Finally the almost moribund Board of Trade and Plantations was given the assignmentwhich doubtless proved profitableof issuing permits to merchants wishing to export warlike stores. France was a long-term historical rival with the Kingdom of Great Britain, from which the Colonies were attempting to separate.. A Treaty of Alliance between the French and . His emotional balance was precarious. Franklin insisted on British recognition of American independence and refused to consider a peace separate from France, America's staunch ally. The French Navy and American Independence: A Study of Arms and Diplomacy, 1774-1787. 2. The power which first recognizes the independence of the Americans, he said, will be the one to gather all the fruits of this war.. Whether this was one of the patriotic conspiracies for which he risked his life that year scarcely matters, for the contraband traffic would have gone merrily on if Benjamin Franklin had never existed. American victory over the British in the Battle of Saratoga convinced the French that the Americans were committed to independence and worthy partners to a formal alliance. The campaign against Franklin, the father of mischief, took longer because, as Izard confessed in a letter to the president of Congress, Henry Laurens, it was extremely difficult to find any proofs of his crimes. By late June the captain and his men were released from jail, and the Revenge was loaded with powder and arms. He was free for a time to be the scientist, finding in nature a fidelity to laws beyond the reach of human meddling. Vergennes, who had confidently hoped to receive these protests under very different circumstances, was forced to buy a little more time at the expense of his American friends. That night boats brought his cannon and powder and a number of French seamen, and the Dunkirk Pirate was on his way. As soon as Arthur Lee arrived from London the three commissioners wrote Vergennes announcing their appointment to negotiate a treaty of amity and commerce with France. He returned to Paris with his usual air of pompous impeccability, for his conscience was light. In 1758 Britain found a new strategy. Vergennes sent an agent, Achard de Bonvouloir, to Philadelphia to sound out Franklin about the prospects of a separation from England and a successful war. The greatest suppressed scandal of the war was the British trade with the enemy on Statia. Knowing George III as he did, Franklin realized the importance of insulting him while all Europe looked on. The sacred British mails were rushed down to Passy, and then the storm broke at Versailles. One traditional characteristic of the French diplomacy of alliances has been the "Alliance de revers" (i.e. In November 1789, Richard Price . Grimaldi told him that the King was presenting the Americans stores of arms, clothing, and blankets which their ships could pick up at New Orleans and Havana. Late in May Captain Wickes made a cruise quite around Ireland in company with two other captains and captured eighteen small vessels. Offered the bait of gunpowder, Congress swallowed the hook which Franklin had prayerfully included and ruled that any vessel bringing war supplies to the seaboard would be allowed to load up with produce. But Bancroft was in the most strategic position of any informer, and his conduct at Passy was mysterious. Focusing on the British government and the problems it faced in 1764, explained why its ministers considered introducing a stamp tax in colonial America. 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. Once he was installed as sole envoy in Paris, I should have it in my power to call those to account, through whose hands I know the public money has passed, and which will either never be accounted for, or misaccounted for, by connivance between those, who are to share in the public plunder. The Stamp Act riots were noisy on the land, but the seas were quiet and busy. Without changing his normal contacts Franklin could easily have guided a conspiracy to make the Revolution a reality instead of a lost cause. Vergennes was alarmed. Ferreiro, Larrie D. Brothers at Arms: American Independence and the Men of France & Spain Who Saved It. But the harm had been done. Instead of using direct pressure he used leverage. Over the course of the war, France contributed an estimated 12,000 soldiers and 32,000 sailors to the American war effort. Like the first conflict of that name, it was a period of intermittent warfare and political and economic rivalry between the two powers. 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. Due to the fantastic time lag in communications with Congress, Alderman Lee was about to take up his assignment as joint commercial agent for France ten months after Congress had canceled that assignment and appointed him envoy to Prussia and Austria. The end of 1799 may be conveniently taken as the . Arthur Lees secretary, Major John Thornton, was not only British but British secret service. George Washington was appointed commander of the Continental Army in 1775. Franklin remembered the bitter crisis of the summer when Louis XVI had agreed to armed intervention and then had capitulated to his uncle. This cat and mouse game was only part of the new turn in French policy. There would soon be an unfavorable change in the Spanish ministry: Grimaldi, friendly to America, would be replaced as chief minister by the Count of Floridablanca, who feared that an America now independent would before long overrun Spanish possessions in the New World. Franklins experiment had been a complete success in the laboratory sense; the sea raids had brought England and France to the verge of war. The new physiocratic school had its followers on both sides of the Atlantic. But his most important work was with the new firm of Hortalez & Company, which really meant the House of Bourbon. The letter announcing his imminent arrival in Madrid was received with consternation. 