He had high connections at the court, which did not at all disapprove his heavy shipments of arms to American merchants, and later he was appointed ambassador to the United States. On his first escape from Old Mill in 1779, Conyngham tunneled out with 53 companions. The French Navy and American Independence: A Study of Arms and Diplomacy, 1774-1787. Williams, now 27, had been trained in the Caribbean trade; he spoke French and was capable of dealing with accounts, which always baffled his granduncle. They asked that frigates be sent over by August to cruise against Englands Baltic trade and attack the British Isles. The Treaty of Amity and Commerce recognized the U.S. as an independent nation and promoted trade between France and America. Friends, and in French, amis! 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. At the moment, Nantes was all, The American was adulated, wined and dined. Strengthen unity in the event of war with France in the west. A number of ill-advised financial maneuvers in the late 1700s worsened the financial situation of the already cash-strapped French government. France Allied with American Colonies. His friend Sieur Montaudoin bought a great Dutch ship and named it, Silas Deane was invaluable. By this process of elastic diplomacy the amenities were preserved while both sides gained time for war preparations and spared their exchequers the drain of active hostilities. Similar to MORE 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. By October Beaumarchais had spent the original 2,000,000 livres from the Bourbon kings, plus another million from France, and 2,600,000 livres in the form of credit from French merchants. In the last months the King had relinquished his illusion that war could be avoided, and he approved his ministers memoir the day it was presented. Vergennes, who had confidently hoped to receive these protests under very different circumstances, was forced to buy a little more time at the expense of his American friends. If he had been a mere speculator in gunrunning like many of his compatriots, or an appropriator of Bourbon funds, as Arthur Lee claimed, he would have seen that the game was up. The first British protests were made to the French ambassador, Noailles, who blandly replied that in a great nation there are many turbulent spirits eager to run after adventures. He did not attempt to have his turbulent compatriots released from prison. Wentworth did not give up, and in a conference the next day he offered America a few more concessions, purely on his own authority. A generation after the end of the Revolutionary War, new revolutions emerged in nearly a dozen Spanish colonies in Central and South America. 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. Please support this 72-year tradition of trusted historical writing and the volunteers that sustain it with a donation to American Heritage. The Bahamas, too, acted as allies. He helped Beaumarchais buy and fit out eight ships, prudently scattered in various ports: the, Amphitrite, Mercure, Flammand, Mre Bobie, Seine, Thrse, Amelia, Delays which were not the fault of Deane and Beaumarchais held up most of the fleet for months after lading. She anchored in Quiberon Bay with her prizes, and Franklin made a bone-racking journey overland by post chaise. This released a great stock of surplus arms for Hortalez to buy up cheaply. The Virginia delegates differed upon his appointment. Vergennes may never have realized what had happened during that fateful year of 1777. 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. He was lulled by the specious truce with Francebut how would he feel if Captain Wickes captured a royal packet carrying the royal mails? However, the Grand Duke was not receiving Mr. Izard or any American, so he remained in Paris near William Lee, who had been similarly repulsed by two courts: Vienna and Berlin. He had to fend off a break with England until France was ready for war. He soon went down to Spain, where Conyngham was taking fresh prizes. Just a year after independence was declared the Americans lost Fort Ticonderoga to Burgoyne, and on September 26 Howe entered Philadelphia. On the very day the French ministry decided for the alliance, Paul Wentworth was back in Paris. During the last eighteen months Conyngham had been in and out of the port, always hull down before the British realized he had vanished, and this time they were determined to get him. General Washington in the American Revolution. The chief French ammunition dumps were Martinique and Cap Franois (now Cap Haitien) on Santo Domingo, known to seagoing Americans simply as the Cape. The Spanish shipped to New Orleans and Havana, and the British chose islands convenient to Washingtons chief arsenal, the Dutch island of St. Eustatia. 