By late June the captain and his men were released from jail, and the Revenge was loaded with powder and arms. Later Congress backed up this pledge and authorized all tenders necessary to get Bourbon help. took place in France and India. However, Izard and Arthur Lee let no day pass without earnest efforts, and on January 2, 1781, a move was made in Congress for Franklins recall. The Virginia delegates differed upon his appointment. It was a delusion that cost him and the country dear and brought no profit to Tom Morris. Part 2 focuses on the French land and naval forces that assisted the U.S. in combating the British military. 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. He could not punish Conyngham, who was in parts unknown, so he had William Hodge arrested and sent to the Bastille. But Bancroft was in the most strategic position of any informer, and his conduct at Passy was mysterious. 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. The currency had fallen to half its value. There was no good news at Passy. The story goes that he was rushing to play the stock market, and no doubt he was. Captain Conyngham had lost his ship on the last voyage, and was given command of the Surprise , a lugger newly bought for Congress. After this momentous decision of December 17, Deanes meeting with Wentworth was a decided anticlimax. The Revenge was owned half by Congress and half by Hodge and David Conyngham, a wealthy cousin of the captains who was on a business trip to Europe. His discretion was fathomless, and he may purposely have avoided emphasizing his old friendship with the man who carried out some of the ministrys most secret work for America. As a past master in the art of making the other man feel that he was acting solely for him, Vergennes recognized this basic technique in diplomacy. only affected North America. American colonists hoped for possible French aid in their struggle against British forces. 1783. Two revolutions, both taking place in the 18th Century, both world-changing. French Empire wanted to take revenge on the British Empire for its defeat in the Seven Years' War (1756-1763). Q. 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. French ships engaged British vessels almost immediately after Britain declared war on France in March of 1778. 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. In 1776, Louis XVI was just 22 years old and had been king for only two years. They provided ideological underpinnings. Tom Morris was dragging out the last months of his wretched life, and Lee saw no point in beating a dead horse. This was the same thing as asking France and Spain to declare immediate war against Great Britain. 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. When the royal nod transmogrified Beaumarchais into Roderigue Hortalez, he wrote Lee over that signature, announcing the formation of his house and his intended shipments to the Cape, to be paid for by remittances of American tobacco. 2. 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. Bancroft had sped to London, mainly to make a killing on the stock market, but he would not fail to bring George III the bad news. The prevention of anarchy and civil unrest. Then he captured the Kings packet, England registered the expected sense of outrage; the whole country seethed with the news. 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. The next day the Crown Council decided to conclude the alliance, and Vergennes rushed word to Passy that France would carry out her secret agreement of December 17 and fight at Americas side until her independence was won. Bingham was in other privateering ventures with Robert Morris and had made St. Pierre a virtual American war base. The exhibit traces the American naval effort in its three components: the Continental Navy, state navies, and privateers. After the Seven Years' War, Britain found itself in about twice as much debt . The result of this conflict would not only determine the fate of the thirteen North American colonies, but also alter the balance of colonial power throughout the world. Concluded between the government of King Louis XVI and the Second Continental Congress, the treaty proved critical to the United States winning its independence from Great Britain. This period of conflict began in 1698 with the War of the Grand . Franklins household, the unofficial American embassy, was never lonely, even when Benny was sent off to school. Because the future could somehow work in him he had become the sort of man coming generations would repeat. A sensible man would have liquidated Hortalez & Company at once. American merchantmen picked up contraband all over Europe; the British, Dutch, and French sent some cargoes direct to the thirteen colonies, but far greater amounts to their islands in the Caribbean, to be picked up by American traders. 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. America needed French aid of every sort: ships, supplies, loans, to begin with. These crucial French contributions exemplify the global character of the . He had sent some of his baggage ahead to Florence, never dreaming that an Izard would not be received in the duchy. As a result of Lees carelessness in leaving his portfolio in his room when he went out to dine, the commissioners had to abandon the building of a great frigate in Amsterdam, and she was sold to Louis XVI at cost. 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. It was a fine moment for his debut. A number of ill-advised financial maneuvers in the late 1700s worsened the financial situation of the already cash-strapped French government. Arthur was installed in the place where he could counteract Deane and that wicked old man, as R. H. Lee called Franklin. 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. His Reprisal , a full-rigged ship in an age of sloops and brigs, flew under the strong westerlies and completed the voyage in five weeks. 