11. Beaumarchais and Hortalez et Cie collected an impressive amount of supplies in just six months
Between June 1776 and December of that year, Hortalez et Cie gathered in the ports of France a staggering amount of war materials for the American cause. From the French arsenals, the company purchased 200 field pieces, over 300,000 musket flints, thousands of muskets, and over 100 tons of the finest gunpowder known to the western world. All had been declared surplus by the French engineer assigned to the task. The massive movement of so much military supply to the ports of Le Havre and Toulon were impossible for the British to miss. The British minister to Versailles noted the movement and reported it to Lord North’s cabinet.
Protests to the French government were answered with the papers of a private company going about its legitimate business. It was a subject over which the British government had no jurisdiction. Simply put, to the French government it was none of London’s business. Beaumarchais, by December 1776, had in his inventories complete uniforms, weapons, pairs of shoes, knives, bayonets, cartridge boxes, and other items sufficient to fully outfit 30,000 men. As ships were loaded, supposedly with supplies needed in the French West Indies, the British minister protested to Vergennes, who answered with a Gallic shrug. He also observed that as a royalist he had no interest in supporting the Americans.