1778-1782. When hostilities first erupted, the crown did . (One factor, the actual fighting on land, would make up the bulk of future histories. As the American who best understood both sides of the Atlantic, Franklin had carried much of that burden, and for a long time to come would carry all the responsibility for getting maximum aid from the neutral powers without compromising the future of the new republic. The two men had been on fairly close terms in Congress, where Deane had sat from the first day as a delegate from Connecticut. In 1757, Franklin went to England to represent the Pennsylvania Assembly as a diplomat in its fight against the descendants of the Penn . Floridablancas policies prevailed; he wanted to keep the United States too weak to threaten Spanish possessions in America. Stormont was instructed to tell Vergennes that the Rebels game was up. But the Amphitrite and Mercure got away in time to reach Portsmouth by April, 1777, with supplies which at last turned the tide of war and made the crucial victory of Saratoga possible. Students will analyze maps, treaties, congressional records, first-hand accounts, and correspondence to determine the different roles assumed by Native Americans in the American Revolution and understand why the various groups formed the alliances they did. His contacts with his British employers revealed a quite different side, deformed by cupidity and fear. Trusted Writing on History, Travel, and American Culture Since 1949, Benjamin Franklin And The French Alliance, Franklin was now seventy, afflicted with gout, and wretchedly tired from his labors in Congress and its candle-burning committees. He had sent some of his baggage ahead to Florence, never dreaming that an Izard would not be received in the duchy. He wrote home that in the fighting there had been good order and readiness equal to anything of the kind in the best ships of the kings fleet.. On the third day of May he seized the, Conyngham was still in the Dunkirk jail, the only safe place for him. In their eyes she was still colonial, an outlying province of Europe. The French Revolution began in 1789 with the storming of the Bastille on July 14th. Overview of the four causes: 1. 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. After this momentous decision of December 17, Deanes meeting with Wentworth was a decided anticlimax. Franklins most pressing assignment was to buy or borrow eight battleships from France and to urge both Bourbon powers, France and Spain, to send fleets at their own expense to act in concert with these ships. Washington was the War Department, Robert Morris at various times was Treasury and Navy and always was Commerce, and Franklin was the Department of State. For once Wentworth brought the King good news, the only kind he could ever believe. When Franklin came to the signing . The American people had shown their power. The French helped the American colonists in two main ways. Vergennes had patiently dissembled Frances violations of neutrality in one encounter after the other with Stormont. Franklin, bobbing a thermometer over the Reprisal s rail to take the temperatures of the Gulf Stream, could think about the life of the sea, this western Atlantic and warm Caribbean which nature had chosen as the home for the new race of Americans. America needed French aid of every sort: ships, supplies, loans, to begin with. He welcomed routine, even a pernicious routine, but any crisis produced a violent reaction. This released a great stock of surplus arms for Hortalez to buy up cheaply. Nobody could find the prizes, which had been sold. 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. Franklin looked upon these fleets with the lust of a patriot whose country was in mortal danger for lack of their support. As the French Revolution was inspired by the American Revolution, it is easy to determine that the two must have similarities. The French loan was a godsend. She had stolen Hollands priority on the seas and had swept France from the American continent and the best part of her fisheries. New York: Random House, 2015. 