Washington badly needed aid from Europe, but there every important government was monarchical and it was not easy for a young republic, the child of revolution, to secure an ally.
France tingled with joy at American victories and sorrowed at American reverses, but motives were mingled and perhaps hatred of England was stronger than love for liberty in America.The young La Fayette had a pure zeal, but he would not have fought for the liberty of colonists in Mexico as he did for those in Virginia;and the difference was that service in Mexico would not hurt the enemy of France so recently triumphant.He hated England and said so quite openly.The thought of humiliating and destroying that "insolent nation" was always to him an inspiration.Vergennes, the French Foreign Minister, though he lacked genius, was a man of boundless zeal and energy.He was at work at four o'clock in the morning and he spent his long days in toil for his country.
He believed that England was the tyrant of the seas, "the monster against whom we should be always prepared," a greedy, perfidious neighbor, the natural enemy of France.
From the first days of the trouble in regard to the Stamp Act Vergennes had rejoiced that England's own children were turning against her.He had French military officers in England spying on her defenses.When war broke out he showed no nice regard for the rules of neutrality and helped the colonies in every way possible.It was a French writer who led in these activities.
Beaumarchais is known to the world chiefly as the creator of the character of Figaro, which has become the type of the bold, clever, witty, and intriguing rascal, but he played a real part in the American Revolution.We need not inquire too closely into his motives.There was hatred of the English, that "audacious, unbridled, shameless people," and there was, too, the zeal for liberal ideas which made Queen Marie Antoinette herself take a pretty interest in the "dear republicans" overseas who were at the same time fighting the national enemy.Beaumarchais secured from the government money with which he purchased supplies to be sent to America.He had a great warehouse in Paris, and, under the rather fantastic Spanish name of Roderigue Hortalez & Co., he sent vast quantities of munitions and clothing to America.
Cannon, not from private firms but from the government arsenals, were sent across the sea.When Vergennes showed scruples about this violation of neutrality, the answer of Beaumarchais was that governments were not bound by rules of morality applicable to private persons.Vergennes learned well the lesson and, while protesting to the British ambassador in Paris that France was blameless, he permitted outrageous breaches of the laws of neutrality.
Secret help was one thing, open alliance another.Early in 1776Silas Deane, a member from Connecticut of the Continental Congress, was named as envoy to France to secure French aid.The day was to come when Deane should believe the struggle against Britain hopeless and counsel submission, but now he showed a furious zeal.He knew hardly a word of French, but this did not keep him from making his elaborate programme well understood.
Himself a trader, he promised France vast profits from the monopoly of the trade of America when independence should be secure.He gave other promises not more easy of fulfillment.To Frenchmen zealous for the ideals of liberty and seeking military careers in America he promised freely commissions as colonels and even generals and was the chief cause of that deluge of European officers which proved to Washington so annoying.It was through Deane's activities that La Fayette became a volunteer.Through him came too the proposal to send to America the Comte de Broglie who should be greater than colonel or general--a generalissimo, a dictator.He was to brush aside Washington, to take command of the American armies, and by his prestige and skill to secure France as an ally and win victory in the field.For such services Broglie asked only despotic power while he served and for life a great pension which would, he declared, not be one-hundredth part of his real value.That Deane should have considered a scheme so fantastic reveals the measure of his capacity, and by the end of 1776 Benjamin Franklin was sent to Paris to bring his tried skill to bear upon the problem of the alliance.With Deane and Franklin as a third member of the commission was associated Arthur Lee who had vainly sought aid at the courts of Spain and Prussia.France was, however, coy.The end of 1776 saw the colonial cause at a very low ebb, with Washington driven from New York and about to be driven from Philadelphia.Defeat is not a good argument for an alliance.France was willing to send arms to America and willing to let American privateers use freely her ports.The ship which carried Franklin to France soon busied herself as a privateer and reaped for her crew a great harvest of prize money.In a single week of June, 1777, this ship captured a score of British merchantmen, of which more than two thousand were taken by Americans during the war.France allowed the American privateers to come and go as they liked, and gave England smooth words, but no redress.There is little wonder that England threatened to hang captured American sailors as pirates.
It was the capture of Burgoyne at Saratoga which brought decision to France.That was the victory which Vergennes had demanded before he would take open action.One British army had surrendered.Another was in an untenable position in Philadelphia.It was known that the British fleet had declined.
With the best of it in America, France was the more likely to win successes in Europe.The Bourbon king of France could, too, draw into the war the Bourbon king of Spain, and Spain had good ships.
