how did the french alliance contribute to the american revolution

France and the American Revolution. During the summer Congress became alarmed at the massing of French warships in the Caribbean and sent young William Bingham to find out whether this mobilization portended action against the United States. DuVal, Kathleen. Anything known in Congress was apt to percolate to Whitehall. The misunderstanding was cleared up, but meanwhile Deane was bitter about Morris and bitter about the energies he had poured into his public life, only to be systematically destroyed by the Lees. Moreover, orders would be given for British warships to seize the French fishing fleet daily expected from the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. Sixty years after his death the incredible truth came out. 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. 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. It curtailed foreign trade at the moment when the country, which produced almost nothing useful in war, most needed to increase imports. Then and then only did he dissolve his company, which had spent over 42,000,000 livres, mostly for America, and most of it never paid back. The idling envoys to Vienna, Berlin, and Tuscany not only buzzed around Passy day after day but tried to rewrite Franklins treaties. 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 story goes that he was rushing to play the stock market, and no doubt he was. Robert Morris had arranged Toms appointment under the delusion that the youth had reformed during a long stay abroad and was to be trusted with the public business. Bancroft was still the mission confidant at Passy; certain Americans who sat at Deanes dinner table reported on ship movements to the British secret service, and Captain Joseph Hynson, who happened to be Lambert Wickess stepbrother, stole an entire pouch of dispatches intended for Congress, which contained all the secret correspondence between the mission and the French ministry for the last eight months. In 1865, Edouard de Laboulaye (a French . A young girl began having strange fits. The news of Howes occupation of Philadelphia arrived in November as the climax of an excruciating period in which Franklins own campaign had reached a stalemate. 1. Conyngham was still in the Dunkirk jail, the only safe place for him. 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. So too was our want of guns, supplies, and everything needed in a war against one of the major powers of the earth. He welcomed routine, even a pernicious routine, but any crisis produced a violent reaction. Then he tried to tempt Deane with the honours and emoluments which the King would bestow on him if he brought about a reconciliation. He masked his powerful and subtle mind behind the benevolent simplicity which was also part of his nature. As for the French islands, the Cape developed into a prime source for munitions, and Martinique became an American privateer base before Franklin sailed. For months, in fact, Franklin and Deane had slipped away in the evening for conferences with the minister, and Lee spread the word that the Doctor was having an affair with some French beauty. His, Soon Beaumarchaiss coach was tearing down the road to Paris so fast that it overturned and he injured an arm. These crucial French contributions exemplify the global character of the . In the kindest of letters, Gardoqui explained the situation to the approaching envoy and suggested a meeting on the French side of the border. It had only an overworked legislature trying to perform administrative functions. He was never suspected by anybody but Arthur Lee, who suspected everybody but his own secretaries, who were almost invariably British agents. 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. If Vergennes had any doubts about Franklins grasp of Bourbon aims, they were resolved by the Doctors masterly letter of January 5. 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. The American people had shown their power. The Treaty of Amity and Commerce recognized the U.S. as an independent nation and promoted trade between France and America. 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. On February 6, 1778, Benjamin Franklin was in France signing the Treaty of Amity and Commerce and the Treaty of Alliance. When Colonel Tucker told Franklin and Morris that there was a respectable supply of gunpowder in the royal arsenal at St. Georges which could be abstracted in a midnight raid, a bargain was struck. He burned some and sent others to America, the West Indies, or whatever theater of war seemed to need their cargoes most. From 1790 to 1794, the revolutionaries grew increasingly radical. Now the picture had entirely changed, and Spain hoped to make peace with the new king on the Portuguese throne. Their poison letter campaign was reinforced by the arrival of Ralph Izard, a southern planter and rancid snob. After France entered on February 6th, 1778 in the American Revolutionary War, the British naval force - master of the seas - and French fleet confronted each other from the beginning. For once Wentworth brought the King good news, the only kind he could ever believe. Plainly neither side wanted to start hostilities, and they had perfected a system for avoiding a rupture. Vergennes may never have realized what had happened during that fateful year of 1777. Following hard on the American Revolution (1776-83), the sweeping aside of the French feudal order demonstrated the irresistible rise of freedom and enlightenment. The Comte de Vergennes. 