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 . But he was too late. Hodge was not released until the last of the fishing fleet was safely home in France. The British take Charleston, S.C., capture a large patriot army, and deal the rebels one of their worst defeats of the war. That formality over, Vergennes was ready for his great move. Their difficulties in shipping out supplies to America were also greatly increased, for Lee had set down everything he could learn without coding it. If General Howe had guessed that, he could have ended the war then and there. Franklin and Morris could hardly have believed Captain Wickes news on his return to Philadelphia if a courier had not come back from Europe at the same time with even more wonderful tidings. The chief results of the mission were the snuffing out of Prussia as a potential ally, and the theft of Lees papers by a professional burglar hired by the British ambassador. It encouraged the French to adopt the government system of popular sovereignty. But Franklin and Deane knew what to expect from Arthur Lee. During the Revolution this tiny island was the clearinghouse for American trade with the Caribbean and Europe, including Britain. It was with the greatest difficulty, he wrote, I persuaded them to insist on the recognition of our sovereignty, and the acknowledgement of our independence. However, Beaumarchais put his whole soul into his character as friend of the American Revolution. France and Britain drifted into hostilities without a declaration of war when their fleets off Ushant off the northwest coast of France on June 17, 1778. A disguised British vessel at Dunkirk had alerted the warships, and as soon as the, By the middle of July Vergennes had made up his mind to ask the King for armed intervention. France is a major contributor to the Defeat-ISIL Coalition. The man who believed there was never a good war or a bad peace was about to use all his powers to sweep the Bourbon nations into the War of Independence. He only succeeded in quarreling with them both, and when he tried to see Vergennes, he was quite properly snubbed. Spain had been fighting Portugal in South America and had favored just such an alliance with the hope of getting Portugal as her share of the plunder. France and Great Britain were cutthroat enemies. In mid-November George III, who had no intention of starting a war with France, decided it would be useful to know the Spanish plans and sent Paul Wentworth to Paris to find out how Charles III stood. Though facing insurmountable odds, the underdog naval forces of the young United States proved their savvy by helping to defeat Great Britain in the War for Independence. His, Soon Beaumarchaiss coach was tearing down the road to Paris so fast that it overturned and he injured an arm. 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. But in mid-July Conyngham took his unharmed cutter out to sea and anchored at a safe rendezvous. A.) Meanwhile, Grard warned, the negotiations must be kept secret. Stormont subsided; England needed time too. His, Privateers could accomplish wonders, but they could not fight the great British ships of the line. It was plain that Vergennes rather disliked him and gave every evidence that he was dealing with him only because he represented someone important. No charge was made against Deane, but for two years Congress kept him in Philadelphia at its pleasure while the press vilified him. Franklin enjoyed the brief engagements. 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. He sent his first secretary, Grard de Rayvenal, to Passy with his congratulations and the suggestion that Franklin might now press the treaty negotiation which France had avoided for nearly a year. He signed only his initials. He went back to London in a fury. Franklin faced the critical year of 1777 with the knowledge that the British fleet would pound American hopes to nothing unless France and Britain began their ordained war. On May 2, 1776, Louis XVI signed documents committing France to action as a secret American ally, in violation of her treaties with Britain. 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. The winter of Valley Forge was beginning, and its bleakness was in the comfortable house at Passy too. He had written his own instructions for Commissioner Franklin to carry out. Britain won the Seven Years War and imposed the Peace of Paris which bred the next cycle of conflict with the Continental powers. A swarm of workmen then changed the marks of the vessels by slapping on new coats of paint, changing the figurehead, and such devices. 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. France's Debt Problems. Arthur Lee knew he was being kept out of important conferences, and yet within a few months he was writing friends that he alone had negotiated the French alliance, though Franklin and Deane tried to take credit for the work. It is hard to see how the patriots could have started their war, or kept it going, without the help of the islanders. Still hopeful that Congress had ships to command, they spoke of raids on Greenland whalers and Hudson Bay fishing fleets, and urged that Navy ships convoy shipping in the Caribbean, since England would now send privateers and heavy units of her fleet there. The commissioners drew on it for their expenses, for the purchase of war supplies, for building three frigates in Holland and France, and for keeping up the maritime war in European waters. 1. He soon went down to Spain, where Conyngham was taking fresh prizes. Now he hurried his preparations, and Captain Wickes was ordered to make all speed to Nantes, and to avoid action if possible. Somehow the wild Irishman, repeating the maneuver of the sound and sober Wickes, created an infinitely greater reaction. In 1776, Louis XVI was just 22 years old and had been king for only two years. Bancroft is entirely an American and every word he used on the late occasion was to deceive; perhaps they think Mr. Wentworth has been sent from motives of fear and if that is Franklins opinion the whole conduct he has shewn, is wise and to me it [unravels] what other ways would appear inexplicable.. Franklin and Vergennes, knowing that Arthur Lee was dangerous as well as disagreeable, kept him out of the treaty negotiations as much as possible. However, over time divisions of opinion became apparent between federalists and anti-federalists. Soon the old names were changed to the Committee of Foreign Affairs and the Commercial Committee to make this distinction clear. Conyngham was still in the Dunkirk jail, the only safe place for him. Nor had Vergennes, who was extremely cool in his calculations. But the accident was symbolic: Hortalez & Company had suffered a bouleversement . The American Revolution was by no means a purely American-British conflict. 