Review of “Improbable Patriot” by Harlow Giles Unger

Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, born on this day in history, was a brilliant inventor, musician, composer, businessman, diplomat, and the man most responsible for supplying critical aid to the floundering Americans during their revolution, thus ensuring its success. He was also a staunch advocate of the equality of man, influential in the court of Louis XV, and he worked tirelessly and at great expense to send the Americans munitions, gunpowder, clothing, tents, and other war matériel. He was also the prodigy who wrote “The Barber of Seville” and “The Marriage of Figaro” as well as inventing the wristwatch!

Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais

An early French supporter of American independence, Beaumarchais oversaw covert aid from the French and Spanish governments to supply arms and financial assistance to the rebels in the years before France’s formal entry into the war in 1778. He later struggled to recover money he had personally invested in the scheme.

Beaumarchais is still best known, however, for his theatrical works, especially the three Figaro plays. American history has largely forgotten him.

Historian Harlow Giles Unger seeks to redress this great injustice in a small but significant way by bringing his story to a contemporary American audience in the book Improbable Patriot.

Beaumarchais used three main arguments to convince the French government to help the American colonists: (1) revenge for its humiliating loss to Britain during the Seven Years’ War (known in America as The French and Indian War); (2) a chance to reclaim Canada; and (3) special trading privileges with the new colonies. But still the French were reluctant: they could not be seen by Britain in assisting the colonies since they were not ready to fight another war. Beaumarchais drafted a scheme to provision the Americans in such a way that the British could not prove the involvement of the French government. Furthermore, at the same time he would rid the French military of surplus or obsolete matériel (which would, however, still be valuable to the Americans) and enable them to restock with the money-in-kind to be paid by the Americans.

Although the French Government would help, it insisted that Beaumarchais come up with a significant portion of the money, and also agree to incur all risk on his own. Unfortunately, as was mentioned above, the American Congress refused to pay. After the war, John Jay, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, and Alexander Hamilton all pleaded with Congress to square accounts with Beaumarchais and — after he died– with his estate, but Congress consistently refused. It wasn’t until 1835 that the U.S. Government, about to make a claim of its own against France, agreed to settle with the Beaumarchais heirs, and paid them about 35 percent of what the government owed.

Statue of Beaumarchais by Louis Clausade (1895), in the 4th arrondissement of Paris

What specifically did Beaumarchais do? By the winter of 1776 the American Revolution was considered to be all but won by the British. Once numbering 30,000 men, Washington’s troops were reduced by desertions to some 5,200. They had no tents, and their feet were wrapped in rags, leaves, and twigs. They were out of ammunition. Congress refused to raise taxes to allocate funds for them. Beaumarchais borrowed money to procure everything they needed, including the ships and crews to get the goods to the Americans. On March 17, 1777, the first ship from France sailed into the harbor at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, carrying 12,000 muskets, 50 brass cannon, powder and ammunition, 1,000 tents, and clothes for 10,000 men. More ships followed. In all, Beaumarchais shipped supplies too them worth more than $210 million in today’s dollars, including more than 80 percent of the Continental Army’s entire supply of gunpowder! The deal was that the ships were to return from America filled with tobacco, rice, flour and wood. But they always returned empty. Nevertheless, Beaumarchais kept sending supplies. It is not an exaggeration to say that the war could not have been won without him.

Unger does not have much good to say about Congress, charging them with “incessant, often infantile backbiting that they euphemistically called congressional debate.” Some things never change…

Evaluation: Beaumarchais is a fascinating character, and Unger paints a sympathetic portrait of him as he gets victimized time after time by those who are jealous, greedy, corrupt, selfish, or who can’t resist taking advantage of the kindness of others. Beaumarchais’s contribution to the victory of the Continental Army should be required knowledge by American citizens.

Rating: 3.5/5

Published by University Press of New England, 2011