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. He was the Edward Edwards of the secret service, the master spy of the century. His, Soon Beaumarchaiss coach was tearing down the road to Paris so fast that it overturned and he injured an arm. And Franklin, Voltaire, and Rousseau were linked together as the presiding geniuses of the century. DuVal, Kathleen. This theft was not discovered until the pouch was opened in America and proved to contain nothing but the blank paper substituted by Hynson. For 70 years, American Heritage has been the leading magazine of U.S. history, politics, and culture. His sense of competition for the favor of America was plain in the letter he immediately wrote the French ambassador at Madrid. They provided ideological underpinnings. Since this ruined Arthur Lees flattering picture of himself as Americas first envoy to Madrid, he was enraged. Sixty years after his death the incredible truth came out. Gardoqui proposed a sensible solution: he and the retiring foreign minister, Grimaldi, would arrange a secret rendezvous just across the border, and Lee would not enter Spain at all. It is significant that while the Americans and French trusted Bancroft implicitly, the British were always suspicious of him, had his letters opened at the post office, and watched his movements. By the summer of 1777 Arthur Lee openly accused Deane and Beaumarchais of appropriating 200,000 which he said the Bourbons had intended as a free gift to America. The islet of St. Eustatia, an international free port in the northern Leewards, was a fountainhead of what Samuel Adams called the Unum Necessarium . Arthur Lee, who would have ruined the secret project if he had been in Paris to interfere with it, was busy elsewhere. The thirteen colonies were in the nightmare situation of trying to fight the strongest power in the Western world almost barehanded. Stormont subsided; England needed time too. On the third day of May he seized the, Conyngham was still in the Dunkirk jail, the only safe place for him. England, Franklin said suavely, could hardly object to France sending the battleships with their crews, since Britain herself was borrowing or hiring troops from other states. Conyngham hastily sailed back to his berth and unloaded the powder. Arthur Lee was rewarded by memories of turmoil, which he loved and which he was expert in creating. Knowing George III as he did, Franklin realized the importance of insulting him while all Europe looked on. Deane and Beaumarchais were already fast friends, working in harmony to load the Hortalez fleet with war supplies. It is also true that Franklin could have helped along such conspiratorial work without leaving a trace of his part of it. On May 2, 1776, Louis XVI signed documents committing France to action as a secret American ally, in violation of her treaties with Britain. From May, 1777, to May, 1778, Congress would receive no direct word from its mission in Paris. One traditional characteristic of the French diplomacy of alliances has been the "Alliance de revers" (i.e. 3. The Revolution precipitated a series of European wars, forcing the United States to articulate a clear policy of neutrality in order to avoid being embroiled in these European conflicts. Congress had little to do with Americas maritime war, which was a tremendous undertaking. Carmichael, who was still the liaison man between Passy and Dunkirk, found an obliging British subject as the ostensible purchaser of the Revenge , and while he was about it he sold the Surprise to a French buyer and sent her around to Nantes to join the privateer fleet. This was a bitter blow to Vergennes and a calamity to the Americans. Thus torn from its context, the military side of the Revolution is implausible.). The colonies could not conclude treaties until they declared themselves a nation, and the necessity of getting military supplies and the support of a powerful fleet did a great deal to hasten independence. Every man aboard was lost except the cook. But somehow, even when he acted in a cheap way, Silas Deane was not cheap. As Americas sole diplomat Franklin had done all that one man could do to influence the ministries of Europe. He burned some and sent others to America, the West Indies, or whatever theater of war seemed to need their cargoes most. Franklin had a share in preserving the friendship between the mainland and Bermuda at a moment when it was severely strained. Their difficulties in shipping out supplies to America were also greatly increased, for Lee had set down everything he could learn without coding it. He made for the English Channel, where he took four small merchantmen, which he sent to Lorient under prize masters. But he was too late. To license content, please contact licenses [at] americanheritage.com. Economic historians will recognize the invaluable research and work of two individuals in particular that this article draws from: Merrill Jensen, and . The winter of Valley Forge was beginning, and its bleakness was in the comfortable house at Passy too. Louis XVI, preparing for the war with England which Vergennes assured him was inevitable whether or not he aided the Americans, had