French policy and the American Alliance of 1778

Front matter

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Preface

The materials for the following study were assembled more than ten years ago as a part of work done for the doctorate, at the Universities of Michigan and Pennsylvania. About two years ago I had prepared for publication the portion of the present volume comprising, essentially, chapters I, V, and VIII-XV, when Mr. P. C. Phillips' The West in the Diplomacy of the American Revolution appeared, covering much of the ground of several of these chapters. I then decided to enlarge the scope of the volume to that of a general history of the one entangling alliance to which the United States has been party.

I have been particularly interested in these pages in emphasizing the idea that France's intervention in the American Revolution was motivated primarily by her desire to recover her lost preeminence on the Continent of Europe. Writers have sometimes made verbal recognition of this fact, but in the case of American writers at least, they have generally failed to appreciate its really controlling importance for the subject, and in the end have usually contrived — thanks, f vi PREFACE

no doubt, to Professor Seeley's famous dictum — to present French intervention as an episode in the British-French struggle for colonial do- -r- minion in the Western Hemisphere rather than ! for what it really was, an episode in the European policy of the Ancien JRcgime. A second phase of the general subject to which I have given prominence is the embarrassment which resulted to France from the conflict of interest between her new ally, America, and her hereditary ally, Spain, a conflict which greatly enhanced the difficulty of getting Spain into the war in the first place; which subsequently forced France to make a very restrictive interpretation of certain of her engagements with the United States; and which finally eventuated in the breach of their instructions by the American commissioners at the negotiations of 1782. Last- \y, I have felt that it would be a service to American students to make the materials in Doniol's monumental work more available. These materials, supplemented by the other sources that I have used, will be found, I think, to furnish adequate basis for judgment with reference to most, if not all, of the more important questions likely to suggest themselves to an American student of the Alliance of 1778.

In gathering my materials I have incurred obligations to several libraries, which I gladly take this opportunity to acknowledge: to the Penn-

PREFACE vii

sylvania Historical Society, the American Philosophical Society, and the Kidgeway Branch Lihraries of Philadelphia, for the use of nmneroiis eighteenth century puhlications, both French and Knglish; to the University of Pennsylvania Library, for the use of its extensive collection of materials on the Mercantile System ; to the Harvard University Library, for the use of the Jared Sparks Manuscripts ; to the American Antiquarian Society Library at Worcester, for the use of newspapers of the Revolutionary period; to the Library of Congress for numerous services. I should also note a more special obligation to the staffs of the University of Michigan and the University of Pennsylvania Libraries and of the Princeton L^niversity Library, for many courtesies.

My other indebtednesses are not extensive, but they are deep. I wish especially to record my grateful recognition of the aid which I received from my teachers. Professors A. C. McLaughlin and W. E. Lingelbach, in the early stages of my labors.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I — The Question of Motive 1

II— The Classical System and British Sea-Power 23

Chapter I The Question Of Motive

The great majority of students today would, I suppose, concede that but for our alhance with France, the War of Independence would have ended without independence, and that but for the aid which France lent us secretly in the months ^preceding Burgoyne's surrender at Saratoga, we should hardly have become allies of His most Christian Majesty, at least on anything like terms of equality. To emphasize the efficacy and indispensability of French aid in the Revolution is, however, only to throw into higher light its aspects of paradox : the oldest and most despotic monarchy of Europe making common cause with rebels against a sister monarchy; a government on the verge of bankruptcy deliberately provoking a war that, to all appearances certainly, it might have easily avoided. Ignorance of the dangers it invited might conceivably afford a partial explanation of the course taken by the French government in the years between 1776 and 1783, but in fact the explanation is available in onh slight measure. The risk to a monarch in promoting rebellion, albeit in another's dominions, was clearly present to Louis' mind, while the unfitness of the royal exchequer for the burdens of war was pressed upon him by Turgot with all possible insistence.

Bancroft explains France's championship of American independence thus: "Many causes combined to produce the alliance of France and the American republic, but the forces which brought all influences harmoniously together, over-ruling the timorous levity of Maurepas and the dull reluctance of Louis XVI was the movement of intellectual freedom."^

The important element of truth in this theory is unquestionable. The direction and momentum of French popular sentiment established, to some extent certainly, the possibilities and limitations of French official action, and this sentiment was in turn to no inconsiderable extent the product of the liberalism of the age. Nevertheless, the idea that France ought to intervene, if chance offered, between England and her North American colonies in behalf of the latter, came in the first instance, not from the salon but the Foreign Office. And it is not less clear that the precise policy pursued by the French government toward the United States from 1776 on was shaped, not by philosophers but by professional diplomatists.

^History of the United States (Author's last revision), V. 256. See also ib., 264 ff.