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 if she should declare war on France, we conceive that by the united force of France, Spain, and America, she will lose all her possessions in the West Indies, much the greatest part of that commerce which has rendered her so opulent, and be reduced to that state of weakness and humiliation which she has, by her perfidy, her insolence, and her cruelty both in the east and the west, so justly merited.. He was the unifying force of the Revolution, the one man who could understand and use effectively the complex elements which composed it. 900 seconds. 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. In 1776, Louis XVI was just 22 years old and had been king for only two years. British general Henry Clinton marched north from New York and could have helped Burgoyne turn the tide at Saratoga, but he never arrived. He radiated reassurance like one of his own stoves; the warmth and charm of his personality masked his Merlin powers. The winter of Valley Forge was beginning, and its bleakness was in the comfortable house at Passy too. Franklin insisted on British recognition of American independence and refused to consider a peace separate from France, America's staunch ally. The war provided Great Britain enormous territorial gains in North America, but disputes over . With British warships on the prowl the voyage was dangerous, but Franklin had brought his grandsons along. Soon Franklin and Deane had a group of young men busy in the various ports, helping merchantmen and privateers speed on their way, informing them of shifts in French regulations and dangerous areas patrolled by British warships, recruiting French seamen to fill out depleted ships companies, finding masters for ships and ships for masters. But Montaudoin and all Nantes had begun to increase clandestine trade with the thirteen colonies about 1770, long before Franklin decided on his personal break with England. The Stamp Act riots were noisy on the land, but the seas were quiet and busy. Only a frayed rope anchored the nations to peace, and Franklin believed that an implement lay ready to hand which would saw through the hawser. He was annoyed to find that Bancroft was in London, making contact with the mission rather difficult. 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 insisted on holding the conferences on Spanish soil at Vitoria; he wrote an ungracious memoir to Grimaldi and crossed the border. Anything he could learn about the missions connections with Spain and other countries was wanted. By a supple turn of the wrist, Franklin transformed Franco-American relations. It led the French to seek an alliance with the Americans to dethrone Louis XVI. French ships engaged British vessels almost immediately after Britain declared war on France in March of 1778. No peace would be made except by the general consent. Therefore, by the time the American Revolution broke out in 1775, the young French King Louis XVI was eager to use this conflict to . In a word, Franklin laid the cornerstone of American foreign relations, and for a long time to come American treaties would be modeled on these first ones with France. His key man for American contacts was Paul Wentworth of New Hampshire, who before the war had been the London agent for that colony and after the war was elected a trustee of Dartmouth College, to which he had presented scientific apparatus. Spain had suffered less, but she was tied to France by the Bourbon Family Compact. Just a year after independence was declared the Americans lost Fort Ticonderoga to Burgoyne, and on September 26 Howe entered Philadelphia. Deane was in and out of the Passy house, keeping his hotel quarters for business and the entertaining of transient sea captains and a horde of friends. Edward Bancroft had been in British pay since 1772. 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. 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. For the rest of the war she ran salt to the mainland, refused to privateer against the Americans, and built for them her superb sloops. He had a large family and expensive tastes, and needed and loved money. The Treaty of Alliance (1778) between the United State and France was signed February 6, 1778. William Lee was rewarded with office as alderman of the city, a title which he did not relinquish until the war was almost over and he knew which side would win. The French government has immediately recalled its ambassadors to the US and Australia for consultation in response to America's recently announced national security partnership with the United . A photograph of Edouard de Laboulaye from the Galerie Contemporaine collection. This was interesting; evidently the expected overture from England was at hand. At the moment, Nantes was all, The American was adulated, wined and dined. Bingham was in other privateering ventures with Robert Morris and had made St. Pierre a virtual American war base. 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. 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. France aided the colonists by providing military armaments and loans. Franklin dealt with these suicidal moves in his usual oblique fashion. 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. 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. The Doctor, instead of staying with the Montaudoins, allowed himself to be captured by people he disliked. 