Whenever Stormont got good evidence that France was shipping contraband to America or admitting American prizes to her ports, he drove to Versailles to make a formal protest. Wentworth did not give up, and in a conference the next day he offered America a few more concessions, purely on his own authority. No doubt the colonies hoarded local supplies for their own defense, and the merchants hoarded their stocks for higher prices. The Doctor was adept at working through trusted friends, and his friends were legion. The glorious news of General Gatess victory at Saratoga reached Passy about the first of December, 1777, by a Charleston ship, and on the fourth it was confirmed by Jonathan Loring Austin, secretary of the Massachusetts Board of War, who had rushed to France in a specially chartered vessel. He agreed to investigate the matter. Franklin was now seventy, afflicted with gout, and wretchedly tired from his labors in Congress and its candle-burning committees. War profiteering was pandemic. One result of the raid by the Dunkirk Pirate was the fact that British merchants no longer trusted the Admiraltys ability to protect British ships. The war provided Great Britain enormous territorial gains in North America, but disputes over . The requested battleships were not forthcoming; it was explained that France needed every unit of her Navy for her own purposes, which of course meant her expected war with Britain. What major problem did the Continental army face in the winter of 1777? Franklin and Deane now wrote the committee urging action in every sea where British carried on commerce. During this period of watchful waiting, Franklin applied political pressure. A swarm of workmen then changed the marks of the vessels by slapping on new coats of paint, changing the figurehead, and such devices. He added, Take care that America and the West Indies dont glide through our fingers.. He was never suspected by anybody but Arthur Lee, who suspected everybody but his own secretaries, who were almost invariably British agents. For diplomatic reasons, he always pretended a vast ignorance of Hortalez & Companya feat like hiding an elephant in a hat. He masked his powerful and subtle mind behind the benevolent simplicity which was also part of his nature. Deane and Beaumarchais were already fast friends, working in harmony to load the Hortalez fleet with war supplies. By late June the captain and his men were released from jail, and the Revenge was loaded with powder and arms. A growing fleet of American privateers had already brought prizes into the various French ports, and a system had been perfected for their disposal. Franklin had already done his utmost with the ministry, and there was nothing left but a new experimentwhat would much later be called psychological warfare. Every man aboard was lost except the cook. He made this gesture impressive by sending two sloops of war to Dunkirk to take the captain and his men and deliver them to the local jail. No man of his century could approach Franklin as a subtle and effective propagandist. A new nation had emerged, and in time each individual would realize his new identity. If Conyngham was not punished, Stormont would resign, breaking off diplomatic relations with France. Since Charles III had already contributed a million livres to Hortalez & Company, and allowed New Orleans to become an American privateer base, he may well have thought that he had done his share. Ferreiro, Larrie D. Brothers at Arms: American Independence and the Men of France & Spain Who Saved It. 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. He wrote Lord North that the agent has shewn great zeal and dispatch in the business he had so handsomely undertaken and ably accomplished.. France Allied with American Colonies. Modern as they were, and involving as they did a certain war with Britain, these treaties were provisionally accepted on December 12 by Louis XVI and his ministers. The stench of treachery was in the air. The fact that he was a genius, and a genius of such multiple gifts that he might easily inspire alarm or jealousy in others, had early taught him the art of using screens and disguises. France and Great Britain were cutthroat enemies. In 1865, Edouard de Laboulaye (a French . By a supple turn of the wrist, Franklin transformed Franco-American relations. Vergennes promptly granted the requested interview. The King was progressing from the swaddling clothes of a dominant mother to the strait jacket of his manic seizures, and even in his long periods of sanity his balance was precarious. The Committee of Secret Correspondence, under Franklin, engaged agents abroad to explore the possibilities of foreign alliances. He might have included the foreign islands, since all colonial America had been united for a century and a half in its resistance to the mercantilism of Europe. Communications with Congress were rapidly being snuffed out by the capture of dispatches on the high seas and even more by the skill of British agents in intercepting letters, especially those bound for America. If he had been a mere speculator in gunrunning like many of his compatriots, or an appropriator of Bourbon funds, as Arthur Lee claimed, he would have seen that the game was up. John Adams once remarked that while Washington was to be respected as a private individual, in Congress I feel myself to be superior to General Washington. He objected to the commander being allowed to name his own generals and thought Congress should carry on every function of war except shoot down redcoats. For one thing, he worshiped Franklin and wanted to be useful to him; for another, he enjoyed hobnobbing with the rough sea captains he was assigned to help. The United States fought all the way through the war without a government. Deane, Carmichael, and Jonathan Williams were on the watch for daring and trustworthy captains for Admiral Franklins strategic naval force. The Treaty of Amity and Commerce recognized the U.S. as an independent nation and promoted trade between France and America. The Secret Committee, dominated by the capable merchant Robert Morris, methodized the smuggling of war supplies from Europe, which had been going on for years. They were in a rivalry to dominate the entire world. A riving home just after Lexington, Franklin had found the leaders in Congress still struggling against their enforced propulsion towards independence. The new physiocratic school had its followers on both sides of the Atlantic. The Treaty of Alliance (1778) between the United State and France was signed February 6, 1778. It led the French to seek an alliance with the Americans to dethrone Louis XVI. The choice of Washington as commander in chief of the