Gates, the British parliament, which came together in November, granted all the demands of the ministry for money and for men by vast majorities; and the dread of outbreaks in the cities of England gave new strength to the government. In this state of affairs, Necker, who was ready to take everything upon himself, on the first of December 1780 wrote clandestinely to Lord North, proposing peace on the basis of a truce during which each party should keep possession of all that it had acquired. The terms thus offered were those which Vergennes had always rejected, as inconsistent with the fidelity and honor of France. The British ministry heeded them no further then as a confession of exhaustion and weakness; and it has already been related how at the time they closed every gate to peace by the overbearing spoliation of the Dutch. "England," said Vergennes in the last days of December 1780, "has declared war against the Netherlands from hatred of their accession to the neutrality; the more I reflect, the more I am perplexed to know whether we ought to be glad or sorry." France gained another partner in the war, but one for which it feared to assume the responsibilities of an alliance. It was a new obstacle to the general peace which had become for France a financial necessity. In January 1781, Vergennes said of Necker: "I will express no opinion on his financial operations; but in all other parts of the administration he is short-sighted and ignorant." Called to the conferences of the ministers, Necker, in his alarm at the rapid approach of financial ruin, continually. dinned into their ears "Peace! peace!" "Peace," replied Vergennes "is a good thing, only you should propose the means of attaining it in an honorable manner."+ All Paris clamored for peace. France was drawing nearer to inevitable bankruptcy, its debt verging upon a fourth milliard. The king, like Maurepas, declared that he was tired of the war, and that it must be finished before the end of the year. For success in negotiating peace, Vergennes needed mediation or great results in the field. Through the queen, Sartine, toward * Vergennes to Montmorin, 25 and 27 December 1780. + Count von Mercy to Prince Kaunitz, 21 January 1781. MS. the end of the former year, had been superseded in the ministry of the marine by the Marquis de Castries, and the imbecile Montbarey by the Marquis de Ségur. Environed by difficulties, Vergennes would have been glad of a compromise with England on the basis of a truce of at least twenty years, during which South Carolina and Georgia might remain with the English in return for the evacuation of New York. He had sounded Washington and others in America on the subject, and they all had repelled the idea. "There are none but the mediators," wrote Vergennes, "who could make to the United States so grievous an offer. It would be hard for France to propose it, because she has guaranteed the independence of the thirteen states."* Kaunitz, accordingly, set himself to work to bring on the mediation of Austria. In the month of April young Laurens arrived at Versailles, preceded by importunate letters from Rochambeau and Lafayette to the ministry. His demand was for a loan of twenty-five million livres to be raised for the United States on the credit of the king of France, and in support of it he communicated to the French ministry his letter of advice from Washington. Franklin had lately written: "If the new gov ernment in America is unable to procure the aids that are wanted, its whole system may be shaken." The French minister at Philadelphia had reported these words from Greene: "The states in the southern department may struggle a little while longer; but, without more effectual support, they must fall." Washington represented immediate and efficacious succor from abroad as indispensable to the safety of his country; but, combined with maritime superiority and "a decided effort of the allied arms on this continent," so he wrote, "it would bring the contest to a glorious issue." In pressing the demands of congress, its youthful envoy said menacingly that the failure of his mission might drive the Americans back to fight once more against France in the armies of Great Britain. Vergennes complained that an excessive and ever-increasing proportion of the burdens of the war was thrown upon France; yet the cabinet resolved to go far in complying with the request of the United States. Franklin had already obtained the promise of *Vergennes to Luzerne, 1 February 1781. a gift or six millions of livres and a loan of four millions; Necker consented to a loan of ten millions more, to be raised in Holland in the name of the king of France. To insure to the United States the command of the sea, de Grasse, who had the naval command in America, received orders to repair from the West Indies to the north in the course of the year, and conform himself to the counsels of Washington and Rochambeau. On the other hand, the great expense of reinforcing Rochambeau by another detachment from the French army was on Washington's recommendation avoided; and America was left to herself to find men for the struggle on land; but Rochambeau received fresh orders to regard himself as the commander of auxiliary troops, and to put them as well as himself under the orders of Washington. The French government would have gladly intrusted the disbursement of its gift of six millions to the sole direction of Washington; but such a trust would have roused the jealousy of congress. The first use made of the money was a spendthrift one. Laurens transferred a burdensome contract of South Carolina in Holland to the United States, paid