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French traders in Senegal. The latter encroachment was regarded in England as the beginning of a sinister attempt to "worm us out of the most beneficial part of that trade". It was disavowed by M. de Boynes, Minister of Marine, 13 June 1773.1 But the whole question as to what was meant in the Treaty of Paris by the cession of the River of Senegal "with all its rights and dependencies", was raised again in 1774 and 1775, by the action of French traders and the claims of the French Governor of Goree on their behalf. Firm instructions, backed by a couple of frigates, were sent to Governor O'Hara to enforce British claims (April 1776). In this Aiguillon acquiesced. Mention should perhaps be made of the extraordinary "unofficial" memorial presented by him on India. Lord Rochford returned it with the comment that if it had been "ministerial", it must have been regarded as a prelude to war.3 For the rest, the French minister was continually reproached by Spain for his lack of hostility to Great Britain. Expeditions to make settlements on the Niger and in Formosa were also taken in hand by the French (1772, 1773).5

In Spain, the position of Grimaldi, shaken by the fall of Choiseul, was further weakened by the disastrous defeat of an expedition against Algiers planned by him (June 1775). This circumstance, combined with the forbearance of the British Government, whose hands were full with American affairs, led to the speedy settlement of an incident in the West Indies, where a landing from an English vessel on Crab Island, to which both Spain and Great Britain laid claim, created a situation which might otherwise have assumed a more threatening aspect. About the same time, a lively discussion raised by Spain over the concession of the island of Balambangan in the Philippine group to the East India Company ended in the acknowledgment of the British claim, whilst Spanish influence over Sulu and the neighbouring island was recognised (August 1775).8

After the death of Louis XV, the ideas of Choiseul began once more to dominate French policy. They found an able exponent in the clear-sighted and vigorous Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Comte de Vergennes. The revolt of the Thirteen American Colonies gave France the opportunity for which she had so long been waiting. Chatham, in a famous speech (20 January 1775), described France as a "vulture hovering over the British Empire, and hungrily watching the prey that she is only waiting for the right moment to pounce upon". His prophecy that a prolonged struggle with America would lead to the intervention of France and Spain was repeated in the

1 St Paul of Ewart, Correspondence, 1, lxxvii, lxxx, 208–20. 2 Ibid. 11, 53 seqq.; vide supra, p. 455.

4 Ibid. 1, xxxvii, 276.

3 Ibid. 1, 29-37.
5 Ibid. 1, 72, 294.

• Coxe, Memoirs of the Bourbon Kings of Spain, III, 376-8; St Paul of Ewart, Correspondence, II, 216-21. 7 Coxe, m, 380; Cal. St. Pap. Col. 1699, nos. 766, 907. Renaut, F., Le Pacte de Famille, p. 215.

BEAUMARCHAIS' MISSION

705 following year by Colonel Barré and Charles Fox to an incredulous House of Commons. One of the arguments adduced in the House in favour of repealing the Stamp Act had been that if it were persisted in, America might place herself under the protection of France and Spain. These might, indeed, at first sight well be deemed strange allies. But the colonists had long enjoyed a brisk inter-colonial trade with them, a trade forbidden, indeed, but engaged in by all the Powers alike, and rendered, financially and commercially, a necessity to the colonies, by the very treaties and Acts of Trade and Navigation which forbade it. The rigid enforcement of these Acts had brought vividly home to the Americans that their interests were closely bound up with those of the French and Spaniards. George Johnstone, Governor of West Florida, for instance, wrote to the Secretary of the Board of Trade that he despaired of seeing that settlement flourish unless Spanish commerce was permitted. He could not conceive why it had been stopped.1 More recently the boycott of British goods by the colonists, following upon the imposition of the tea and other duties, had resulted in the diversion of a large amount of trade to France.2 Commercial relations of this sort naturally drew the colonists closer to their erstwhile enemies, especially now that they were relieved from the danger of their immediate neighbourhood.