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. Both men were in Franklins confidence, and they worked closely with Vergennes. Born in Massachusetts in 1744, Bancroft was just of age when he settled in London, but he was already a notable scientist and writer. The American victory secured critical financial support from the French. He now careened his ship and cleaned the hull at his leisure while the excitement died down. It inspired the French to launch their own revolution for liberty and equality. 1783. French Empire wanted to take revenge on the British Empire for its defeat in the Seven Years' War (1756-1763). France Allied with American Colonies. At the first hint of this the Doctor tendered his resignation, which to his relief was not accepted. King Louis XVI was born in 1754 and was pronounced king of France when he succeeded his grandfather in 1774. By the summer of 1777 Arthur Lee openly accused Deane and Beaumarchais of appropriating 200,000 which he said the Bourbons had intended as a free gift to America. This was interesting; evidently the expected overture from England was at hand. The thirteen colonies were in the nightmare situation of trying to fight the strongest power in the Western world almost barehanded. Moreover, a certain project which he may have discussed with Morris and Wickes was developing in his mind, and he needed to find out how France would react if prizes were brought into Nantes. Miss Augur, one of many writers who have honored the great old man on his 250th anniversary this year, is the author of several other books, including Tall Ships to Cathay and biographies of Anne Hutchinson and John Ledyard. When Deane arrived in Paris in the summer of 1776 Arthur Lee rushed over from London. 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. His private period of turmoil and decision lay behind him, and he could think calmly of what must be done to make Jeffersons great charter a reality. 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. It inspired the French to launch their own revolution for liberty and equality. Please support this 72-year tradition of trusted historical writing and the volunteers that sustain it with a donation to American Heritage. However, he had proved to himself more than once that prodigies could result from careful planning and unstinted effort. 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. The Battle of Saratoga was an extensive and punishing conflict and a key victory for the Americans in the Revolutionary War. 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.. Conclusion. France, wretchedly poor at the bottom of its society and jaded and apprehensive at the top, was rushing towards its own revolution, and the violent emotions which would ruin the French Revolution were tripped off in wild demonstrations of welcome. E . Question 5. He had a vital part in transforming the flow of war supplies from a too little, too late dribble into a steady stream which insured an American victory. This kept him out of personal debates and increased his potential. Secret aid was no longer sufficient, he argued, for the British claimed that the policy of the Bourbons was to destroy England by means of the Americans, and America by means of the British. Moreover, importers of cannon and powder had to arm their merchantmen, and if their merchantmen were transformed into privateers, as many were, they needed a large supply of ammunition. Much later Wentworth revealed the trick: the night before the official inspection Wickes had pumped water into the hold. He was also making them a gift of 375,000 livres. The prize crew of five Americans and sixteen Frenchmen were put in prison, and the prize master was forced to confess that Conyngham had made other captures. 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. By then Congress had set up two secret committees on both of which Franklin was extremely busy. For diplomatic reasons, he always pretended a vast ignorance of Hortalez & Companya feat like hiding an elephant in a hat. Despite having little experience in commanding large, conventional military forces, his leadership presence and fortitude held the American military together long enough to secure victory at Yorktown and independence for his new nation in 1781. The story goes that he was rushing to play the stock market, and no doubt he was. Despite his own best efforts, Lees mission turned out to be a success. The American Revolution of 1775-1789, which concluded as the revolution in France was unfolding, was perhaps the most significant. The traffic which had started about 1770 was very large. The currency had fallen to half its value. 