August 31. CHAP. beyond all other powers, reason to complain of the III. tyranny of the English in all parts of the globe, 1776. cannot fear their humiliation, and would regard the war on the part of France as one of conservation rather than of conquest. As it is the dearest desire of the king, in conformity to his principles, to establish the glory of his reign on justice and peace, it is certain that 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 without displaying his power, except to make order and peace everywhere reign, he will have the precious glory of becoming the benefactor, not of his people only, but of all the nations. "The fidelity and the oath of a zealous minister oblige him to explain frankly the advantages and the inconveniences of whatever policy circumstances may recommend; this is the object of the present memoir; this duty fulfilled, nothing remains but to await in respectful silence the command which may please the wisdom of the king. "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 III. 1776. to us as that in America to England? The revo- CHAP. lution in Hindostan, once begun, will console England for her losses, by increasing her means and August her riches tenfold. This we are still able to pre- 31. vent." The words of Vergennes were sharp and penetrating; now that Turgot and Malesherbes were removed, he had no antagonist in the cabinet; his comprehensive policy embraced all parts of the globe; his analysis of Europe was exact and just; his deference to the king of two-and-twenty removed every appearance of presumption; but the young prince whose decision was invoked was too weak to lead in affairs of magnitude; his sluggish disposition deadened every impulse by inertness; his devotion to the principle of monarchical power made him shrink from revolution; his intuitions, dim as they were, repelled all sympathy with insurgent republicans; his severe probity struggled against aggression on England; with the utmost firmness of will of which his feeble nature was capable, he was resolved that the peace of France should not be broken in his day. But deciding firmly against war, he shunned the labor of further discussion; and indolently allowed his ministers to aid the Americans, according to the precedents set by England in Corsica. Meantime, Beaumarchais, with the connivance of Sept. Vergennes, used delicate flattery to awaken in the cold breast of 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, Sept. CHAP. innovators in manners, throwing aside the stiff III. etiquette and rich dress of former days for the 1776. 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 with all the pride and levity of youth. The Count de Broglie was an early partisan of the Americans. A large part of the 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. Beside disinterested and chivalrous volunteers, a crowd of selfish adventurers, officers who had been dropped from the French service under the reforms of Saint III. 1776. Sept. Germain, and even Swiss and Germans; thronged CHAP. Deane's apartments in quest of employment, and by large promises, sturdy importunity, or real or pretended recommendations from great men, wrung from him promiscuous engagements for high rank in the American army. In Spain, the interest in America was confined Sept.to the court. Like Louis the Sixteenth, the cath- Oct. olic king was averse to hostile measures; his chief minister wished not to raise up a republic on the western continent, but only to let England worry and exhaust herself by a long civil war. American ships were received in Spanish harbors, and every remonstrance was met by the plea that they hoisted English colors, and that their real character could not be known. Even the 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 strictly to the principle of wishing no change in the relation of the British colonies to their parent country; being persuaded that nothing could be more alarming to Spain than their independence. The new attitude of the United States changed the relation of parties in England. The former friends to the rights of Americans as fellow-subjects were not 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 CHAP. now to have against them king, lords, and comIII. mons, nearly the whole body of the law, the more 1776. considerable part of the landed and mercantile Oct. interests, and the political weight of the church. Sept. 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;" in a commentary on the declaration of independence, Hutchinson referred its origin to a determined design formed in the interval between the reduction and the cession of Canada; the young Jeremy Bentham, unwarmed by hope, misled by his theories, rejected the case of the insurgents as "founded on the assumption of natural rights, claimed without the slightest evidence for their existence, and supported by vague and declamatory generalities." Yet the reflective judgment of England justifies America with almost perfect accord. The revolution began in the attempt of the British government to add to the monopoly of the commerce of the colonies their systematic taxation by parliament, so that the king might wield with one sovereign will the forces of the whole empire for the extension of its trade and its dominion. On this issue all English statesmen now approve the act of independence. Even in that day, Charles Townshend's policy of taxes in 1767 was condemned by Mansfield and Jenkinson, not less than by Camden and Burke, as "the most absurd measure that could possibly be imagined;' the power of parliament to tax colonies was already given up in the mind of parliament itself, and was soon to be renounced by a formal act. |