Confining then our attention from the outset to the question of what were the official motives of French intervention, we have naturally to consider in the first instance the Count de Vergennes' argimient in behalf of his program, which eventually became that of the French government, that however the American situation eventuated, it carried with it the substantial risk for France of having to come finally to the defense of her Caribbean possessions against an English attack; since if England subjugated America she woidd be tempted to turn the large forces she would have on hand to some profitable employment, whereas if she did not, she would make allies of those whom she had lost as subjects in an endeavor to compensate herself at the expense of France."

It was a theory calculated to appeal strongly to the French mind of that day and generation. The Seven Years War had been begun by the Britisli govenmient in the midst of negotiations without a word of warning. It had been conducted by Chatham in a spirit of ferocious antipathy toward France and her ruling House. ^ It had been concluded by a peace which had been

^ Henri Doniol, Uistoire d.i la Participation de la France h I'EtabUnsement des Etats-Unis d'Amerique (Paris, 1886-99), I. 273-5; II. 460, 462-3. Cited hereafter as "Doniol."

^ Expressions of Vergennes' distrust of Chatham will be found in Doniol I. 61-2, 67-72. At the same time he admits in effect the unlikelihood of George Ill's calling him to power, ib., 62.

roundly denounced by an influential section of the English public for restoring to France English conquests in the Caribbean. Moreover, the violence of English party contests was notorious ; and to men to whom it had not yet become evident in what a powerful leash George III held Parliament it was natural to suppose that, rather than incur the penalty of a too long delayed triumph in America, the North ministry would be ready, if worse came to worst, to resort to the most desperate expedients.

And not only did the argument in question strike hands with the popular French estimate of British policy; it also countered admirably the strongest argument against French intervention in America, namely, that it meant war with England. Yet these very considerations should perhaps put us on our guard against too spontaneously crediting Vergennes with complete sincerity in this matter; or if we decide to accord him that, we should at least remember his owTi warning, that "it is human nature to believe readily that which one desires most ardently."^

The evidence presented by Vergennes to support a plea of self-defense in behalf of France's action in America we shall pass upon later. Here we need only weigh some more general considerations militating against that plea: To begin with, the risks involved in attempting to aid the Colonies secretly were obvious from the first; yet it is on the increment of danger resulting from his own policy at this point that Vergennes based in part his argument for an open alliance with the Colonies.' Again, by his own argument, the danger that confronted France arose alike from the prospect of English victory and of English defeat in America; yet it will be found that he was quite ready to retreat from his program of alliance with America whenever English victory seemed seriously to impend. ° In other words, it would seem that, while the danger menacing France from the prospect of an immediate English triumph in America was one to be awaited in calm — the calm of despair, forsooth — the danger which threatened from the opposite contingency was one that must be met half-way. Yet it was the latter contingency precisely which the policy of secret aid was designed to make sure!" But, again, while a British attack upon her Caribbean possessions would, of course, have forced France to come to their defense, it may be seriously doubted whether French official opinion held these possessions after 1763 in sufficient esteem to have warranted a policy that materially increased the likelihood of a serious war of which their security would be the main objective.^ Indeed Vergennes himself declared more than once that the French West Indies could offer but slight temptation to English cupidity, that England already had enough of that sort of thing ;'^ and it is significant that during the negotiations of 1782 he stood ready to surrender some of the most valuable items of these possessions if he could thereby procure Gibraltar for Spain. ^^ Finally, there is good reason for believing that France could, at any time before 1778, have obtained from England a specific guaranty of her American holdings — a guaranty which Spain would have been glad to sanction, and which England would have been slow to violate, so long at any rate as peace continued on the Continent."

* See the remarks of M. Abeille, quoted infra. In the same connection one should also recall the pacifist attitude of the French government early in 1777 toward the question of defending Santo Domingo, the obvious explanation of it being the fear of arousing suspicion on the part of Great Britain that vi'ould prejudice the policy of secret aid: Doniol, II. 234-41, 253, 264-5, 272-5.

"lb., II. 643-4; III. 50-1. See also Life of Arthur Lee, I. 361,

"76., V. 220. It should also be noted that throughout the war France definitely subordinated obvious opportunities to enlarge her holdings in the West Indies to other objectives. "Au vrai," says Lavisse, "les interets coloniaux paraissaient a Vergennes, corame a presque tous les hommes d'Etat fran^ais, de mediocre importance," Histoire, IX.* 117.