ordered the Navy rebuilt and the Army re-equipped. By a supple turn of the wrist, Franklin transformed Franco-American relations. Naval affairs were stagnant; the privateers attracted all the able seamen. In 1776, France was one of the great powers of Europe. George III was uneasy about both Americans because they gambled wildly in stocks and kept mistresses. Early in 1774 Franklin had written from London to a friend at home that he wished Americans might know what we are and what we have. After much private groping and anguish he had discovered what he was: not a colonial American, but that new man, an American. Nearing France, Dr. Franklin changed the captains orders. One result of the raid by the Dunkirk Pirate was the fact that British merchants no longer trusted the Admiraltys ability to protect British ships. He might have included the foreign islands, since all colonial America had been united for a century and a half in its resistance to the mercantilism of Europe. The stench of treachery was in the air. As the American who best understood both sides of the Atlantic, Franklin had carried much of that burden, and for a long time to come would carry all the responsibility for getting maximum aid from the neutral powers without compromising the future of the new republic. Through English friends Franklin raised funds to give the prisoners warm clothes and blankets, food, a chance to bathe and wash their clothes, and spending money for small comforts. After this momentous decision of December 17, Deanes meeting with Wentworth was a decided anticlimax. 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. Sieur Montaudoin shared many interests with Franklin; both were members of the Royal Academy of Sciences, enthusiasts of the new physiocratic school, and Masons. Much of this trade was illicit, but it was based on realities and it bred a friendship between the West Indies and the mainlanders which was all-important to the Revolution. answer choices. Whatever disaster happened in 1777, he wanted to build a friendship between the French and American peoples which would last for many generations, and he calmly laid the foundations of that friendship in his own daily associations. Shortly after this, Parliament authorized British privateering. As for Dr. Dubourg, this bookish man was an incongruous visitor at Versailles by June of 1776, by which time he had received Franklins appointment as the French agent of his Committee of Secret Correspondence. On the third day of May he seized the Prince of Orange and brought her into Dunkirk, along with a British brig picked up on the way. It meant only the familiar rite of changing the property on paper. He wrote home that in the fighting there had been good order and readiness equal to anything of the kind in the best ships of the kings fleet.. He raided in the North Sea and the Baltic; he sailed around England and then around Ireland, everywhere taking prizes. Schooled in the Caribbean trade, he was ready for the ticklish work of running arms from Europe before the war began, and displayed such gifts for evading British snoopers in a highly spectacular way that their reports on Conyngham had the quality of a picaresque saga. 2. 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. Though he knew that affairs at Nantes were in a frightful state, William Lee lingered in Paris until August to confer with his brother about rearranging American foreign affairs to enhance the family glory. 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. Delays which were not the fault of Deane and Beaumarchais held up most of the fleet for months after lading. 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. His future United States included Canada and the Floridas and the British West Indies, especially Bermuda and the Bahamas. Vergennes was so disheartened by the bad news which had arrived even before these disasters were known, and he so much dreaded a sudden declaration of war by Britain, that in August he formally closed the ports of France to American privateers and their prizes. American victory over the British in the Battle of Saratoga convinced the French that the Americans were committed to independence and worthy partners to a formal alliance. If Vergennes had any doubts about Franklins grasp of Bourbon aims, they were resolved by the Doctors masterly letter of January 5. Stormont then delivered to Vergennes threats only a step removed from war. 