the same forethought. The English, under pretence of relieving their squadron in the Indies, will double its force; and, such is their strength in the peninsula of Hindostan, they might easily drive us from Pondicherry and our colonies, if we do not prepare for defence. Time is precious; every moment must be turned to account."

Replying to an inquiry of the comptroller-general, Vergennes, on the tenth, advised to admit the ships and cargoes of the united colonies without exacting duties or applying the restrictive laws on their entry or departure; so that France might become the emporium of their commerce with other European nations. "Take every precaution," so he admonished his colleague, "that our motives, our intentions, and, as far as possible, our proceedings, may be hidden from the English."

The attempt at concealment was frustrated by the arrival of Silas Deane. He was instructed to obtain information of what was going forward in England through his old acquaintance, Edward Bancroft, a native of Connecticut, who had migrated to the mother country, and had there gained some repute as a physician and a naturalist. In 1769 he had published an able and spirited pamphlet, vindicating the legisla tive claims of the colonies; and, under some supervision from Franklin, he had habitually written for the "Monthly Review" notices of publications relating to America. He accepted the post of a paid American spy, to prepare himself for the more lucrative office of a double spy for the British ministers.

On the eleventh, Vergennes admitted Deane to an interview. Reserving for the king's consideration the question of recognising the independence and protecting the trade of the united colonies, he listened with great satisfaction to the evidences of their ability to hold out against British arms to the end of the year, and gave it as his private opinion that, in case they should reject the sovereignty of his Britannic majesty, they might count on the unanimous good wishes of the government and people of France, whose interest it would not be to see them reduced by force. Received again on the twentieth, Deane made a formal request for two hundred light

brass field-pieces, and arms and clothing for twenty-five thousand men. The arms were promised; and Beaumarchais, whom Vergennes authoritatively recommended, offered merchandise on credit to the value of three millions of livres. But Deane summoned Bancroft to his side as if he had been a colleague, showed him his letters of credence and his instructions, took him as a companion in his journeys to Versailles, and repeated to him all that passed in the interviews with the minister. Bancroft returned to England, and his narrative for the British ministry is a full record of the first official intercourse between France and the United States. The knowledge thus obtained enabled the British ambassador to embarrass the shipment of supplies by timely remonstrances; for the French cabinet was not yet willing to appear openly in support of the insurgents.

The arrival of the declaration of independence gave more earnestness to the advice of Vergennes. On the last day of August he read to the king, in committee with Maurepas, Sartine, Saint-Germain, and Clugny, considerations on the part which France should now take toward England: "Ruin hangs over a state which, trusting to the good faith of its rivals, neglects precautions for safety, and disdains the opportunity of rendering its habitual foe powerless to injure. England is without question the hereditary enemy of France. In her intense nationality of character, the feeblest gleam of prosperity in France is an unsupportable grief. She arrogates the exclusive empire over the seas, and it is her constant maxim to make war upon us as soon as she sees us ready to assume our proper place as a maritime power. Left to herself, she will fall upon our marine, taking the same advantage as in 1755. What reparation have we thus far obtained for the affronts that have been put upon us in India, and the habitual violation of our rights at Newfoundland under the clear and precise stipulations of a treaty? In the south of America, Portugal openly attacks Spain; England justifies her ally and nourishes the germ of this quarrel, in order to direct its development as may suit her ambition. England has in America a numerous army and fleet, equipped for prompt action; if the Americans baffle her efforts, will not the chiefs of the ministry seek com

pensation at the expense of France or Spain? Her conduct makes it plain, even to demonstration, that we can count little upon her sincerity and rectitude.

"The advantages of a war with England in the present conjuncture prevail so eminently over its inconveniences that there is no room for a comparison. What better moment could France seize, to efface the shame of the odious surprise of 1755 and all the ensuing disasters, than this, when England, engaged in a civil war a thousand leagues off, has scattered the forces necessary for her internal defence? Her sailors are in America, not in ships-of-war only, but in more than four hundred transports. Now that the United States have declared their independence, there is no chance of conciliation unless supernatural events should force them to bend under the yoke, or the English to recognise their independence. While the war continues between the insurgents and the English, the American sailors and soldiers, who in the last war contributed to make those enormous conquests of which France felt so keenly the humiliation, will be employed against the English, and indirectly for France. The war will form between France and North America a connection which will not grow up and vanish with the need of the moment. No conflicting interest divides the two nations. Commerce will form between them a very durable, if not an eternal, chain; vivifying industry, it will bring into our harbors the commodities which America formerly poured into those of England, with a double benefit, for the augmentation of our national labor lessens that of a rival.

