On the 10th of January, 1776, three weeks before the declaration of independence, M.de Vergennes secretly remitted a million to M.de Beaumarchais; two months later the same sum was intrusted to him in the name of the King of Spain.
Beaumarchais alone was to appear in the affair and to supply the insurgent Americans with arms and ammunition.

"You will found," he had been told, "a great commercial house, and you will try to draw into it the money of private individuals; the first outlay being now provided, we shall have no further hand in it, the affair would compromise the government too much in the eyes of the English." It was under the style and title of Rodrigo Hortalez and Co.

that the first instalment of supplies, to the extent of more than three millions, was forwarded to the Americans; and, notwithstanding the hesitation of the ministry and the rage of the English, other instalments soon followed.

Beaumarchais was henceforth personally interested in the enterprise; he had commenced it from zeal for the American cause, and from that yearning for activity and initiative which characterized him even in old age.

"I should never have succeeded in fulfilling my mission here without the indefatigable, intelligent, and generous efforts of M.de Beaumarchais," wrote Silas Deane to the secret committee of Congress: "the United States are more indebted to him, on every account, than to any other person on this side of the ocean." Negotiations were proceeding at Paris; Franklin had joined Silas Deane there.