Silas Deane (September 23, 1789) was an American merchant, politician, and diplomat, and a supporter of American independence. Deane served as a delegate to the Continental Congress, where he signed the Continental Association, and then became the first foreign diplomat from the United States to France, where he helped negotiate the 1778 Treaty of Alliance that allied France with the United States during the American Revolutionary War. 

Near the end of the war, Congress charged Deane with financial impropriety, and the British intercepted and published some letters in which he had implied that the American cause was hopeless. After the war, Deane lived in Ghent and London and died under mysterious circumstances while attempting to return to America.

Early life and family
Deane was born on  in Groton, Connecticut, to blacksmith Silas Deane and his wife Hannah Barker. The younger Silas was able to obtain a full scholarship to Yale and graduated in 1758. In April 1759, he was hired to tutor a young Edward Bancroft in Hartford, Connecticut. In 1761, Deane was admitted to the bar and practiced law for a short time outside of Hartford before moving to Wethersfield, Connecticut, and establishing a thriving business as a merchant. 

Deane married twice, both times to wealthy widows from Wethersfield. In 1763, he married Mehitable (Nott) Webb after assisting her with the settlement of her first husband's estate. They had one son, Jesse, born in 1764. Mehitable died in 1767. In 1770, Deane married Elizabeth (Saltonstall) Evards, granddaughter of Connecticut Governor Gurdon Saltonstall of the Massachusetts Saltonstall family. Elizabeth died in 1777 while Silas was in France.  Both Mehitable and Elizabeth were buried in the Old Wethersfield Village Cemetery.

Continental Congress
In 1768, Deane was elected to the Connecticut House of Representatives; in 1769, he was appointed to the Wethersfield Committee of Correspondence; and from 1774 to 1776, he served as a delegate from Connecticut to the Continental Congress.

While a member of Congress, Deane used his influence to obtain a commission in the Continental Army for his stepson Samuel B. Webb, who had accompanied him to Philadelphia. Deane excelled in the committee work of Congress, helping to coordinate the attack on Fort Ticonderoga and to establish the United States Navy.

A dispute arose between Deane and fellow Connecticut delegate Roger Sherman over the appointment of Israel Putnam as a major general under George Washington's command. This dispute led the Connecticut legislature to replace Deane as a delegate to Congress; but instead of returning to Connecticut, Deane remained in Philadelphia to assist Congress.

France

On March 2, 1776, Congress appointed Deane as a secret envoy to France with the mission of inducing the French government to grant financial aid to the colonies. He began negotiating with French Foreign Minister Comte de Vergennes as soon as he arrived in Paris. Deane organized the shipment of arms and munitions to the colonies with the assistance of Pierre Beaumarchais, the playwright and outspoken supporter of American independence. Deane also tacitly approved the plot of Scotsman James Aitken (John the Painter) to destroy Royal Navy stores and dockyards in Portsmouth and Plymouth, England, on behalf of the Continental cause.

Deane's position was officially recognized after Benjamin Franklin and Arthur Lee arrived in Paris in December 1776, with orders from Congress appointing the trio as the diplomatic delegation to France. Deane recruited the services of several foreign soldiers to the cause, including Marquis de Lafayette, Baron Johann de Kalb, Thomas Conway, Casimir Pulaski, and Baron von Steuben. For a variety of reasons, many of the foreign officers were unpopular in America, and many in Congress blamed Deane for their behavior, leading them to recall him on December 8, 1777.

On February 6, 1778, Deane and the other commissioners signed the Treaties of Amity and Commerce and of Alliance, officially creating the alliance between France and the American colonies.

Accusations in Congress
On March 4, 1778, Deane received a letter from James Lovell containing the recall order from Congress. Lovell only mentioned giving a report to Congress about European affairs, and Deane fully expected to be sent back to Paris within a few months. France sent Deane back home aboard a warship. Louis XVI also presented Deane with a portrait framed with diamonds, and both Vergennes and Franklin wrote letters of commendation.