Relations with the representatives of the insurgent colonists appear to have been first established in England by Caron de Beaumarchais. Son of a clockmaker of Paris, known at that time chiefly for the romantic incidents of his youth and his trial before the Maurepas Parlement, remembered now almost wholly as the witty author of The Marriage of Figaro and The Barber of Seville, Beaumarchais himself attached most importance to his career as a busy agent in the underworld of politics. As such, he had been sent to England by Vergennes to procure the suppression of a pamphlet directed against Marie Antoinette, which had been printed in London. Here he came into touch with the notorious Chevalier d'Éon, and succeeded in purchasing from him the State papers and plans for an invasion of England which he had secreted since 1763. Here, too, at the house of Wilkes, he met Arthur Lee, a young Virginian student of law. This was towards the end of 1775.

3

In America, John Adams, at the head of the New England party, had already urged that the revolutionary leaders should enter into negotiations with France and Spain. In November a Committee of Secret Correspondence "with the friends of America" was appointed. Congress was in urgent need of money, arms and clothing for the army. In the following spring Silas Deane was sent to Paris as 1 Hist. MSS Comm., Report XIV, App. x (American Papers).

2 See Benjamin Franklin to Cushing, 5 Jan. 1773.

3 Broglie, II, 500 seqq.; Loménie, L. de, Beaumarchais et son temps, II, 113; Vergennes, Correspondance.

CHBE I

45

Commercial Commissioner and Agent for the Thirteen United Colonies. His instructions, dated 3 March 1776, directed him to acquaint Vergennes that, in the probable event of separation from Great Britain, France would be the Power whose friendship they would most desire. It had been hinted by Rochford to M. de Guisnes in July 1774 that many people in England felt that a war with France might prove the solution of the American problem. The colonists, it was thought, might then settle their quarrel with the mother country, from fear that France might recover Canada. Guisnes informed Vergennes, and a message was conveyed to the Americans, assuring them that France sympathised with them in their struggle, and that, for herself, she had no desire to regain Canada. The mission of Deane was in some sort a reply.

When he arrived in Paris (July 1776) the policy of France had already been determined. At the beginning of the year, Vergennes had presented a memorial to the King, in which he urged that it was the interest of France and Spain to seize the opportunity marked out for them by Providence for the humiliation of England and to strike decisive blows at a chosen moment. He argued that, if Britain effected a reconciliation with her colonies, she would probably utilise the forces she had concentrated in America to seize the French and Spanish possessions in the West Indies. Or again, if the colonies achieved their independence, Britain might endeavour to compensate herself for her loss by taking the West Indian islands belonging to France and Spain. The military and financial position, however, was not sufficiently good to tempt the Bourbon Kings to adopt so bold a policy. Vergennes, therefore, submitted an alternative proposal to the King and his Council. Since the exhaustion produced by the civil war must be infinitely advantageous to France and Spain, that war must be encouraged by secretly assisting the Americans whilst "dexterously tranquillising" the English ministry by professions of friendship. The insurgents must be supplied with the money and military stores without which they could not continue their resistance. France in the meantime must strengthen her navy and prepare for intervention should occasion arise. Louis referred this proposal to Turgot, the Comptroller-General of Finance, in April 1776. He answered in a remarkable memoir, forecasting the probable economic effect of the independence of the British colonies. As for France, he insisted that nothing but prolonged peace and economy could prevent a financial breakdown. To that end she must avoid any course which might lead to war, though ministers might perhaps be excused if they shut their eyes to either of the contending parties making purchases in French harbours.1 Maurepas and Malesherbes agreed. But Malesherbes shortly afterwards retired and Turgot was dismissed. The policy of Vergennes triumphed. Under Sartines at the Ministry of Marine 1 Turgot, A., Réflexions rédigées à l'occasion [du mémoire de Vergennes].

BEAUMARCHAIS AND DEANE

707

money was spent freely on naval preparations and the defence of the French colonies. Repeated assurances of strict neutrality were made to Great Britain, whilst means were devised for furnishing the Americans with supplies. Two months before the arrival of Deane, Vergennes obtained Louis' reluctant sanction to a loan in the form of a private transaction, which did not commit the Government. The agent selected for this purpose was Beaumarchais. In order to conceal this transaction against a Power to which he was daily pledging his honour that perfect neutrality was being observed, Vergennes employed his son, a lad of fifteen, to write to the author of Figaro.1 When Deane arrived, therefore, he found that he was cast for the part of a merchant doing business with Beaumarchais under an assumed name. The Government had provided the latter with a million livres to found a commercial house and supply the Americans with the munitions of war vital to their cause. The public arsenals were placed at his disposal for the purchase of stores of war. Other commercial houses were similarly supplied with money for a similar purpose. Beaumarchais also obtained, on the recommendation of the French Government, another million livres from the Spanish Treasury.2