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. Floridablancas policies prevailed; he wanted to keep the United States too weak to threaten Spanish possessions in America. It was February, and the ominous shift in the ministry from the friendly Grimaldi to the hostile Floridablanca was taking place. He was such a master at dissimulation that he kept the British ambassador, Lord Stormont, convinced all through 1774 that nothing illicit was going on. Between 1778 and 1782 the French provided supplies, arms and ammunition, uniforms, and, most importantly, troops and naval support to the beleaguered Continental Army. To Vergennes, Americans were shedding their blood in order to bleed England. 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. 1778-1782. Both revolutions began due to the financial problems in their countries. It made the French . The American was adulated, wined and dined. America needed French aid of every sort: ships, supplies, loans, to begin with. This required certain arrangements in the ports of France. After the Seven Years' War, Britain found itself in about twice as much debt . Now he hurried his preparations, and Captain Wickes was ordered to make all speed to Nantes, and to avoid action if possible. 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. Then he captured the Kings packet Swallow , running between Falmouth and Lisbon. What was the main purpose of the Stamp Act Congress? After this momentous decision of December 17, Deanes meeting with Wentworth was a decided anticlimax. Vergennes would promise to investigate the matter, which meant that Stormont had lost a point. However, Beaumarchais put his whole soul into his character as friend of the American Revolution. Britain won the Seven Years War and imposed the Peace of Paris which bred the next cycle of conflict with the Continental powers. He now careened his ship and cleaned the hull at his leisure while the excitement died down. He was a smaller copy of Robert Morris and aspired to become a great international merchant like his friend. 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. 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. 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.. It attempted to pay down that debt by taxing colonists through the Stamp Act, generating far more resentment than revenue. Copyright 1949-2022 American Heritage Publishing Co. All Rights Reserved. Then, when the diplomatic pressure eased, he would stealthily release them one at a time. With British warships on the prowl the voyage was dangerous, but Franklin had brought his grandsons along. 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. He had connived in the Conyngham raid in the confidence that the next time Stormont came fuming into his Cabinet with threats of war, he could hand the pestiferous ambassador his portfolio and wish him a pleasant old age in England. First off, the debt of the French Indian War was the reason parliament started imposing taxes on the colonist in the first place. Bancroft was a supreme spy, but he preserved a curious code of his own, almost a code of honor, about what he would or would not do. As was demonstrated at the Battle of Yorktown, the French alliance was decisive for the cause of American independence. Soon the old names were changed to the Committee of Foreign Affairs and the Commercial Committee to make this distinction clear. 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. Among the papers was Lees private journal with a log of his Spanish transactions and details of every move made by the Paris mission up to that June. Little Benny Bache would be put in school to learn French, and Temple Franklin would act as his grandfathers unpaid secretary. All this was excruciating, since Lee had trumpeted in letters home that he had the ministry and Hortalez in his pocket. A courier was on his way to Madrid, and the decision of Charles III should be known within three weeks. And Spanish concurrence in the alliance must be won. 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. During the Revolution this tiny island was the clearinghouse for American trade with the Caribbean and Europe, including Britain. But the, In a few swift parries Franklin suggested what his technique of dealing with the ministry would be. In 1757, Franklin went to England to represent the Pennsylvania Assembly as a diplomat in its fight against the descendants of the Penn . Franklin knew what he had won for his beloved country. Ferreiro, Larrie D. Brothers at Arms: American Independence and the Men of France & Spain Who Saved It. France and Great Britain were cutthroat enemies. 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. Franklin and Deane were at the top of that long list. Introduction. However, he had proved to himself more than once that prodigies could result from careful planning and unstinted effort. France Allied with American Colonies. As the French Revolution was inspired by the American Revolution, it is easy to determine that the two must have similarities. The memoir to Vergennes asked for a French loan of 2,000,000 (which Congress had hopefully requested) . It caused many French nobles and clergy to move to the newly independent United States. The currency had fallen to half its value. Native American groups had to choose the loyalist or patriot causeor somehow maintain a neutral stance during the Revolutionary War. The move was long overdue, for the Americans had been making a brilliant success of their sea raids all over the Atlantic and the Caribbean. was part of a larger war between Britain and France. He was also making them a gift of 375,000 livres. 