Deane arrived in Philadelphia on July 14, 1778, and was shocked when Congress accused him of financial impropriety on the basis of reports by his fellow commissioner Arthur Lee. Because Deane had left his account books in Paris, he was neither able to properly defend himself nor seek reimbursement for money he had spent procuring supplies in France. (While he waited to address Congress, Deane stayed with Benedict Arnold, who had just been appointed military governor of Philadelphia.)

In a long and bitter dispute over the charges, Deane was defended before Congress by John Jay. He published a public defense in the December 5, 1778, issue of Pennsylvania Packet entitled The Address of Silas Deane to the Free and Virtuous Citizens of America, in which he attacked Arthur Lee, other members of the Lee family, and their associates. Arthur's brothers Richard Henry Lee and Francis Lightfoot Lee both denounced Deane's accusations as libelous and injurious to the American cause. On January 14, 1779, Deane replied in the Pennsylvania Packet, listing eight ships that had sailed from France with supplies because of his efforts. Congress offered him $10,000 in depreciated Continental currency in compensation, but Deane refused, believing the amount too small. Deane was allowed to return to Paris in 1780 to settle his affairs and attempt to assemble the records in dispute. On arrival, he discovered that he was nearly ruined financially because the value of his investments had plummeted, and some ships carrying his merchandise had been captured by the British.

In March 1781, King George III approved a request from Lord North to bribe Deane in an attempt to recruit him as a spy and to influence Congress. However, in mid-July they cancelled their plan after the king read intercepted letters in which Deane described the military situation of the Colonies as hopeless and suggested a rapprochement with Britain. Deane's correspondence was then forwarded to General Henry Clinton, who provided copies to Loyalist James Rivington to publish in his newspaper Rivington's Royal Gazette in New York City. Deane was then accused of treason by his fellow colonists. Rivington may have been a spy as a member of the Culper Ring, and unbeknownst to Deane, his former secretary in Paris, Edward Bancroft, had been a British spy.

After the war and death
In October 1781, Deane moved to Ghent where he could live more cheaply than in Paris. Then in March 1783, he moved to London, hoping to find investors for manufacturing ventures that he planned to pursue after he returned to North America. He toured several manufacturing towns in England in late 1783, considering plans for steam engines that could operate grist mills, even consulting James Watt for advice. He also tried to attract investors for a planned canal linking Lake Champlain and the St. Lawrence River. In 1784, he published a defense of his actions during the war entitled An Address to the Free and Independent Citizens of the United States of North America.

In the fall of 1787, Deane became bedridden from an unknown illness and did not fully recover until April 1789. His condition depleted his remaining money and forced him to depend on the charity of friends. In the summer of 1788, a Frenchman named Foulloy approached Thomas Jefferson in Paris with an account book and a letter book dating from Deane's diplomatic mission, apparently stolen from Deane during his illness. Foulloy threatened to sell the books to the British government if Jefferson did not purchase them—which Jefferson eventually did after negotiating a greatly reduced price.

In 1789, Deane planned to return to North America in an attempt to recoup his lost fortune and reputation. After boarding the ship Boston Packet, he became ill and died on September 23 while the ship was awaiting repairs after turning back following damage from fierce winds. In 1959, historian Julian P. Boyd suggested that Deane might have been poisoned by Bancroft, because Bancroft might have felt threatened by Deane's possible testimony to Congress.

Legacy

Silas Deane's granddaughter Philura (Deane) Alden pressed his case before Congress, and his family was eventually paid $37,000 in 1841 (more than a million dollars in the early 21st century) for the money owed to him, on the grounds that the previous audit by the Continental Congress was "ex parte, erroneous, and a gross injustice to Silas Deane".

Deane's hometown of Wethersfield, Connecticut, has a Silas Deane Middle School and a Silas Deane Highway. A road in Ledyard, Connecticut, is named for him. Deane's home in Wethersfield, now the Silas Deane House, has been restored, declared a National Historic Landmark, and opened to the public as a part of the Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum. Dean Street in Brooklyn is named for him.

Notes

Citations

References 

 de Langlais, Tugdual, L'armateur préféré de Beaumarchais Jean Peltier Dudoyer, de Nantes à l'Isle de France, Éd. Coiffard, 2015, 340 p. ().

