In August, 1774, Sir Joseph Yorke, for years the British ambassador at The Hague, wrote his superior, the Earl of Suffolk: As the contraband trade carried on between Holland and North America is so well known in England I have not thought it necessary of late to trouble your Lordship with trifling details of ships sailing from Amsterdam for the British Colonies, laden with teas, linnens, etc., But now he had something serious to report: My informations says that the Polly , Captain Benjamin Broadhurst, bound to Nantucket has shipped on board a considerable quantity of gunpowder. It was three weeks before Wentworth managed to get an interview with Franklin, and he spent the interval in terror of imprisonment and even assassination by the French, whose agents were around him in clouds. The French loan was a godsend. On the same day he wrote Richard Henry Lee: My idea of adapting characters and places is this: Dr. Franklin to Vienna, as the first, most respectable, and quiet; Mr. Deane to Holland; and the alderman [William] to Berlin. A box tree on the south terrace of the Tuileries Gardens had a convenient hollow under the trunk, and into this hole a bottle containing the gallant letter was let down by a string. Somehow the wild Irishman, repeating the maneuver of the sound and sober Wickes, created an infinitely greater reaction. The Stamp Act riots were noisy on the land, but the seas were quiet and busy. Delays which were not the fault of Deane and Beaumarchais held up most of the fleet for months after lading. Question 5. He would not believe reports which meant bad news for England, or fully credit those which came from spies whose personal lives this virtuous burgher disapproved. The thirteen colonies were in the nightmare situation of trying to fight the strongest power in the Western world almost barehanded. A clever negotiator could have done much there, for Frederick the Great despised the British and the little German states that sold them mercenaries; he took a lively interest in the progress of the American war and was ready to expand Prussias trade with the Americans, which so far had been clandestine. Continental Congress established the Secret Committee of Correspondence to publicize the American cause in Europe. Wentworths connection with the secret service was not suspected; Franklin regarded him as a former patriot who had joined the Tory ranks and must be treated with caution. Masonry was powerful in France and all-powerful in Nantes, and for perhaps a generation its exporters had been sending American brothers, along with bills of lading and business papers, sheaves of French Masonic literature in exchange for similar pamphlets from the colonies. A year before the Declaration Beaumarchais wrote Vergennes that he was leaving for Flanders on a political mission, and that he had something tremendous to impart later. Economic historians will recognize the invaluable research and work of two individuals in particular that this article draws from: Merrill Jensen, and . The small matter was to be Conynghams capture of another British packet, this time the one plying to Holland. His, Privateers could accomplish wonders, but they could not fight the great British ships of the line. It meant only the familiar rite of changing the property on paper. He soon went down to Spain, where Conyngham was taking fresh prizes. Compared to the antics of the French Revolution, the infamous Tea Party in Boston was like the sisters at the convent sneaking into the dorm of the rival convent and shorting their sheets. By early 1775 the British embassy in France estimated that war supplies worth 32,000,000 livres (about $6,000,000) had been shipped from that kingdom to the colonies. He was delighted to find his brother William waiting for him in Paris. It is the House of Crommelin at Amsterdam which is chiefly concerned in this trade with the Colonies, tho some others have their share., In later reports Sir Joseph drew such an alarming picture of Dutch gunrunning, especially to the Caribbean, that the British sent a Navy sloop and cutter to spend the winter at Texel Island near Amsterdam. American morale was so low that only the immediate entrance of France into the war could put heart into the country. The single most important diplomatic success of the colonists during the War for Independence was the critical link they forged . Like Great Britain, France had a young king. He had reached an impasse: France would not help America unless America showed promise of winning her war, and America could not win without French help. In their eyes she was still colonial, an outlying province of Europe. Support with a donation>>. French King and Great Contributor to the American Revolution King Louis XVI was a great contributor to the American Revolution, sending supplies and troops to the colonies. Contrary winds kept the Reprisal from entering the Loire to make the port of Nantes. A few hours later Vergennes warned his royal master that it looked very much as if Britain had at last offered America her independence, opening the way to an alliance with the motherland. France's Debt Problems. Lee could not bear to lose Beaumarchais and tried to detach him from Deane. 