Connecticut resident Silas Deane, not Benjamin Franklin, was responsible for winning French backing for the American Revolution, maintains law professor Joel Richard Paul in his new book, “Unlikely Allies, How a Merchant, a Playwright and a Spy Saved the American Revolution.”
The conventional view is that Deane, a Wethersfield merchant, was a minor player in securing French support that was instrumental in the American victory. But Paul argues that the traditional belief is all wrong. Deane drafted the terms of the Franco-American alliance. He also helped expose a cross-dressing French diplomat who was blackmailing King Louis XVI, an act that freed the king to the support the American Revolution with arms, the arms he helped obtain were the key to an American victory at Saratoga, a battle that turned the tide in revolution.
Deane was latter accused of treason due to his poor handling of expense receipts in France. According to Paul, he was falsely accused by Arthur Lee of Virginia, who held a grudge against Deane. The author, a California lawyer and former Connecticut resident, came to his startling conclusion after wading through personal papers and correspondence held by the Connecticut Historical Society.
The title of the book refers to Deane, playwright Caron de Beaumarchais, and Chevalier d’Eon, the cross-dressing French officer working as a spy. The book is exciting and full of political intrigue, according to reviewers
