Produced by Roberta Staehlin, Henry Gardiner and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
Transcriber's Note: The original publication has been replicated faithfully except as shown in the Transcriber's Amendments at the end of the text. Words in italics are indicated like _this_. But the publisher also wanted to emphasize items in sentences already italicized, so he printed them in the regular font which is indicated like this: _The pirates then went to +Hispaniola+._ Superscripts are indicated like this: M^r Caron de Beaumarchais. Footnotes are located near the end of the Historical Introduction chapter.
[Illustration: Portrait of Beaumarchais, by Nattier, 1765]
_Diplôme d'instruction Primaire-Supérieure, Paris, 1905 Member of the Staff of the Vineland Research Laboratory_
WITH A FOREWORD BY JAMES M. BECK _Author of "The Evidence in the Case"_
BOSTON RICHARD G. BADGER THE GORHAM PRESS
"_We have been surprised that no descendant of Beaumarchais was invited to represent France at the unveiling of that Statue of Liberty, upon the pedestal of which his name would not be out of place by the side of that of Lafayette. Since 1870 Mr. Bigelow has invited his compatriots to ask themselves seriously if they have done their whole duty towards the memory of Beaumarchais._"
E. Lintilhac. "_Beaumarchais et ses oeuvres_," Paris, 1887.
If "good wine needs no bush" and a "good play needs no epilogue,"--and we have high authority for both these maxims,--then it should also be true that a good book needs no prologue, especially where, as in the case of _Beaumarchais and the War of American Independence_, the author has prefaced a valuable contribution to history by a scholarly and effective introduction.
Notwithstanding this, it gives me pleasure to introduce Miss Elizabeth S. Kite's work to the American public by a tribute to its value as a timely contribution alike to the truth of history and the spirit of patriotism. In these "times that try men's souls," the latter consideration may be the more important.
The historic tie, which binds together the two great Republics (France and the United States) in, please God, an indissoluble alliance, cannot be too constantly emphasized at this time.