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. Louis XVI was helpless; he dared not begin the war without Spain. George III, faced with plain warnings from Bancroft and Wentworth that a French alliance was pending, would not believe them. 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. Just a year after independence was declared the Americans lost Fort Ticonderoga to Burgoyne, and on September 26 Howe entered Philadelphia. Contemporaries experienced the French Revolution as a set of interlocking changes or stages that seemed driven by some kind of mechanism or impetus. It made the French . Franklin resolved to break through any limitations put on his mission by Congress. But he had not reckoned on the reversal of Spanish policy. Economic historians will recognize the invaluable research and work of two individuals in particular that this article draws from: Merrill Jensen, and . In the last months the King had relinquished his illusion that war could be avoided, and he approved his ministers memoir the day it was presented. At the moment, Nantes was all, The American was adulated, wined and dined. The French Navy and American Independence: A Study of Arms and Diplomacy, 1774-1787. Meanwhile, Grard warned, the negotiations must be kept secret. While a gifted and expert secret agent can develop a second personality which keeps him from making slips, in Bancrofts case this doubling of self may have reflected a profound split in the psyche. France had 26 battleships ready, and by spring Spain would have thirty. 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. 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. Now the picture had entirely changed, and Spain hoped to make peace with the new king on the Portuguese throne. Anthony Todd, secretary of the General Post Office, read Franklins letters to people in England. 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. Had France lost the race for American friendship? Between 1778 and 1782 the French provided supplies, arms and ammunition, uniforms, and, most importantly, troops and naval support to the beleaguered Continental Army. But the accident was symbolic: Hortalez & Company had suffered a. This blogpost looks at the important French role in the American Revolution. The single most important diplomatic success of the colonists during the War for Independence was the critical link they forged . When Wickes brought his captured brigantines to Nantes they were speedily bought by a French purchaser for less than half their value. The story of his amazing accomplishments, of his diplomatic feats, of his wizardry in supplying the Continental armies, of his struggles with envious fellow commissioners, scheming enemies, and vacillating friendsthis is the burden of Helen Augurs new book, The Secret War of Independence (Duell, Sloan and PearceLittle, Brown). With British warships on the prowl the voyage was dangerous, but Franklin had brought his grandsons along. In 1758 Britain found a new strategy. A new nation had emerged, and in time each individual would realize his new identity. His sense of competition for the favor of America was plain in the letter he immediately wrote the French ambassador at Madrid. A week later she was halfway out of the harbor when a British sloop and cutter were sighted. It caused many French nobles and clergy to move to the newly independent United States. His contacts with his British employers revealed a quite different side, deformed by cupidity and fear. The Committee of Secret Correspondence, under Franklin, engaged agents abroad to explore the possibilities of foreign alliances. The capture of the Bastille ignited one of the greatest social upheavals in Western . The merchant was the intendant for supplying clothing for the French Armyand of late the American Army, for he had given Beaumarchais a million livres worth of clothing on credit. Franklin could make his quip about Philadelphia taking Howe while he privately worried about his family and friends there, about Washingtons reverses, and the dreadful paralysis that had seized the French ministry. 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. Short as it was, the crossing was a godsend. America could fight only her own sort of war on the seas, and this had started before Lexington and would continue long after Yorktown. 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. He had to fend off a break with England until France was ready for war. To formalize the colonial complaints against Parliament. But he was needed more in Nantes. Franklin and Deane co-operated with him by being very discreet about evading this prohibition, but the year which had begun so brilliantly in maritime operations was in the doldrums. was part of a larger war between Britain and France. The two men had been on fairly close terms in Congress, where Deane had sat from the first day as a delegate from Connecticut. The colonies needed these things . William Lee was appointed joint commercial agent for France to checkmate Robert Morris brother. (The third captain of that cruise was staying behind to take out one of the new American frigates built at Nantes.) Morris was as stubborn as George III about refusing to believe bad news, but when he was finally convinced of his mistake he was full of contrition. Delays which were not the fault of Deane and Beaumarchais held up most of the fleet for months after lading. 