"Both at the end of 1776 and in the spring of 1777, the British Government suggested a common disarmament on the part of England, France, and Spain, Doniol, II. 145-54, 232. An earnest advocate of such a plan, which was to be accompanied

The principal reason for Vergennes' constant employment of the Hne of argument under discussion undoubtedly lies in its propagandist use. Before, of course, any diplomatic program could be entered upon it had to receive the assent of the king. Had the idea of an aggressive program been unbiased by other considerations it would probably have had Louis' assent from the start, for ignorant as he was of domestic affairs, he was well versed in dynastic politics and jealous for the honor of his House. But unfortimately for such a program, Louis had ascended the throne promising reforms that forbade ambitious schemes abroad; and besides, an endeavor to

by a joint guaranty by tlic parties to it — France, Spain, England, and Portugal — of their possessions in America and the two Indies, was Beaumarchais' friend Lord Rochford, a member of the ministry, Wharton, III. 727-8. Vergennes however had from the first been averse to seeking any sort of understanding with England, Doniol, I. 51-2; P. C. Phillips, The West in the Dlplonuicy of the American Revolution (Univ. of 111., 1913), 38 fn. 25 and 54 fn. 74; B. F. Stevens, Facsimiles of Manuscripts in European Archives Relating to America, 1773-1783 (London, 1889-98, 25, vols., cited hereafter as SMSS.), Nos. 1533, 1544, and 1549. In Aug., 1777, we find Vergennes arguing against France's accepting n British guaranty of French and Spanish possessions, Doniol, H. 528-9. At the very end of the year, that is after Saratoga, if we are to credit a statement attributed by the Spanish ambassador Aranda to Vergennes, tlie English government was offering France the Island of Cape Breton and Nova Scotia, together with extensive rights in the Newfoundland fisheries, if France in return would close her ports to the rebels. Aranda to Florida Blanca, Jan. 31, 1778, Sparks MSS. (Harvard Univ. Library), CI I. See also SMSS., No. 1838.

strike at England through America involved the naturally unwelcome idea of assisting rebels."^ ^' Nor could Vergennes' calculations stop short with his own sovereign. For the logic of the Family Compact clearly exacted that the Spanish court too should be consulted about measures that might involve it in war. How, then, could the Foreign Office better meet the twofold necessity before it than by giving its program as much as possible of the appearance of a program of defense? With Louis the device succeeded, and probably no other would have. At Madrid, on the contraiy, though the argument was plumed especially for the favorite anxieties of that court, it failed utterly; with the result however that the argument of defense had to be pressed upon Louis with fresh insistence, in order to induce him to take a line different from that of his imcle and ally.

In short, while the argument that England designed to attack her Caribbean possessions assisted materially in bringing France into the Revolution, especially by tending to minimize

"* One of the few literary remains of any importance from the hand of I>ouis XVI is a note scribbled on the margin of a Projet of the "Expose des Motifs de la Conduite de la France," etc., of 1779, to protest against Vergennes' assertion that France had only recognized a people already free. "Cette observation," runs the royal gloss, "pourrait autoriser . . . I'Angleterre a aider ouvertcment les mecontents si souvent agites en Bretagne, nos protestants, et tous les Francjais discordants d'avec I'autorite royale." Capcfigue, Louis XVI (Paris, 1856), 107-9. See also Appendix IV.

with the king the weightiest consideration against such a project, it does not follow that the defense of these possessions furnished the principal purpose of French intervention. The central core of Vergennes' program from the first was aid to the Americans in the achievement of their independence; and the prospect of American independence necessarily brought into view objectives which far overshadowed the security of the French West Indies, either momentary or permanent. French intervention in the Revolution was, in other words, determined by motives of "aggression" rather than of "defense"; which is to say that its real purpose was the upsetting of the status quo in certain particulars rather than its i>reservation in certain others. But in what particulars? Was France's objective territory, or commerce, or was it something less tangible pi,an either of these ? ir

' The possibility that it was territory is raised by the contention of Professor Turner that France hoped in the Revolution to replace England in Canada and Spain in Louisiana. In support of this thesis Professor Turner adduces first, the testimony of Godoy, "the Prince of Peace," that after the war was over, Vergennes, counting upon the close union between France and Spain, sought to induce the latter, "already so rich in possessions beyond the sea, to give to

France her ancient colony"; secondly, the fact that during the war Vergennes appeared anxious "to protect the interests of Spain in the country between the Alleghenies and the Mississippi"; and thirdly, a document published in Paris in 1802 under the caption Memoir e historique et politique siw la Louisiane par M. de Vergennes.^^ Upon closer scrutiny each item of this evidence must for one reason or other be disallowed. The reliability of the testimony of Godoy, who did not come into power until six years after Vergennes' death, is in itself questionable, but even if it be accepted at face value it says nothing of Vergennes' intentions before and dunng the Revolution. Vergennes' attitude during j that period toward Spain's claims to the territory between the Alleghenies and the Mississippi is sufficiently accounted for by his feeling that it was necessary to harmonize the conflictingv^ terests of the United States and Spain, eac. 1 whom was in alliance with France against E. land. The document published in 1802, thou^ \ it may possibly date from the Revolution, was no the work of Vergennes nor yet of any one who spoke for him. Not only does the program that it proposes directly traverse, in its reference to Canada, the pledge of His Most Christian Majesty in article VI of the Treaty of Alliance, renouncing "forever the possession ... of any

'^American Historical Review, X. 249 flf.