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. Independence Lost: Lives on the Edge of the American Revolution. He must gather exhaustive information on the missions dealings with Congress, with Versailles, with merchants shipping out contraband. Vergennes himself could not have stated the Bourbon feelings about Britain more accurately. Franklin resolved to break through any limitations put on his mission by Congress. was a war only between the French and the Native Americans. In making this special adaptation of her book for AMERICAN HERITAGE, she has re-created that less familiar but vital struggle behind the scenes which was necessary at Versailles before Cornwallis could march out, in defeat, at Yorktown while the drums beat for the birth of a new nation. 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. 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. 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. Franklins hosts were the merchants Pliarne and Penet, who had little standing in Nantes, but who may have been subsidized by Vergennes. February 6, 1778. If General Howe had guessed that, he could have ended the war then and there. When Deane arrived in Paris in the summer of 1776 Arthur Lee rushed over from London. Without changing his normal contacts Franklin could easily have guided a conspiracy to make the Revolution a reality instead of a lost cause. 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. When Stormont appeared at Versailles Vergennes assured him that the, Captain Conyngham had lost his ship on the last voyage, and was given command of the, The small matter was to be Conynghams capture of another British packet, this time the one plying to Holland. He had come to the point where he must drop his perilous but always enjoyable collaboration with Franklin and play for France alone. Thus torn from its context, the military side of the Revolution is implausible.). In this first interview the minister was lifted out of his discouragement by Franklins solid faith in the American destiny, and by his understanding of the whole European complex which made him able to suggest the right move at the right time rather than chimerical impossibilities. As for the Reprisal , anchored at Lorient, she suddenly sprang a leak, and international usage allowed a ship in distress harbor privileges until she was fit to sail. His new cutter, the Revenge , had been bought by William Hodge of Philadelphia, who had also obtained Conynghams first ship. He waited until the, Beaumarchais was with the three commissioners when the official messenger arrived. He was the mutant of a new species. 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. He was lulled by the specious truce with Francebut how would he feel if Captain Wickes captured a royal packet carrying the royal mails? The southern states were crammed with tobacco, which could not even be sent up along the coast because of the British cruisers on patrol. 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 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. And Franklin, Voltaire, and Rousseau were linked together as the presiding geniuses of the century. 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. 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. Revolutionaries were inspired by the ideals of the Enlightenment including individual freedom. American morale was so low that only the immediate entrance of France into the war could put heart into the country. The Franco-American alliance was the 1778 alliance between the Kingdom of France and the United States during the American Revolutionary War.Formalized in the 1778 Treaty of Alliance, it was a military pact in which the French provided many supplies for the Americans.The Netherlands and Spain later joined as allies of France; Britain had no European allies. William Lee opened the campaign against Deane in a letter to Francis Lightfoot Lee. Sailcloth and shoes, embroidered waistcoats and fusils, cannon and wig powder were crated and piled on the docks for shipment to the country that needed everything. This period of conflict began in 1698 with the War of the Grand . 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. To forestall a truce with Britain, the ministers had stipulated that the United States must make no peace that surrendered her independence. As a weapon of war the British secret service was remarkably effective. For diplomatic reasons, he always pretended a vast ignorance of Hortalez & Companya feat like hiding an elephant in a hat. His, Privateers could accomplish wonders, but they could not fight the great British ships of the line. That formality over, Vergennes was ready for his great move. Stormont was instructed to tell Vergennes that the Rebels game was up. France did not wait for the announcement of July Fourth. Short as it was, the crossing was a godsend. Though the mail vessel was lightly armed she gave Wickes some trouble, and one of his seamen was killed and a lieutenant wounded. answer choices. Between them Beaumarchais and Deane amassed arms and every necessary article of clothing for an army of 30,000 men. It encouraged the French to adopt the government system of popular sovereignty. In France, however, this separation of function was impossible. 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. He went on with suggestions for arming vessels in Martinique and manning them with French seamen, which must have amused Bingham, who was already busy at this very work. The commissioners had written privately to Robert Morris that his brother must be removed, but their letters were not received for months. Before he left Philadelphia Franklin had written with Morris certain instructions for Captain Wickes: he was to cruise against the British in their home waters, and bring his prizes into a French port.

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