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. British Debt. Getting a fleet for Washington was high on Franklins agenda. A disguised British vessel at Dunkirk had alerted the warships, and as soon as the Revenge was in the open sea she was chased by several British frigates, sloops of war, and cutters. The table has been produced based upon "Ferguson's estimate of the total cost of the war": Edwin J. Perkins, American Public Finance and Financial Services, 1700-1815 (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 1994), 103, Table 5.4. 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. But Beaumarchais was on a crusade for American independence, and he would not drop it until independence was won. This must not happen again. Though still reeling from the loss of its American colonies at the end of the Seven Years' War in 1763, the country remained a global power with a strong army and navy. Bermuda, which barely escaped becoming the fourteenth state, had a large merchant colony on the Dutch island, and there sold her American friends the thousand fine cedar sloops she built or refitted for them. Much paper would be required for their letter campaign, and a spate of words would cover their omission of proofs. The United States, far from asking something for herself, was in reality advancing Bourbon interests and fighting their war. Contemporaries experienced the French Revolution as a set of interlocking changes or stages that seemed driven by some kind of mechanism or impetus. During this period of watchful waiting, Franklin applied political pressure. Our want of powder is inconceivable, wrote Washington in the bitter early days of the Revolution. That was its only point; Vergennes would soon learn of this long interview with the British representative, and he might be worried if Franklin neglected to tell him anything about it. The Reprisal was carrying a cargo of indigo worth 3,000 which was intended to pay the early expenses of the Paris mission. how did the french alliance contribute to the american revolutionis york university uk hard to get into? These British snoopers were the very ones who had quarantined the American powder runners in Amsterdam in 1774, and they came with orders to burn the Revenge if she sailed out. While Spain's influence on the Revolutionary War was significant, perhaps the most profound impact was the broader American Revolution's impact on Spain. Their poison letter campaign was reinforced by the arrival of Ralph Izard, a southern planter and rancid snob. He had a large family and expensive tastes, and needed and loved money. Moreover, he knew that Franklin was talking sense; if Washington was losing battles there were reasons for his setback which France could do a great deal to remedy. The American Revolution and the French Alliance. Here we are too near the sun, and the business is dangerous; with you it may be done more easily.. 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. It made the French . On the land, if Washington finally got enough men and guns, he might wear down British troops far from their home base. Britain had acquired a massive debt fighting the French and Indian War. Bancroft belonged to the American patriot group in London and wrote able papers defending the cause of the thirteen colonies. It is significant that while the Americans and French trusted Bancroft implicitly, the British were always suspicious of him, had his letters opened at the post office, and watched his movements. As for the French islands, the Cape developed into a prime source for munitions, and Martinique became an American privateer base before Franklin sailed. Charles III refused the triple alliance. On January 24 Wickes sailed out of Nantes with a French pilot and several French seamen aboard, strengthening the desired impression of collusion with Versailles. 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 Revolution precipitated a series of European wars, forcing the United States to articulate a clear policy of neutrality in order to avoid being embroiled in these European conflicts. (We must remember that all this was happening before Lexington.). Franklin found that the American stock had lately plunged to its lowest point. 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. 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.. Vergennes himself could not have stated the Bourbon feelings about Britain more accurately. French ships engaged British vessels almost immediately after Britain declared war on France in March of 1778. Congress demanded impossibilities of him: a huge loan which France could not afford, French battleships and seamen, and the prompt entrance of the Bourbons into the war. First off, the debt of the French Indian War was the reason parliament started imposing taxes on the colonist in the first place. He had never outgrown some early drive to make the blacksmiths son a great gentleman. Deane and Beaumarchais were already fast friends, working in harmony to load the Hortalez fleet with war supplies. With a fur cap on his unwigged gray head, Franklin took up his studies of the Gulf Stream where he had dropped them on his voyage home from England. When Wickes brought his captured brigantines to Nantes they were speedily bought by a French purchaser for less than half their value. It curtailed foreign trade at the moment when the country, which produced almost nothing useful in war, most needed to increase imports. From May, 1777, to May, 1778, Congress would receive no direct word from its mission in Paris.