2. Conyngham lusted for his fine new cutter, which mounted 14 six-pounders and 22 swivels, and would have a crew of more than a hundred American and French seamen. Louis XVI was making a new advance of 3,000,000 livres to Congress. First, they provided the colonists with many of the supplies they needed and with a great deal of money. Lying close to British, Danish, French, and Spanish islands, Statia, as she was known to her friends, had for generations offered European goods at bargain rates, and arms to any enemy of Britain. He had spent years in Surinam and was an expert on tropical plants; he had written a natural history of Guiana and perfected new vegetable dyes for cloth. The British were methodical. He was a bosom friend of Alderman Lee and had accepted his appointment by the Adams-Lee bloc in Congress as envoy to the Grand Duke of Tuscany. First these navies quarreled head-on, in the English Channel and then in the entirety of the Atlantic Ocean, in a war of escorts. This period of conflict began in 1698 with the War of the Grand . The Sugar Act, was made to try and stop the smuggling of sugar and molasses. But Beaumarchais was on a crusade for American independence, and he would not drop it until independence was won. He helped Beaumarchais buy and fit out eight ships, prudently scattered in various ports: the Amphitrite, Mercure, Flammand, Mre Bobie, Seine, Thrse, Amelia , and Marie Catherine . France had been secretly aiding the American Colonies since 1776, because France was angry at Britain over the loss of Colonial territory in the French and Indian War. French Empire wanted to take revenge on the British Empire for its defeat in the Seven Years' War (1756-1763). A generation after the end of the Revolutionary War, new revolutions emerged in nearly a dozen Spanish colonies in Central and South America. His Amphitrite and Mercure were already home, having delivered their supplies at Portsmouthgunpowder and blankets and clothing, sixty cannon, and 12,000 stand of arms. But Franklin and Deane knew what to expect from Arthur Lee. Much of this trade was illicit, but it was based on realities and it bred a friendship between the West Indies and the mainlanders which was all-important to the Revolution. Franklin knew what he had won for his beloved country. France, planning a war of revenge, saw in the growing revolt of the thirteen colonies a chance to weaken her chronic enemy, and by 1766 she was ready to rush to their support if they broke with England. If Vergennes had any doubts about Franklins grasp of Bourbon aims, they were resolved by the Doctors masterly letter of January 5. Lord North relayed the meticulous royal commands to the secret service, whose active head during the war was William Eden, a genius at directing espionage. Which French foreign minister and supporter of American independence convinced the French king to form an alliance with the Patriots? American colonists hoped for possible French aid in their struggle against British forces. In order to make the war effective he reminded Vergennes of things Vergennes could do for the Bourbon cause: release the Hortalez ships, foster the American trade, and lend Congress money. The Estates-General was a meeting of the three estates (clergy, nobles, everyone else) that could be called by the French King and was famously and infamously called in 1789 out of a desperate desire to try to push through reforms that would keep France from going bankrupt. He was also making them a gift of 375,000 livres. He burned some and sent others to America, the West Indies, or whatever theater of war seemed to need their cargoes most. The Declaration of Independence served as a model for the French Revolution. France remains the center of political activity, and here, therefore, I should choose to be employed., He went on to suggest how Franklin and Deane might be erased altogether. Some inner mechanism in the Lee genes transmuted whatever was wrong with the Lees into something much worse that was wrong with their enemies. But his eventual victory depended on two essentials which only Europe could provide: military supplies of all sorts and a powerful navy. He was to steal all original papers possible from the commissioners, and copy others. It led the French to seek an alliance with the Americans to dethrone Louis XVI. The warehouses lining her one street, a mile long, were crammed with munitions, ships stores, bolts of cloth; sacks of sugar and tobacco covered the