Further reading 
 The "Correspondence of Silas Deane, Delegate to the First and Second Congress at Philadelphia, 1774-1776" was published in the Collections of the Connecticut Historical Society, vol. II.
 The Deane Papers, in 5 vols., in the New York Historical Society's Collections (1887–1890)
 Francis Wharton's Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States (6 vols., Washington, 1889).

External links
 Institute of Museum and Library Services website dedicated to Silas Deane
 Jefferson letters about the Foulloy Affair
 Silas Deane Papers, Volume III, 1778–1779
 Samuel Blachley Webb biographical article that mentions Deane
 

1737 births
1789 deaths
Connecticut lawyers
Members of the Connecticut House of Representatives
Continental Congressmen from Connecticut
18th-century American politicians
People from Groton, Connecticut
People of colonial Connecticut
Ambassadors of the United States to France
Yale University alumni
Signers of the Continental Association
사일러스 딘(Silas Deane, 1737년 12월 24일~1789년 9월 23일)은 미국 독립 전쟁 때의 대륙회의 대표이자 후에 미국에서 첫 외교관이 되었다. 대서양의 양안에 걸친 첩보 활동이 유명하다. 사일러스 딘이 영웅인가, 사기꾼인가라는 논의는 지금도 이루어지고 있다. 딘은 파리에서의 심상찮은 행동으로 정치적 논란을 불렀으며, 그 후 미국 독립을 비난하는 왕당파들을 지지했다. 그 후 그는 런던에서 그에서 지급되는 구호금으로 살았다. 이후 그는 네덜란드나 영국 등에 살았으며, 미국으로 돌아가는 해군선을 타자마자 의문의 죽음을 당했다.

생애 
사일러스 딘은 코네티컷 그로턴에서 대장장이의 아들로 태어나 1758년에 예일 대학을 졸업했다. 1761년에는 변호사로 인정을 받았지만, 변호사보다는 코네티컷 웨더즈필드에서 상인이 되는 길을 택했다. 딘은 여기에서 이후 이중간첩으로 활약하는 에드워드 밴크로프트를 가르쳤다. 딘은 평생 두 번 결혼했고, 두 번 모두 상대는 웨더즈필드의 부유한 미망인이었다. 1763년 메히타블 웹과 결혼을 했지만, 1767년에 웹은 세상을 떠났다. 1770년, 엘리자베스 솔턴스톨 에바즈와 두 번째로 결혼을 했다. 그의 두 번째 아내는 매사추세츠 솔튼스톨 가문의 코네티컷 주지사 거든 솔턴스톤의 손녀였다.

딘의 의붓아들, 새뮤얼 블래츨리 웹은 대륙군 제9 코네티컷 연대 (이후 제1 코네티컷 연대로 통합) 대령으로 종군했다.

미국 독립 전쟁 
딘은 미국 독립 전쟁 이전 코네티컷에서 적극적인 할동을 하면서, 1772년에는 식민지 의회 의원으로 선출됐다. 1774년부터 1776년에 걸쳐, 대륙회의 코네티컷 대표가 되었다.

1776년 초, 딘은 대륙회의의 명령을 받아 비공식적으로 프랑스에 건너가 비밀 첩보원으로 미국 식민지에 대한 차관을 받기 위해 프랑스 정부와 교섭을 벌였다. 이후 벤저민 프랭클린과 아서 리가 더해져, 대륙회의의 공식 대표로 프랑스 정부와의 외교적 교섭을 계속했다. 딘은 파리에 도착하면서 곧바로 프랑스 외교부 장관이었던 베르젠느 백작과 교섭을 벌였다. 극작가이자, 미국독립의 공공연한 지지자였던 보마르쉐의 도움을 받아 많은 무기와 탄약을 선박에 실어갈 수 있게 되었으며, 동시에 타이컨더로가 전투를 위한 재정적 지원을 받을 수 있게 되었다. 딘은 미래에 대륙군을 도와줄 많은 지원병의 징집도 맡았다. 이 중에는 라파예트, 드 까르푸 남작, 토마스 콘웨이, 카지미르 플라스키, 폰 슈토이벤 남작 등이 있었다.

