the justice of the federal government; and Turreau, in declaring to JM that this affair, on being examined in France with the most scrupulous attention, has presented to the judgment of all enlightened and impartial men nothing but an incontestable conclusion in favor of the heirs of Beaumarchais, will add that it is no longer to a mere attorney-in-fact that the heirs have recourse to obtain a justice too long refused but to the French government itself, which calls, with confidence and through the organ of its minister plenipotentiary, the attention of JM to interests no less sacred than the cause that produced them.
When the French government raises its voice in favor of Beaumarchais’s unfortunate heirs, Turreau thinks it useless to recall to view the nature and importance of the services that Beaumarchais rendered to the cause of independence. It would be to turn the mind back toward a period equally glorious for the two nations, but that France, always generous, knows how to forget because the United States remembers it.
After the ministerial declaration respecting the employment of the million, a declaration that doubtless (and as a consequence of those mutual sentiments of respect and confidence that governments ought to have for communications of this nature) would have been sufficient for the secretary of the treasury if his powers had not been so limited, it is the duty of Turreau, agreeably to the formal and repeated instructions that he has received in this respect, to address himself directly and in the name of his government to that of the United States and to request from the secretary of state that at length justice should be done to the claim of Beaumarchais’s heirs. The French government would not have honored this claim with support if it were not founded on the immutable principles of reason and of right.
Tr (AAE: Political Correspondence, U.S., 60:29r–30v); Tr and enclosures (DNA: RG 46, Legislative Proceedings, President’s Messages, 9A-E2). First Tr 4 pp.; in French; signed by Turreau, with a note at the bottom: “Pour copie conforme [true copy].” Second Tr in Wagner’s hand, translating from Turreau’s original French; submitted to the Senate with a heading in Wagner’s hand: “Note of the Minister Plenipotentiary of France to the Secretary of State” and his closing note: “Faithfully translated: Jacob Wagner Ch. Clk. Dep. State.” Second Tr and enclosures printed in ASP, Claims, 335–37, and in the Philadelphia United States’ Gazette, 13 Feb. 1807. For enclosures, see n. 4.
1. As heir of Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais and with representation from John Augustus Chevallié, Amélie Eugénie Caron de Beaumarchais sought to settle a claim against the United States for supplies Pierre-Augustin had provided during the American Revolution (PJM-SS, 2:243 n. 1; Boyd, Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 41:384–85 n.).
2. The Treasury Department claimed that Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais had received compensation through a payment of one million livres from Louis XVI in 1776 (Boyd, Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 41:384–85 n.).
3. For Turreau’s 1 January 1806 petition to Albert Gallatin on behalf of Amélie Eugénie Caron de Beaumarchais, see DNA: RG 233, Committee Reports and Papers, Committee on Claims, 9A-C1.1.
4. Turreau enclosed a “Claim of Mr. Beaumarchais to a million against the U.States as payment for supplies which he furnished them” (16 pp.) and a cover letter for this claim addressed to JM (1 p.), both dated 14 January 1807 and translated by Wagner from the original French. The cover letter reads: “I have the honor to address to you enclosed an answer to the objections made by the Secretary of the Treasury to a complete settlement with the heirs of Mr. Beaumarchais. This answer is annexed to the note which I have had the honor to address to you on this Subject.” For the Treasury Department’s objections to Beaumarchais’s claim, see Gallatin to JM, 20 Nov. 1802, PJM-SS, 4:127. Thomas Jefferson submitted to Congress copies of Wagner’s translations (Jefferson to Congress, 6 Feb. 1807, privately owned; printed in ASP, Claims, 334). A copy of the Tr of Turreau’s cover letter was enclosed in JM’s 10 December 1807 letter to the House of Representatives (1 p.; DNA: RG 233, Reports and Communications from the Secretary of State, 6A-E1).