very sands, and the roadstead was packed with merchantmen. Deane, Carmichael, and Jonathan Williams were on the watch for daring and trustworthy captains for Admiral Franklins strategic naval force. On May 3 Vergennes wrote his royal master that he proposed to call in Sieur Montaudoin of Nantes and entrust him with forwarding funds and arms to America. In 1782, Benjamin Franklin rejected informal peace overtures from Great Britain for a settlement that would provide the thirteen states with some measure of autonomy within the British Empire. How long could he continue? The American Revolution and the French Alliance. A phenomenal number of men escaped Old Mill Prison at Plymouth; they scaled the walls, dug long tunnels under them, or bribed the guards to let them through the gates. On January 6 Wentworth was closeted for two hours with Franklin and Deane, having stipulated that Arthur Lee was to be excluded. Franklin resolved to break through any limitations put on his mission by Congress. Vergennes kept him safe in jail, for the minister was co-operating with Franklins policy up to a dangerous point. The Passy household was complete when the wise and enchanting Edward Bancroft arrived to act as general secretary of the mission. If this scheme can be executed, it will disconcert all the plans at one stroke, without an appearance of intention, and save both the public and me.. He was never suspected by anybody but Arthur Lee, who suspected everybody but his own secretaries, who were almost invariably British agents. His new cutter, the, When Vergenness orders came through to sell the, Conyngham lusted for his fine new cutter, which mounted 14 six-pounders and 22 swivels, and would have a crew of more than a hundred American and French seamen. When hostilities first erupted, the crown did . Perhaps the greater part of Edward Bancroft was truly American. Vergennes promptly granted the requested interview. This was amazing enough; France had broken through the limits of her ostensible neutrality and was allowing Martinique to become a base of war against Britain. The Channel Islands privateers were out in force, and the maritime war in Europe, which could no longer be closely directed from Passy, was in a state of anarchy. Vergennes admitted that open assistance to the United States meant war, but war was in any case inevitable. The dreadful thing is that Arthur Lees nightmare was accepted by perfectly sane men and that it not only outlived the Eighteenth Century but has persisted in a shadowy form into the Twentieth. The French navy transported reinforcements, fought off a British fleet, and protected Washington's forces in . A photograph of Edouard de Laboulaye from the Galerie Contemporaine collection. All the colonizing powers tried to keep New World produce flowing home to the motherland. Bancroft was to report on the movements of American privateers and trading vessels in European waters, and relations between the West Indies and continental America. After that opening wedge, which tacitly killed the embargo, Franklins resolution for world trade was bound to go through. The idling envoys to Vienna, Berlin, and Tuscany not only buzzed around Passy day after day but tried to rewrite Franklins treaties. There were sixty-odd American merchants established in Nantes, and when Franklin considered that all this activity was being repeated on a somewhat smaller scale in Bordeaux, Lorient, Le Havre, and Dunkirk, he felt that the Franco-American alliance was already a reality. As far as brains and ability went, Deane belonged in the first rank of the men doing the hard immediate tasks of the Revolution. He added, Take care that America and the West Indies dont glide through our fingers.. Franklin insisted on British recognition of American independence and refused to consider a peace separate from France, America's staunch ally. Wentworth reported to Eden that he had found Deane vain, desultory and subtle and indeed the commissioner must have had some difficulty keeping a straight face. He must gather exhaustive information on the missions dealings with Congress, with Versailles, with merchants shipping out contraband. First off, the debt of the French Indian War was the reason parliament started imposing taxes on the colonist in the first place. A swarm of workmen then changed the marks of the vessels by slapping on new coats of paint, changing the figurehead, and such devices. Q. E . Through English friends Franklin raised funds to give the prisoners warm clothes and blankets, food, a chance to bathe and wash their clothes, and spending money for small comforts. This released a great stock of surplus arms for Hortalez to buy up cheaply. Every step in preparing the lugger for a cruise was watched by the British in Dunkirk. Though the mail vessel was lightly armed she gave Wickes some trouble, and