딘은 프랑스와 거래를 확인할 때 부주의함이 드러났고, 또 보마르쉐와의 계약에 관해서 아서 리와의 사이에 견해차가 생겼기 때문에, 1777년 11월 21일, 주 프랑스 대사가 된 존 애덤스에 의해서 소환당해 경질되게 되었다. 게다가 리의 이의제기와 외국인 장교에게 미국에서의 고관직을 약속함으로써 고발될 우려가 있었다. 그러나 파리를 떠나기 전 1778년 2월 6일에, 딘과 다른 대표단이 교섭해 온 결과 프랑스와 우호, 무역, 동맹 조약에 조인할 수 있었다. 딘이 스코틀랜드인이었던 제임스 에이트켄(화가 존)에게 미국 식민지를 위해서 영국 포츠머스에서 영국 해군의 창고를 파괴할 계획에 공식의 승인을 했던 것도 이 무렵이다.

미국에 귀국하여 대륙회의에서 오랫동안 어려운 문책을 당했지만, 대륙회의가 요청한 딘의 영수증이나 급여 사본의 제출을 프랑스가 거부했으며, 존 제이와 존 애덤스도 그를 변호했다. 프랑스는 1778년 2월 6일까지 13개 식민지와의 동맹을 공식적으로 맺고 있지 않았고, 이전에 관계가 있었다는 증거는 외교적 문제가 될 소지가 있었다. 딘은 공세로 돌아서 프랑스와의 외교적 승리를 거두었으며, 그의 잘못을 문제 삼았던 대륙회의 대의원에게 분열을 조장한다고 문제를 제기했다.

1781년에 딘은 파리로 돌아가는 것을 허락받고, 남겨진 과제를 해결하기 위해 문제가 된 기록의 사본을 찾으려고 했다. 그러나 프랑스 장교와 이견이 있었으며, 뉴욕의 《리빙스턴스 로얄 가제트》(Rivington's Royal Gazette)가 딘이 형제에게 보낸 편지(그 중 미국의 독립이 희망이 없는 것으로 부정하고 영국과의 관계 개선을 제안했다)를 게재하였다. 딘은 고소를 당하여 모국에서 배신자로 낙인 찍혔다. 딘은 1783년 파리 조약으로 평화가 확립될 때까지 네덜란드에 살았고, 그 가난 때문에 영국으로 이주하였다. 딘은 ‘북미 자유 독립국 미국 시민에 대한 변명’이라는 자기변호를 위한 책을 발간했다.

죽음 
1789년, 딘 잃어버린 자산을 되찾으려 미국으로 갈 계획을 세웠지만, 신기하게도 병에 걸려 출항하기 전에 9월 23일에 죽었다. 미국과 영국의 이중간첩이었던 에드워드 밴크로프트가 비소를 먹인 것이 아닌가 지적하는 학자도 있다. 에드워드 밴크로프트는 존 애덤스와 딘 모두에게 고용되어, 독립 전쟁 중에 정보를 수집하고 다녔지만, 딘이 미국 의회에 제출할 가능성이 있었던 진술서의 내용을 두려워 하고 있었다. 한편 아서 리의 고발장 내용으로 딘의 무죄가 인정되었다. 딘의 손녀는 남편을 통해 미국 의회에 딘 사건의 심리를 요구했고, 결과적으로 1842년, 딘의 사후 50년을 지나 딘의 일족이 $37,000의 손해 배상금을 받게 되었다.

유산 
미국 해군의 호위함 USS 딘이 딘의 영예를 기리기 위해 명명되었다. 다른 이름으로는 사일러스 딘 중학교, 웹 딘 스티븐스 박물관, 사일러스 딘 고속도로가 웨더즈필드에 있다. 딘의 저택은 1766년에 완성되었으며, 미국 국립 역사 건축물로 지정되어 사일러스 딘 하우스로 일반에 공개되고 있다.

각주

외부 링크 
 
 Institute of Museum and Library Services website dedicated to Silas Deane
 Collection of Silas Deane Letters

미국 독립 전쟁 관련자
프랑스 주재 미국 대사
대륙회의 대표
예일 대학교 동문