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. To gain time, he placated Stormont by arresting the three Wickes vessels (which kept them safe from the British warships on patrol) and by promising that the new cutter being fitted for Conyngham would be sold. Americas first decisive victory held the promise of the final one at Yorktown. But Deane was not interested; he showed great American pride, Wentworth wrote Eden. Despite his own best efforts, Lees mission turned out to be a success. Within 50 years, the European empires in the Americas would shrink and new nations would spread across the whole of the Americas. Continental Congress established the Secret Committee of Correspondence to publicize the American cause in Europe. Their poison letter campaign was reinforced by the arrival of Ralph Izard, a southern planter and rancid snob. Some inner mechanism in the Lee genes transmuted whatever was wrong with the Lees into something much worse that was wrong with their enemies. He was hardly prepared for the booming activity in Americas behalf that he found in Nantes. He had high connections at the court, which did not at all disapprove his heavy shipments of arms to American merchants, and later he was appointed ambassador to the United States. In that short interval he had seen his people take up arms for a desperate war, declare themselves a nation, and make the first cautious moves in foreign relations. how did the french alliance contribute to the american revolution. Franklin and Deane now wrote the committee urging action in every sea where British carried on commerce. 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. Deanes griefs were personal. The second . The commissioners had written privately to Robert Morris that his brother must be removed, but their letters were not received for months. George III now realized that the purpose behind the Wickes and Conyngham raids was to stir him up against France, which only increased his fury. Shipping was at a premium; in the last year the price of vessels had tripled. This move had been made after Franklin left Philadelphia, and the bad news would not reach Paris for months. No peace would be made except by the general consent. That formality over, Vergennes was ready for his great move. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975. He spent much of the latter half of 1776 in Paris as mentor to the inexperienced American, and the close friendship thus begun lasted as long as Deane lived. A photograph of Edouard de Laboulaye from the Galerie Contemporaine collection. American morale was so low that only the immediate entrance of France into the war could put heart into the country. It looked like a checkmate. 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. Then, when the diplomatic pressure eased, he would stealthily release them one at a time. 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. Washingtons defeat on Long Island and his retirement through the Jerseys made the Bourbon courts doubt if the war could succeed. 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. These were proposed by your friend [A. Lee], evaded by his colleagues.. The destinations given were usually French ports on the Channel, and the ostensible purpose was the sudden enormous need for arms in the French slave trade. Later Lee developed this fantasy into a sinister engine of destruction against those he hated. Stormont subsided; England needed time too. At Passy Bancroft was a loved and trusted figure, and Vergennes so admired him that after the war he sent Bancroft on a highly confidential mission to Ireland. February 6, 1778. A growing fleet of American privateers had already brought prizes into the various French ports, and a system had been perfected for their disposal. Since Nantes was the key port for American purposes, Franklin made a personal sacrifice and sent his grandnephew Jonathan Williams there as the special agent for the commissioners. 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. Sixty years after his death the incredible truth came out. 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. Later that year, the Franco-American army marched 700 miles south to besiege Gen. Charles Cornwallis' British army at Yorktown, while . 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. Almost every transaction carried out for Congress was a mixture of public and private business, an accepted practice. Franklin was now seventy, afflicted with gout, and wretchedly tired from his labors in Congress and its candle-burning committees. 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. He left the rack ruined in fortune, health, and mind, and openly went over to the British. His emotional balance was precarious. 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. A little pressure on Vergennes would do no harm. Above all we needed an ally. Franklins hosts were the merchants Pliarne and Penet, who had little standing in Nantes, but who may have been subsidized by Vergennes. He waited until the, Beaumarchais was with the three commissioners when the official messenger arrived. Every step in preparing the lugger for a cruise was watched by the British in Dunkirk. 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. Since Wentworth often slipped across to Paris, much of Bancrofts information could be delivered verbally, but he made a weekly report in writing. Vergennes had answered, Nous ne d sirons pas la guerre, mais nous ne la craignons pas. In sending on this encouraging word to Congress, Franklin added his own hopes about the Franco-British war: When all are ready for it, a small matter may suddenly bring it on.. 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. The story goes that he was rushing to play the stock market, and no doubt he was. At last America would hear of the third Lee brother, hitherto a cipher, as its savior in Europe. When he arrived at Nantes Penet kept him drunk and hostile to the Paris commissioners. 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. She was starting out as a beggar at the court of Versailles, and she would have to keep on begging until the war was over. Every Tuesday evening an agent of Stormont would pick up the letter and leave another with new instructions. A swarm of workmen then changed the marks of the vessels by slapping on new coats of paint, changing the figurehead, and such devices. By a supple turn of the wrist, Franklin transformed Franco-American relations. 