TÁQUEOPARIU!!! SÉRIO ISSO????

É sobre a Independência Americana ~MAS~ algumas partes lembram a Brasília do Congresso, do Planalto, da Esplanada et caterva. [3ª parte do 4º Volume]

Getting Aid from France

To open the ports of America to trade for munitions and with the West Indies the Americans were required to take a step toward independence almost as momentous as throwing open the ports in defiance of the navigation acts: they had to negotiate as a separate country with the European countries supplying the munitions, especially with the major supplier, France.

As early as July 1775 the Continental Congress began its first diplomatic efforts by sidestepping the British government and speaking directly to their fellow subjects. An address stating its wish for equal liberty was sent to the City of London. Appeals to the people of Canada and Jamaica to join in the colonial cause, and a particularly noteworthy address sent to the people of Ireland, were the first attempts to export the revolution overseas. Congress noted the grievances of the Irish under British rule, and suggested that both peoples should engage in a common struggle for liberty, albeit within the framework of the British Empire. The subservient Irish Parliament, however, merely moved to endorse the British war of suppression against the colonies.

At the same time Congress was moving toward liberty and independence, however, it was taking some steps at home toward oligarchic rule Of necessity, it had already begun to function through various standing committees to discharge its vital responsibilities for the war effort. Generally these functioned under the strict control of Congress itself and were always open to its guidance and supervision. But in late 1775 Congress created two "secret committees," and as their name implies, they acted in secret and on their own initiative, without checking with Congress. Instead, Congress only had the power (largely unexercised) to ask for their records at its discretion. A great deal of working power was thereby put into the hands of a few men who dealt, furthermore, in the particularly sensitive area of foreign affairs. On September 18 Congress created the nine-man Secret Committee to handle the deals with foreign countries for munitions; on November 29 it created the five- (later six-) man Committee of Secret Correspondence, to correspond "with our friends" abroad. An omen for the future was the highly conservative complexion of the Committee of Secret Correspondence, consisting of John Jay, John Dickinson, Benjamin Harrison, and Thomas Johnson, who were archconservatives, and Benjamin Franklin, a thoroughgoing opportunist with highly conservative instincts. The establishment of this committee came as a response to the prodding by John Adams, Patrick Henry, and Samuel Chase of Maryland to open full diplomatic relations with France.

Soon the two secret committees were able to work very closely and cozily together. This close working relationship was embodied in the person of the young Philadelphia merchant Robert Morris, destined to become the great Mephistophelean figure of the revolutionary era. At the turn of the year, he became a member of both committees; he virtually ran the Committee of Secret Correspondence himself throughout 1776 and quickly became the leading figure in the Secret Committee. He was, in fact, to serve as the second chairman of the latter committee, succeeding his friend and partner, Thomas Willing of the firm of Willing and Morris. Thus catapulted to the very seat of power in the American colonies, the highly conservative Morris was able to make himself the center of a veritable plunderbund, which unabashedly and systematically looted the public purse for their private profit.

One of the first deeds of the Secret Committee was to substitute for regular market purchases a system of contracting—the ancestor of modern "cost-plus" government contracts. Under this system some favored firms were selected by the government to purchase (or to produce) certain goods, which the government pledges to buy at a rate that will give the merchants a guaranteed margin of profit, a lucrative special privilege eagerly fought for by business then and since. The Secret Committee established a handsome rate of profit on such mercantile purchases and often advanced the merchants the initial capital to buy the supplies. Moreover, Congress had thoughtfully allowed only merchants specifically to purchase supplies abroad, and as we have seen, this condition obtained until April 1776. This authorization came from the Secret Committee, and it was soon clear enough that control of this committee was the open sesame to special privilege and high guaranteed fortunes to be made out of the revolutionary effort.

Control of the committee Morris and Willing had, and they lost no time in exploiting their position. One of the first acts of the committee was to grant heavy contracts to the firm of Willing and Morris. These commission contracts were not the only form of subsidy the company enjoyed. The committee now quickly granted it a startling contract for supplying gunpowder, guaranteeing a high flat price of fourteen dollars a barrel, whether or not the powder reached American stores safely! This assured Willing and Morris a clear profit of $60,000 without even a fleeting risk of loss. Other members of the Secret Committee also came in for their share of the loot. John Langdon of New Hampshire provided contracts to his own firm; Philip J. Livingston routed contracts to Livingston and Turnbull of New York; Silas Deane of Connecticut furnished commissions to his brother Barnabas. But heading the associates in plunder were Willing and Morris. All in all, the Secret Committee paid out over $2 million in war contracts from 1775 to 1777, and of these nearly $500,000, or one-fourth of all disbursements, went directly to the firm of Willing and Morris. Morris also directly shared with fellow members of the committee the largesse of nearly $300,000 in other contracts. Morris and Willing soon established a far-flung network of agents and followers, including leading merchants Benjamin Harrison (a member of the Committee of Secret Correspondence) and Carter Braxton, both of whom consequently received handsome contracts from the Secret Committee. Two particularly important committee agents were soon to double as congressional envoys to the French, William Bingham of Philadelphia, and Silas Deane of Westfield, Connecticut.

Deane was a prototype of the young lawyer with a keen eye to the main ;hance. He had launched his career by marrying the widow of a wealthy merchant, then capped that by divorcing her and marrying a member of the powerful Saltonstall family, thus getting himself profitably launched in Connecticut politics. Hardly had he latched onto a good thing in the operations of the Secret Committee, however, when the ungrateful voters of Connecticut unceremoniously turned him out of Congress in the elections of October 1775.