military forces of all the colonies followed immediately upon the first fighting, though it was by no means inevitable and was the product of partly artificial forces. Conyngham shook them off and began the most spectacular cruise of the war. All this was excruciating, since Lee had trumpeted in letters home that he had the ministry and Hortalez in his pocket. The alliance of France with the American Patriots started on February 6, 1778, when the King of France signed a treaty with Benjamin Franklin, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Sitting together in Deanes hotel while the crowds outside waited for a glimpse of their idol, the two men were already dreading the arrival of Arthur Lee as their colleague. His affection for Franklin and Deane had the ring of sincerity, and years later, when Deane was of no possible use to him, he was still the devoted friend. French involvement in the American Revolutionary War of 1775-1783 began in 1776 when the Kingdom of France secretly shipped supplies to the Continental Army of the Thirteen Colonies when it was established in June 1775. Every Tuesday evening an agent of Stormont would pick up the letter and leave another with new instructions. This rule was so thoroughly disobeyed that great shipping houses like Willing & Morris of Philadelphia kept factors, or at least correspondents, all over Europe and the Caribbean to take care of their trade. All that was needed was to add up the amount of money the mission had received, and then tell the Adams-Lee bloc in Congress that Franklin and Deane had stolen it. The Hortalez ships, scattered as they were at Marseilles, Bordeaux, Nantes, Le Havre, and Dunkirk, were still too conspicuous to be missed by the busy British spies. He was also making them a gift of 375,000 livres. This was the germ of the deliberate policy Franklin and Deane pursued during 1777: to create such an open scandal about French connivance in American raids that it could not be effervesced in private conversations between Stormont and Vergennes. It was Carmichael who got the last of the Hortalez fleet on its way. Join, or Die, the first political cartoon in America, was created by Benjamin Franklin and was published in a newspaper on May 9, 1754.The cartoon later became a symbol of colonial unity during the American Revolution and remains popular. England registered the expected sense of outrage; the whole country seethed with the news. Late in October, 1776, Benjamin Franklin sailed for France to direct the foreign sector of the extraordinary war into which his young country had been plunged. Both revolutions began due to the financial problems in their countries. Yet Franklin had a high opinion of the human race and lofty hopes for his particular segment of it. Beaumarchais wrote masterly letters to Louis XVI, arguing that with timely secret help from France the Americans would win their war and clip Britains wings. Revolutionaries were inspired by the ideals of the Enlightenment including individual freedom. Edward Bancroft had been in British pay since 1772. 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. He now careened his ship and cleaned the hull at his leisure while the excitement died down. He did extremely well in these successive careers, and now at forty held a position of high honor. Deane arranged to meet Wentworth at dinner a day or so later, and Franklin took care to tell the minister what was afoot. One of Conynghams prizes was recaptured by the British, who took her into Yarmouth. Native American groups had to choose the loyalist or patriot causeor somehow maintain a neutral stance during the Revolutionary War. On the land, if Washington finally got enough men and guns, he might wear down British troops far from their home base. When Deane left Philadelphia on his mission to France, Franklin suggested that Edward Bancroft would be a useful consultant on European affairs, and so it proved. The foreign alliances of France have a long and complex history spanning more than a millennium. The joint conquest was proposed of Canada, the Floridas, and the British West Indies. Beaumarchais was with the three commissioners when the official messenger arrived. Louis XVI was helpless; he dared not begin the war without Spain. By late June the captain and his men were released from jail, and the, But in mid-July Conyngham took his unharmed cutter out to sea and anchored at a safe rendezvous. This was a bitter blow to Vergennes and a calamity to the Americans. The British had many other secret agents in France, and other avenues of information. 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 and his friend the Marquis de Bouille, the new governor of Martinique, had a privateer fleet with American masters and French and Spanish crews which was making itself felt in the Caribbean. Captain Pearson of the, The islet of St. Eustatia, an international free port in the northern Leewards, was a fountainhead of what Samuel Adams called the, To the citizens of Nantes the alliance was not merely a commercial bond, but a blend of credos and enthusiasms which they shared with their friends overseas. On January 6 Wentworth was closeted for two hours with Franklin and Deane, having stipulated that Arthur Lee was to be excluded. Since France and Spain were not responding to the offer of a trade alliance, he raised his sights and proposed what amounted to a military one. Wentworth recruited Bancroft into the service and supervised his work in Paris closely, never quite sure of his loyalty to England. To license content, please contact licenses [at] americanheritage.com. Only a great heart and a great faith could survive. February 6, 1778. But before this blackout settled down Congress managed to get dispatches through, which in effect begged Franklin to manage his side of the desperate crisis as he saw fit. The Continental Navy would never be able to take on the larger British units. This treaty was a promise from France to help the fight against the British. Most of them were of no earthly use to the Commander in Chief and drained an impoverished Congress of money and patience. He returned to Paris with his usual air of pompous impeccability, for his conscience was light. Franklin insisted on British recognition of American independence and refused to consider a peace separate from France, America's staunch ally. Lord North had instructed him to explore the possibility of a truce on terms short of independence, and William Eden had given him an unsigned letter to show Franklin and Deane (the British too avoided Arthur Lee) which declared that England was ready to make great concessionsshort of independence.

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