"Whether war against England would involve a war on the continent deserves to be discussed. The only three powers whom England could take into her pay are Austria, Prussia, and Russia. The alliance between France and Austria, and the unlimited love of the empress queen for peace, guarantee her neutrality. The mutual distrust of the courts of Vienna and Berlin will keep them both from mixing in a war between the house of Bourbon and England. The republic of Holland, having beyond all other powers reason to complain of the tyranny of the English in all parts of the globe, cannot fear their humiliation, and would regard the war on the part of France as one of conservation rather than of conquest. If his majesty,

seizing a unique occasion which the ages will perhaps never reproduce, should succeed in striking England a blow sufficient to lower her pride and to confine her pretensions within just limits, he will for many years be master of peace, and will have the precious glory of becoming the benefactor not of his people only, but of all the nations.

"Should his majesty, on the other hand, prefer a doubtful and ill-assured peace to a war which necessity and reason can justify, the defence of our possessions will exact almost as great an expenditure as war, without any of the alleviations and resources which war authorizes. Even could we be passive spectators of the revolution in North America, can we look unmoved at that which is preparing in Hindostan, and which will be as fatal to us as that in America to England? The revolution in Hindostan, once begun, will console England for her losses by increasing her means and her riches tenfold. This we are still able to prevent.'

After these sharp and penetrating words Vergennes "awaited in respectful silence the command which might please the wisdom of the king." The result was what Vergennes desired; the conduct of the British ministry in 1768, during the insurrection of the Corsican people against France in defence of their liberty, was adopted as the precedent for France in rendering aid to the Americans.

Meantime, Beaumarchais, with the connivance of Vergennes, used delicate flattery to awaken in the temporizing Maurepas a passion for glory. The profligate Count d'Artois, younger brother of the king, and the prodigal Duke de Chartres, better known as the duke of Orleans, innovators in manners, throwing aside the stiff etiquette and rich dress of former days for the English fashion of plain attire, daring riders and charioteers, eager patrons of the race-course which was still a novelty in France, gave their voices for war. The Count de Broglie

A large part of the

was an early partisan of the Americans. nobility of France panted for an opportunity to tame the haughtiness of England, which, as they said to one another, after having crowned itself with laurels, and grown rich by conquests, and mastered all the seas, and insulted every nation, now turned its insatiable pride against its own colonies. First among these

was the Marquis de Lafayette, then just nineteen, master of two hundred thousand livres a year, and happy in a wife who had the spirit to approve his enthusiasm. He whispered his purpose of joining the Americans to two young friends, the Count de Ségur and the Viscount de Noailles, who wished, though in vain, to be his companions. At first the Count de Broglie opposed his project, saying: "I have seen your uncle die in the wars of Italy; I was present when your father fell at the battle of Minden; and I will not be accessory to the ruin of the only remaining branch of the family." But when it appeared that the young man's heart was enrolled, and that he took thought of nothing but how to join the flag of his choice, the count respected his unalterable resolution.

Like Louis XVI., Charles III., then king of Spain, opposed open hostilities; Grimaldi, his chief minister, wished only to let England exhaust herself by a long civil war. American ships were received in Spanish harbors, and every remonstrance was met by the plea that, as they hoisted British colors, their real character could not be known. Privateers fitted out at Salem, Cape Ann, and Newburyport hovered off the rock of Lisbon and Cape St. Vincent, or ventured into the Bay of Biscay, sure of not being harmed when they ran into Corunna or Bilbao; but Grimaldi adhered to the principle that nothing could be more alarming to Spain than American independence.

The new attitude of the United States as a nation changed the nature of the conflict in England. The friends to the rights of Americans as fellow-subjects were not as yet friends to their separate existence; and all parties were summoned, as Englishmen, to unanimity. The virtue of patriotism is more attractive than that of justice; and the minority opposed to the government, dwindling almost to nothing, was now to have against them king, lords, and commons, nearly the whole body of the law, the more considerable part of the landed and mercantile interests, and the political weight of the church. The archbishop of Canterbury, in his proclamation for a fast, to be read in all the churches, charged the "rebel" congress with uttering "specious falsehoods;" young Jeremy Bentham rejected the case of the insurgents as "founded on the assumption of natural rights, claimed without the slightest evidence