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. He was a smaller copy of Robert Morris and aspired to become a great international merchant like his friend. As far as brains and ability went, Deane belonged in the first rank of the men doing the hard immediate tasks of the Revolution. The French navy transported reinforcements, fought off a British fleet, and protected Washington's forces in . The American victory secured critical financial support from the French. A courier was on his way to Madrid, and the decision of Charles III should be known within three weeks. In short, England and the Bourbons had tacitly agreed that their war might be postponed indefinitelyand while they dallied, physical danger and sickening of hope were paralyzing America. Explain the purpose of a colonial stamp tax, how it would be implemented and which people or groups it would affect. Vergennes, on that December day of jubilation, did some cooler thinking of his own and rightly guessed that the British would try to effect a conciliation with the Americans before they won any more campaigns. Conyngham was still in the Dunkirk jail, the only safe place for him. Here are five ways the French helped Americans win their freedom. Much of the maddening delay in dispatching the ships was caused by Vergennes. Stamp Act of 1765. As a weapon of war the British secret service was remarkably effective. Tom Morris was dragging out the last months of his wretched life, and Lee saw no point in beating a dead horse. Congress was shipping them tobacco, furs, and other valuable products to buy war supplies and ships, but Tom Morris and Penet claimed every cargo arriving in France. It attempted to pay down that debt by taxing colonists through the Stamp Act, generating far more resentment than revenue. In August, 1774, Sir Joseph Yorke, for years the British ambassador at The Hague, wrote his superior, the Earl of Suffolk: As the contraband trade carried on between Holland and North America is so well known in England I have not thought it necessary of late to trouble your Lordship with trifling details of ships sailing from Amsterdam for the British Colonies, laden with teas, linnens, etc., But now he had something serious to report: My informations says that the Polly , Captain Benjamin Broadhurst, bound to Nantucket has shipped on board a considerable quantity of gunpowder. He was annoyed to find that Bancroft was in London, making contact with the mission rather difficult. No man of his century could approach Franklin as a subtle and effective propagandist. He left the rack ruined in fortune, health, and mind, and openly went over to the British. Finally, not daring to return to France, he made for Cap Ferrol in Spain. It turned out that the French warships had been sent with orders to protect not only the islands of Louis XVI, but also any American vessels in the area. Since George III was violently against a war with the Bourbons these warnings disturbed him, but they did not change his fixed purpose to bully the colonies into obedience. Congress would not even sanction commerce with friendly powers because that was tantamount to declaring independence. The American Revolution of 1775-1789, which concluded as the revolution in France was unfolding, was perhaps the most significant. Whether this was one of the patriotic conspiracies for which he risked his life that year scarcely matters, for the contraband traffic would have gone merrily on if Benjamin Franklin had never existed. 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. His first wife soon died and he married the daughter of a great political familyand switched to politics. Lee could not bear to lose Beaumarchais and tried to detach him from Deane. First these navies quarreled head-on, in the English Channel and then in the entirety of the Atlantic Ocean, in a war of escorts. It began with the bold request that France sell the United States eight ships of the line, On January 24 Wickes sailed out of Nantes with a French pilot and several French seamen aboard, strengthening the desired impression of collusion with Versailles. Revolutionary leadership of George Washington Head of the colonial forces. In mortal terror of discovery, Bancroft was always called Edwards or some other cover name in the secret files, and even in private conferences with Wentworth and Lord Stormont. Franklin resolved to break through any limitations put on his mission by Congress. It could not supply Washington gunpowder in 1775 nor cope with the enlarging task of war procurement. He contributed a million livres to the colonies war chest and his uncle, Charles III of Spain, followed suit. At last America would hear of the third Lee brother, hitherto a cipher, as its savior in Europe. And Franklin, Voltaire, and Rousseau were linked together as the presiding geniuses of the century. France had been secretly aiding the American Colonies since 1776, because France was angry at Britain over the loss of Colonial territory in the French and Indian War. Both men were in Franklins confidence, and they worked closely with Vergennes. The American Revolution was by no means a purely American-British conflict. 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. French forces under Rochambeau landed at Rhode Island in 1780, which they fortified before linking up with Washington in 1781. It inspired the French to launch their own revolution for liberty and equality. Free subscription>>, Please consider a donation to help us keep this American treasure alive.