Everyone fighting to get ahead, pushing, shoving, using their elbows and feet, every man for himself and anyone who gets in the way is trampled in the crush. That’s what you have to do. Personally, I’ve given up on it. —Beaumarchais, The Marriage of Figaro, 1784 After four years of excelling at what he called “the art of uniting war and commerce,” William Bingham was anxious to leave Martinique and return home to Philadelphia. The signing of the Franco-American alliance had wrecked the island’s status as a haven for arms dealers and privateers. Its cloak of neutrality had fallen away. No longer were French bills of lading or the tricolor flag a defense against Royal Navy attack. The autonomy with which Bingham had operated to such success made the twenty-eight-year-old coolly self-certain in communications with his superiors. When Benjamin Franklin was slow in sending him details of the French alliance, he scolded the elderly diplomat. “I humbly think I should be made acquainted with its contents.