all its arrears out of the French gift and incurred further heavy and, as it proved, useless expenses. During these negotiations Necker aspired to assume the control of the administration. The octogenarian Maurepas roused himself from apathy, and quietly let him know that the king expected his resignation. "The king had given his word to support me," said Necker, in recounting his fall, "and I am the victim of having counted upon it." Just at this time there appeared in Paris a new edition. of Raynal's philosophic and political History of the Two Indies, with the name of the author on the title-page. His work abounded in declamations against priestcraft, monarchical power, and negro slavery. He described the United States of America as a country that more than renewed the simple heroism of antiquity. Here at last, especially in New England, was found a land that knew how to be happy "without kings and without priests." "Philosophy," he wrote, "desires to see all governments just and every people happy. If the love of justice had decided the court of Versailles to the alli ance of a monarchy with a people defending its liberty, the first article of its treaty with the United States should have been, that all oppressed peoples have the right to rise against their oppressors." The advocate-general Segur having drawn up the most minatory indictment of the volumes, Raynal left them to be burnt by the hangman, and escaped to Holland. The book went into many a library, and its proscription found for it new readers. Its principles infiltrated themselves through all classes of the young men of France, even of the nobility. The new minister of the marine had in the army of Rochambeau a son, and sons of the new minister of war and of the Duke de Broglie were soon to follow. But the philosophers, like the statesmen of France, would not have the United States become too great; they rather desired to preserve for England so much strength in North America that the two powers might watch, restrain, and balance each other. Prince Kaunitz, in preparing preliminary articles for the peace congress at Vienna, adopted the idea of Vergennes, that the United States should be represented, so that direct negotiations between them and Great Britain might proceed simultaneously with those of the European powers; and his paper was pronounced by Marie Antoinette to be a masterpiece of political wisdom. John Adams was ready to go to Vienna, but only on condition of being received by the mediating powers as the plenipotentiary of an independent state; Spain shunned all mediation, knowing that no mediator would award to her Gibraltar; England as yet would have no negotiation with France till it should give up its connection with America. Mortified at his ill success, Kaunitz threw the blame of it upon the unreasonable pretensions of the British ministry; and Austria joined herself to the powers which held that the British government owed concessions to America. He consoled his emperor for the failure of the mediation by saying: "As to us, there is more to gain than to lose by the continuation of the war, which becomes useful to us by the mutual exhaustion of those who carry it on and by the commercial advantages which accrue to us so long as it lasts." * The British ministry was willing to buy the alliance of *Kaunitz to Joseph II., 8 July 1781. Catharine by the cession of Minorca, and to propitiate Joseph by opening the Scheldt; but they scoffed at such meagre concessions, and desired large acquisitions in the East and South. Catharine could not conceive why Europe should be unwilling to see Christianity rise again into life and power on the Bosphorus, and gave the hint to Austria to acquire Rome. Joseph aspired to gain the Danube to Belgrade, and all the coast on the Mediterranean from the southernmost point of the Gulf of Drina to the northernmost coasts of the Adriatic, sparing the possessions neither of Turkey nor of the republic of Venice. So Russia and Austria prepared to divide the Orient and Italy between them, knowing that, so long as the war lasted, neither France nor Great Britain could interfere. Spain had just heard of an insurrection begun by ex-Jesuits in Peru, and supported by Tupac Amaru who claimed descent from the ancient royal family of the Incas. But the first reports were not alarming, and she was still disposed to pursue a separate negotiation with Great Britain. The suggestion of Hillsborough to exchange Gibraltar for Porto Rico was rejected by Florida Blanca; and Richard Cumberland, the British agent at Madrid, having nothing to propose which King Charles was willing to accept, returned from his fruitless expedition. It was known to the British cabinet that South America was disposed to revolt; and that Chili and Peru wished to shake off the Spanish yoke. The results of the campaign outside of the United States were indecisive. The French again made an unsuccessful attempt to recover the isle of Jersey. The garrison of Gibraltar was once more reduced to state of famine, and, ere the middle of April, was once more relieved. The English and Dutch fleets encountered each other in August near the Dogger Bank, and for three hours and a half fought within musket-shot. Victory belonged to neither party. The Dutch bore away for the Texel; Hyde Parker, the British admiral, returned to the Nore, to receive a visit from his king, and on the plea of age to refuse to serve longer under so feeble an administra tion. For the moment the name and fame of Hyder Ali spread from the Mysore through Europe and the United States. On the ninth of May, Pensacola, after a most gallant defence, |