3

Deane, therefore, was soon able to ship large supplies of munitions.3 Nor was this all. Restrictions upon trade were relaxed in favour of American vessels; American privateers were harboured and fitted out, and their prizes sold in French ports; the construction of ships of war for America was carried on under the superintendence of French naval officers. All this was done with the connivance of ministers. The protests of the English ambassador, Lord Stormont, were met with cynical denials of complicity and pretended efforts to prevent the exportation of stores. Vessels laden with arms were stopped and then allowed to escape. Officers who were making their way to America, with the aid of Deane, to fight against the hereditary enemy were formally recalled, but not obliged to return to their regiments. Some prizes brought into French ports were, indeed, restored to the English, but their captors were compensated for their loss. Some who had too openly broken the law were thrown into prison, but they were soon allowed to escape. One of Deane's achievements was to send over from France James Aitken, or "John the Painter" as he was called, a Scottish deserter from the British army in America, to set fire to Portsmouth and other dockyards. Aitken nearly succeeded, but was caught and hanged. The incident recalls the schemes of French and Spanish agents in 1764.

The prolonged successes of the British and the unsatisfactory state of the American army induced Congress to press more urgently for

1 Flassan, vi, 143; American Diplomatic Correspondence, 1, 272 seqq.; Loménie, Beaumarchais, II, 93 seqq.; Adolphus, J., Hist. Eng. II, 309, 429, 439.

2 Vergennes to the King, 2 May 1776 (in Flassan, vII, 149).

3 Am. Dipl. Corr. 1, 131.

supported

foreign aid. Immediately after the Declaration of Independence, therefore, Benjamin Franklin, the Philadelphia printer who had gained high repute for his scientific discoveries, and had already acted as agent for the colonies in England, was commissioned to join Silas Deane as a secret envoy to France.1 After an adventurous voyage he reached Paris at the end of the year. He was there joined by Arthur Lee from London. The simplicity of their dress and manners, concealing an acute knowledge of men and affairs, the cause of liberty which they invoked, and their enmity to Great Britain caused them to be received with the utmost enthusiasm. But French opinion remained divided as to the advisability of intervention. The desire to tear up the Treaty of Paris and to recover lost possessions was national. But Louis XVI objected to the principle of helping rebels against a Crown, and shrank from the war with England which a recognition of their independence must involve. He was by Maurepas and Necker, for the finances of the State were still in a state of chaos. Marie Antoinette, on the contrary, with the Austrian party in France, ardently espoused the cause of American liberty which was one day to recoil upon her own fair head. The idea of liberty had been brought into fashion by the Encyclopaedists. Enthusiasts for religious liberty, like the followers of Voltaire, and enthusiasts for political liberty and equality, who had drunk deep of the heady wine of Rousseau, were eager to fight for a people struggling against an oppressor. Their generous ardour was not cooled by the reflection that the people in question, who had recently declared in such resounding terms that all men were endowed by the Creator with an inalienable right to freedom, were now offering to assist in placing Portugal and the West Indies under a foreign yoke in return for French and Spanish aid, or that their own plantations were cultivated by slaves. French officers, soldiers of fortune and amateurs of liberty, encouraged by the promises of Deane, crowded the ships that sailed for America, and even caused Washington

some em

barrassment by their very numbers and the high rank to which they were promoted in spite of their ignorance of the language in which

they must address their troops.2

Though French intrigue, and subsequently French and Spanish arms, finally succeeded in defeating the British in the contest with the united colonies, it is remarkable that they did not succeed in recovering Canada, that rich jewel which had so recently been tom

from the French Crown. The reason is doubtless to be found in the wise provisions of the famous Quebec Act (May 1774). The British

French

Government eschewed the temptation to subject some 70,000 Roman Catholics to the rule of a few hundred English Protestant settlers. It was thought "more humane" to allow the French to keep the old laws of the province, which they understood, even though in Washington, Works, IV, 146 (Oct. 1776).

1 Am. Dipl. Corr. 1, 233.

2

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