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enabled, with this vessel armed for war, the Ariel, and certain American frigates, to undertake some of those daring expeditions he had so often proposed to government. This' project failed, and he begged for the Terpsichore, another French ship, and engaged his personal friends to lend their influence to obtain it for him. Their solicitations did not succeed. France was now in the heat of the war,-the ministry were occupied with other subjects, and also evidently a little tired of the importunity of the Chevalier Jones,-and Franklin was disappointed and vexed at the delays which had taken place in forwarding those stores it had cost him so much to obtain, and of which the army stood in such pressing want. No sooner, however, had the Alliance left port, than, without wasting another thought on the affair, which no thought could amend, Franklin writes with the most business-like promptitude, "That affair is over, and the business is now to get the goods out as well as we can. I am perfectly bewildered with the different schemes that have been proposed to me for this purpose by Mr. Williains, Mr. Ross, yourself, and M. de Chaumont. Mr. Williams was for purchasing ships. I told him I had not the money, but he still urges it. You and Mr. Ross proposed borrowing the Ariel. joined in the application for that ship. We obtained her. She was to convey all that the Alliance could not take. Now you find her insufficient. An additional ship has already been asked, and could not be obtained. I think therefore it will be best that you take as much into the Ariel as you can and depart with it. For the rest I must apply to the government to contrive some means of transporting it in their own ships. This is my present opinion; and when I have once got rid of this business, no consideration shall tempt me to meddle again with such matters, as I never understood them."

I

Before Jones could get off on this errand, so necessary to America, but not much calculated, as he felt, to increase his glory, and therefore, on his part, not very zealously managed,

a change took place in the French Ministry which revived his hopes. The Marquis de Castries succeeded Sartine at the head of the marine department, and the virtuous Maurepas became prime minister. To both of these distinguished persons Jones lost no time in recommending himself by congratulatory letters; along with which were transmitted fresh copies of the maritime projects formerly sent to their predecessors in office. He also wished, before leaving Europe, to obtain from them, as the persons in actual power, testimonies in his favour, addressed to Congress, equivalent to those he had obtained from Sartine. His philanthropy, patriotism, and disinterested services, were once more duly set forth to the new ministers. He endeavoured to bring Mr. Silas Deane and Dr. Bancroft into his views, and again employed the influence of his friend the Duke of Rochefoucault. The ship so earnestly solicited was not obtained, nor does it appear that the American ministers concurred in the request.

Though on an after investigation Jones came clear out of this affair, it is obvious that, had he been half as anxious to forward the military stores as to serve the republic in a way more consonant to his own taste, the Ariel might long before this period have reached the shores of America.

Towards the end of June the Alliance had put to sea, and Jones still remained in port, when in November accounts were received of the arrival of that ship at Boston. From his friend Dr. Cooper of that town Dr. Franklin received an account of the issue of Lee's factious proceedings, and of Landais's mutiny, which he instantly transmitted to the person most likely to sympathize with his feelings regarding that mortifying affair. The extract of Dr. Cooper's letter was enclosed to the commodore in a letter from Mr. Temple Franklin, the grandson and secretary of Franklin, the minister himself being at this time confined to bed:

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BOSTON, September 8th, 1780. "The Alliance arrived here some weeks ago, with Dr. Lee, who is still in town. This vessel appears to me to have left France in an unjustifiable manner, though I cannot yet obtain the particular circumstances. Landais did not hold his command through the voyage, which was either relinquished by him or wrested from him. All the passengers, as well as

officers and sailors, are highly incensed against him, and Dr. Lee as much as any one. A court of inquiry is now sitting upon this matter, in which the Doctor has given a full evidence against the captain, which represents him as insane."

It was unfortunate that Dr. Lee was so late in making this discovery.

The tardy and inauspicious voyage of the Ariel, so long delayed and so often obstructed, was at length commenced. on the 8th of October. On the following night the ship en

countered a tremendous gale, which was felt over almost all Europe. She rode out the storm for two days dismasted, and the waters around her covered with the wrecks of other vessels; and on the 13th put back, in a very disabled condition to L'Orient. The arms, the most important part of the stores, were so much damaged, that it was necessary they

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should be unshipped and left; and before the vessel could be repaired and freshly provisioned, it was the middle of December. Franklin, though too reasonable to complain of a delay occasioned by the violence of the elements, grudged, nevertheless, the expense to which he had been repeatedly put for new out-fits, grudged, but passed the bills drawn on him ; giving, however, his less considerate friend sundry precautionary hints.

"I suppose," he writes, "you thought it for the good of the service, as you say you did, to order that great quantity of medicine for the seventy-four-gun ship, yet, after what I had written to you of my difficulties, it still seems to me that you ought not to have done it without informing me and obtaining my consent; and I have only to be thankful that you did not order all her stores, sails, and rigging, anchors, powder, &c. I think you must be sensible, on reflection, that with regard to me it was wrong, and that it ought not to be expected from me to be always ready and able to pay the demands that every officer in the service may saddle me with. This affair, however, is done with, and I shall say and think no more about it."

Jones gave such an explanation as was at least meant to satisfy the frugal statesman; to whom, on the 18th December, he once again addressed a farewell letter. He also took leave once more of his friends and patrons in the capital. One of his valedictory epistles, addressed to Madame D'Ormoy, may be received as the best exposition that can be given of his feelings at the close of his short but brilliant career in Europe:-"I cannot leave France without expressing how much I feel myself honoured and obliged by the generous attention that you have shown to my reputation in your journal. I will ever have the most ardent desire to merit the spontaneous praise of beauty and her pen; and it is impossible to be more grateful than I am for the very polite attentions I lately received at Paris and Versailles. My particular