one of his seamen was killed and a lieutenant wounded. He demanded every favor under heaven and even wrote Frederick (who refused to receive him) a preposterous letter, in effect telling him how he could run his kingdom better. To forestall a truce with Britain, the ministers had stipulated that the United States must make no peace that surrendered her independence. The arrest did much to soothe British wrath. This was a bitter blow to Vergennes and a calamity to the Americans. His, Soon Beaumarchaiss coach was tearing down the road to Paris so fast that it overturned and he injured an arm. The Americans' victory over the British may have been one of the greatest catalysts for the French Revolution. The French Revolution was a momentous historical event that set enduring patterns for modern revolutionary movements and for much of modern politics in general. The first diplomatic exchange between the United States and a foreign power was highly personal: Franklin and Vergennes sizing each other up. The sacred British mails were rushed down to Passy, and then the storm broke at Versailles. Vergennes may never have realized what had happened during that fateful year of 1777. 2. The Declaration was passed with independence a hope on the far side of a hopeless-seeming war. From 1790 to 1794, the revolutionaries grew increasingly radical. The United States, far from asking something for herself, was in reality advancing Bourbon interests and fighting their war. In 1865, Edouard de Laboulaye (a French . Johnson was captured and sent to the Old Mill, from which he soon escaped. His jealousy of Franklin, which grew into a nightmare for Americans on two continents, had begun in 1770 when Massachusetts appointed Franklin its agent in England, and Lee his inactive deputy to replace him if he left England or if he died. By a supple turn of the wrist, Franklin transformed Franco-American relations. Franklin insisted that Arthur Lee was mad, and perhaps only a madman could have created a cabal of such malignity and scope out of nothing but his own emotions. If successful, France would get as her share half the Newfoundland fishery and all the sugar islands; Spain would be enriched by Portugal and the Floridas, and the United States would gain Canada, Bermuda, and the Bahamas. Nobody could find the prizes, which had been sold. Nearing France, Dr. Franklin changed the captains orders. There was merely enthusiasm for the American cause, Stormont reported to Whitehall, on the part of the Wits, Philosophers and Coffee House Politicians who are all to a man warm Americans.. This well-connected young man had been sent direct from Congress to buy two ships to serve as packets for the mission. Like a good diplomat, he conveyed these urgent demands to the ministries in a most persuasive form, but he had already gauged the situation in the royal courts and expected no miracles. By April American privateers had taken so many British seamen prisoner that the British fleet was not half manned, and Stormont hinted to Vergennes that peace could not last much longer if France continued to arm the United States. The greater part of the American seaboard was tightly blockaded, and the whole Atlantic was so unsafe that Dutch shipments to Statia now went out under heavy convoy. On July 23 he wrote a memoir to Louis XVI declaring that the moment had come when France must resolve either to abandon America or to aid her courageously and effectively. He urged a closer alliance to prevent a reunion of Britain and America. Then he captured the Kings packet Swallow , running between Falmouth and Lisbon. It was a long time before this contract with the Farmers General could be satisfied, since few ships could now run the British blockade of the American seaboard. Wentworth, he wrote North, is an avowed stock jobber and I never let that go out of my mind. He had spent eighteen years in England as colonial agent and the last eighteen months at home in the Continental Congress. America could fight only her own sort of war on the seas, and this had started before Lexington and would continue long after Yorktown. This must not happen again. The French helped the American colonists in two main ways. He was evidently buying arms and setting up a smuggling base in the Low Countries. On Christmas Day Washington wrote Congress: Our want of powder is inconceivable. Three weeks later there was not a pound in his magazines. Franklin had no doubt guessed, when the courier returned from Europe in September with news of tremendous shipments of arms by Monsieur Hortalez, that the real name of this mysterious friend was France. The Charleston move is part of a broader British strategy to hang on to the southern colonies, at least, now that the war is stalemated in Pennsylvania and New York.
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