Beaumarchais

40703 — Londres & Philadelphie i.e. Paris: Et se trouve par-tout. 1779. 8vo 19.7cm 56p. edges stained publisher's red bound in quarter calf backed marbled boards crushed green morocco label along the spine a fine clean copy . cgc. Adams 79-8b. Gephart 12818. Sabin 4182. Goldsmiths I-11908. Etcheverria & Wilkie 779/12. Fay 12. JFBell B-129. Caron de Beaumarchais 1732-1799 was a playwright watchmaker and adventurer whose best-known works are "The Marriage of Figaro" and "The Barber of Seville". At the behest of Joseph Duverney financier and advisor to Mme de Pompadour he was sent on several missions to England and to Spain to try to secure a monopoly on the slave trade; although unsuccessful he managed through other undertakings to become financially secure enough to purchase the post of "King's Secretary". Beaumarchais was already surreptitiously supplying arms to the American colonies when France came into the war officially in 1778 on the side of the Americans. He now organized a fleet of merchant ships whose purpose was to supply cannon and ammunition to the Continental Congress in exchange for produce especially tobacco. Forty years later his daughter was still waiting for compensation said to be approximately twenty million francs. As a supporter of the French Revolution Beaumarchais' position at the Court was suspect; he spent some time in prison and then fled to England and thence to the Continent; his Paris property was confiscated. He returned to Paris in 1796 but died in relative poverty in 1799. This work was written in response to an earlier work by Edward Gibbon concerning the assistance given by France to the Americans during the Revolutionary War and is "a recital of French and U.S. grievances against Great Britain and a justification of French policy." - Etcheverria & Wilkie. Londres & Philadelphie [i.e. Paris]: Et se trouve par-tout. 1779 unknown