3. Beaumarchais was introduced to Arthur Lee in London
While at Wilkes’ home in London, Beaumarchais met the American agent Arthur Lee. Lee was in London as the Massachusetts correspondent to the British government. It was Lee who first informed Beaumarchais of the desperate needs of the Continental Army facing the British in America. By the fall of 1775, while the Continental Army was at Cambridge preparing to besiege Boston, Beaumarchais was sending embellished reports of the American stand to Vergennes. A trickle of supplies from French covert supporters began to arrive in America via the French island colonies in the Caribbean. Meanwhile, Washington augmented his artillery with the captured weapons from Fort Ticonderoga.
Beaumarchais informed the French court of British plans to send a massive military and naval force to the colonies in the spring of 1776. He also reported the hiring of Hessian mercenaries. His reports to Vergennes, shared with the other close advisers to Louis XVI, finally convinced them to counsel the king to aid the Americans. The French military was ill-prepared for action, its fleet largely in mothballs. Louis finally agreed to aid the Americans, though only in secret, and through the shell company created by Beaumarchais. Beaumarchais still needed a means of delivering the supplies to the Americans, through a port which would not be suspected by the British. He used his contacts in Amsterdam to provide one.