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. He was a young man of complete integrity and far from ordinary gifts, whom Franklin could well have used in Paris. Much of the maddening delay in dispatching the ships was caused by Vergennes. During Franklins years in London he had watched the old power pattern repeat itself. He had a large family and expensive tastes, and needed and loved money. Hortalez & Company now became what it had always pretended to bea private concernand he kept on sending supplies to the United States until after Yorktown. He burned some and sent others to America, the West Indies, or whatever theater of war seemed to need their cargoes most. The historian Henri Doniol, who edited the secret French archives of the period, claimed that Franklin did more than coach the Whigs; that he in fact started an international gunrunning ring by quiet negotiations with certain arms manufacturers and exporters in England, Holland, and France. They were in the best possible hands; Captain Lambert Wickes was one of the few masters seasoned in the merchant fleet who had joined the Continental Navy. But once these two great steps in the right direction were made, it was easy to push through resolutions for negotiating foreign alliances. On the very day the French ministry decided for the alliance, Paul Wentworth was back in Paris. Franklin remembered the bitter crisis of the summer when Louis XVI had agreed to armed intervention and then had capitulated to his uncle. But the harm had been done. No doubt the colonies hoarded local supplies for their own defense, and the merchants hoarded their stocks for higher prices. Conyngham hastily sailed back to his berth and unloaded the powder. Edmund Pendleton was, according to John Adams . Conclusion. British firms had also been running munitions to the colonies, and continued to do so, despite orders-in-council. They all hated and feared Britain as the newly dominant nation of Europe. Intended as a defensive alliance, it saw France provide both supplies . By September, 1775, the crusader was back in Versailles, and with Vergennes intensified the campaign to draw the King into their dangerous project of largescale aid to the colonies. The two Lee brothers in Congress saw that their brothers in London were put in posts of influence. France Allied with American Colonies. 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.. The Stamp Act riots were noisy on the land, but the seas were quiet and busy. 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. For once Wentworth brought the King good news, the only kind he could ever believe. By October Beaumarchais had spent the original 2,000,000 livres from the Bourbon kings, plus another million from France, and 2,600,000 livres in the form of credit from French merchants. 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. They sent eight of them to France and got back safely. Contrary winds kept the Reprisal from entering the Loire to make the port of Nantes. He wrote Lord North that the agent has shewn great zeal and dispatch in the business he had so handsomely undertaken and ably accomplished.. When hostilities first erupted, the crown did . As such is their miserable policy, it is our business to force on a war for which purpose I see nothing so likely as fitting our privateers from the ports and islands of France. The only source for salt during the war was the Turks Islands beds at the tail of the Bahama chain, long a Bermudian monopoly. The royal loan was followed by an advance of a third million by the Farmers General of the French Revenue, who administered the government monopoly of tobacco and hoped for large shipments from Congress. 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. One of his parts was acting as confidential agent for the King, for his circumspection was as profound as Franklins. 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. C.) It encouraged the French to adopt the government system of popular sovereignty. Revolutionary leadership of George Washington Head of the colonial forces. Monticello Guide Olivia Brown looks at Jefferson's reaction to this momentous event and the small but significant role he played in it. He only succeeded in quarreling with them both, and when he tried to see Vergennes, he was quite properly snubbed. At once, on March 17, the commissioners sent memoirs to the French and Spanish ministries urging a triple war against Britain and her ally Portugal. Yet Franklin had a high opinion of the human race and lofty hopes for his particular segment of it. France aided the colonists by providing military armaments and loans. Deane and Beaumarchais were already fast friends, working in harmony to load the Hortalez fleet with war supplies. Soon the old names were changed to the Committee of Foreign Affairs and the Commercial Committee to make this distinction clear. Schooled in the Caribbean trade, he was ready for the ticklish work of running arms from Europe before the war began, and displayed such gifts for evading British snoopers in a highly spectacular way that their reports on Conyngham had the quality of a picaresque saga. Too much depended on Franklin. The United States, far from asking something for herself, was in reality advancing Bourbon interests and fighting their war. Little Benny Bache would be put in school to learn French, and Temple Franklin would act as his grandfathers unpaid secretary. 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. In November 1789, Richard Price . Most of the supply was still down in the Caribbean, but the fact remains that there must have been more powder on the continent than the various colonies and the merchants were willing to release to Congress.