THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. CHAPTER I. FRANCE HAS URGENT NEED OF PEACE. 1780-1781. THE Consummation of peace between Great Britain and the United States of America was the sublime result of powers which were conspiring together for the renovation of the world. The United States were without a government, without a revenue, with only the remnants of an army which it could not recruit, nor pay, nor properly feed or clothe, and they were constant suitors to the Bourbon kings for aid. They were engaged with Great Britain in a war which, as it proceeded, had involved the interests of two absolute monarchs and the rising republic so closely that no one of them could make a good peace for itself without a general peace. Spain had calculated everything for a single campaign.* The covenanted invasion of England having failed, the querulous King Charles, after but seven months of hostilities, complained "that France had brought Spain into the war for its own interests alone,† and had caused the first mishaps" to his flag. Florida Blanca, speaking to the French ambassador, called himself a great fool for having induced his king to the declaration against England. He was ready to assent to the division of Turkey between Austria and Russia, if * Montmorin to Vergennes, 13 May 1780. these two powers would but conform as mediators to his plan of peace. Vergennes inflexibly asserted that France was held in honor to sustain the independence of the United States, but that their boundaries were contingent on events.* King Charles desired to retain the United States in some kind of vassalage to Great Britain,† or give them up to helpless anarchy. ‡ He would not receive Jay as their envoy, and even declined a visit from the late minister of France at Philadelphia, who passed through Madrid on his way home from his mission. It was the constant reasoning of Florida Blanca that, if American independence was to be granted, it must be only on such terms as would lead to endless quarrels between America and England; that the northern colonies preserved a strong attachment for their mother country, and, if once possessed of independence, would become her helpful ally; while, if they were compelled to submit to her rule, they would be only turbulent subjects. Tossed by danger and doubt from one expedient to another, Spain, through the government of Portugal, sought to open a secret negotiation with England; and the king of France, in an autograph letter, acquiesced in the attempt.^ On the other hand, an unexpected ally offered itself to England. No sooner had Spain declared war against England than by Jesuits in Rome it was privately signified to the British that the natives of Mexico were disaffected toward their government, and universally hated the Spanish; that, since the suppression of the order of the Jesuits, the Spanish government had no medium of control over the natives; that ex-Jesuits, who were conversant with the Mexican and Peruvian languages, were willing to use their superior influence in the Spanish colonies in favor of Great Britain, and to take any hazard if assured of the free exercise of their religion; that well-instructed emissaries could do more than a military force, especially if they might promise to the natives the choice of their governor and magis * Compare Vergennes to Montmorin, 22 January 1781. # Montmorin to Vergennes, 29 March 1780. A The king of France to the king of Spain, 25 April 1780. trates. In the course of the year, Lord North laid before the cabinet a plan for an expedition, by way of India, to the western coast of South America, and it was approved; but peace came before it was undertaken. The ultimatum of the United States of America in their eventual negotiation with Britain for peace, unanimously adopted on the fourteenth day of August 1779, set forth their rights to the largest boundaries that had belonged to them during their dependence. The refusal to acknowledge their "equal common rights with Canada and Nova Scotia to the fisheries was not to stand in the way of peace, but the claim of right to the fisheries was not to be surrendered, and was made a sine qua non in any treaty of commerce with Great Britain. Massachusetts and its friends in congress could therefore see the best chance of securing their interests by the election of John Adams as at once the sole negotiator of the treaty of peace and of the treaty of commerce with Britain. They succeeded, and, in February 1780, John Adams arrived in Paris with his double powers. In "his determination to take no steps of consequence in pursuance of his commissions without consulting the ministers of his most Christian majesty," he asked "the opinion and advice" of Vergennes if it was prudent to acquaint the British ministry with his readiness to treat, and "publish the nature of his mission, or remain on the reserve." The French minister welcomed him to France, but, before a reply, wished to become better acquainted with the nature and extent of his commission. Adams declined the hint to communicate his instructions, but gave a copy of his commissions. Vergennes advised him "to take every precaution that the British ministry may not have a premature knowledge of his full powers to negotiate a treaty of commerce;" his character in regard to the future pacification would be announced in France, after which he might give it greater publicity through the Dutch journals. Adams acquiesced in the advice, but to congress he confessed that if he had followed his own judgment he should, immediately after his arrival in Paris, have communicated to Lord George Germain his full powers to treat both of peace and commerce.* * Diplomatic Correspondence, iv., 339, 361, 863, 376, 386, 388, 423, 443–445. On the fourteenth of March 1780 the house of commons had carried against the ministry, by a majority of eight votes, a resolution to abolish the board of trade and plantations—the board which for nearly a century had led the way in all the encroachments on colonial freedom. The vote and the statute which followed seemed to imply that, even in the opinion of one branch of the British legislature, America was lost; and it certainly put an end to a board of advice which would, in any negotiation for peace, have cavilled at every article promising favor or even moderation to the ancient colonies. The time for treating of peace was not come; for the British government, supported by parliament, was persisting in the war with relentless fury. To a communication from Adams in May of a wish in England that he would make propositions, he answered: "If the views are exact, ascertain what overtures it is expected you will make." Adams rejoined: "I shall make no separate peace. Our alliance with France is near to my heart," is "a natural alliance and a rock of defence." Yet the repression of the aspirations of Adams threw his strong powers and his patriotism into a state of turbulent energy. On the twentieth of June, Adams incidentally acquainted Vergennes that two hundred millions of dollars of the American paper money had been called in by congress at the rate of forty for one, and that the continental certificates were to be paid off according to the value of money at the time of their being respectively issued. The next day Vergennes answered that strangers, and especially the French, ought to be excepted from the reduction. On the twenty-second, Adams, in reply, at enormous length and with strange logic, insisted that, not from necessity, but of right, the reduction must affect creditors of all nations. The obligations of France and the United States he held to be mutual, saying: "All the world will allow the flourishing state of her marine and commerce, and the decisive influence of her councils and negotiations, to be owing to her new connections with the United States." + Vergennes, * Diplomatic Correspondence, v., 88, 89, 92. + Diplomatic Correspondence, v., 221. |