THE AIMERICAN ALLIANCE 11

part of the continent" that had lately helonged to Great Britain, but it materially conflicts with the policy which Professor Turner himself acknowledges that Vergennes pursued, of supporting Spain's claims in the region between the Alleghenies and the Mississippi. This policy was clearly designed to allay Spain's alarm at the prospects of American independence. The program urged in the Memoire of 1802 proposed, on the contrary, the deliberate aggravation of this alarm as the easiest means of inducing Spain to relinquish Louisiana to the stronger hands of France.^"

"See the Memoire, pp. 25-30. Other considerations that forbid the attribution of this document to Vergennes or official associates of his are the following: It is to be noted that while the anonymous editor of the Memoire assumes to vouch for "the style, the thoughts" of the document as being those of the French secretary, he says nothing of a signature, nor does any appear in the published form. The Memoire is also devoid of certain distinctive marks of a French official document addressed to royalty. The most obvious consisting in the failure of the writer (or compiler) ever to refer to France and Spain by the titles of their Bourbon rulers. If we are to rely upon the silence of the Invent aire Sommaire, no memoir on Louisiana exists in the French archives of the date to which the Memoire published in 1803 is assigned by its editor, tiiough several are to be found there of an earlier date from which this one might have been fabricated, and to one of these the editor makes specific reference in a footnote. Furthermore, the fact that the Memoire of 1802 was, if at this point we are to follow the editor, found among Vergennes' own papers of itself casts doubt on its ever having been presented to the king. In connection with his statement that "both French and American bibliographers have accepted" the "genuineness" of the

But if France's objective was not territory, perhaps it was commerce ? Unquestionably there was a widespread behef in France early in the Revolution, which was appealed to not only by

Memoire, Professor Turner cites only the Voyage a la Louisiane of Baudry des Lozieres. Yet Baudry, while praising the Memoir* for "plusieurs des ses vues qui sont tres sages," directly challenges the assertion that it was the work of Vergennes. "If," says he, *'M. de Vergennes has any part in these memoirs, it is only a very small part." But perhaps the most remarkable feature of the document under consideration is (assuming it to date from before 1783) the ignorance it discloses on the part of its author that by the Treaty of 1763 Florida belonged to Great Britain (see pp. 26 and 30). The Duke of Newcastle is reported to have once addressed a despatch to "the Governor of the Island of Massachusetts." But Vergennes was neither a British peer nor a spoilsman in office, but a man noted among his contemporaries for the range and accuracy of his information in the field of diplomacy. It may be safely assumed, therefore, that he was fully aware that France's closest ally had lost an extensive province by the Peace of Paris and had been compensated by France herself with a still more extensive one. Besides, as is shown below, the Mfmoire of 1802, considered as an entity, must by any assumption date from a period later than early January, 1778. Before this however, Holker, in instructions dated Nov. 25, 1777, was informed by the French Foreign Office that his government wished to see England left in possession of Florida, Nova Scotia and Canada, Doniol, II. 616. Upon careful examination of it I am convinced that the Memoire of 1802 comprises two earlier documents loosely joined together by the author of the short address "Au Roi," chapter I, and certain paragraphs of chapter X of the published document. The first of these two earlier documents comprises most of chapters II-X of the Memoire of 1802 and was written before the outbreak of the Seven Years War to refute Great Britain's claim to the region then in dispute between France and Great Britain. It closed with a j)lan of compromise in the form of a proposed treaty between the two nations, which plan is

THE AMERICAN ALLIANCE IS

the American envoys but by Vergennes himself on occasion, that if France assisted the United States to tlieir independence, American trade

touched up at points by the compiler of the 180»' dociunent. The second of the earlier documents was written after the events described in pages 162 to 169 of the published volume — i.e. about 1769 — to protest against tl)e then recent cession of I-ouisiana to Spain. The entire separateness of the two documents is attested by the words with which the second one o])ens ("Ce niemoire a pour but," etc., p. 115), by the vastly different styles of the two documents, and by their diverse spelling of certain proper names. (In the latter connection compare pp. 57 and 150-1; also pp. 61 and 172.) When, then, was this compilation made? Dismissing the editor's assertion that the document was the work of Vergennes, but taking the document itself at face value, it was brought togetlM>r after the outbreak of the War of Independence (Chapters I and X), but before the Treaty of Alliance recognizing American independence was known (the United States are always referred to as "colonies" and "provinces" and on p. 180, the compiler speaks of "strengthening the peace "between France and Great Britain"); also during a warlike situation on the Continent (pp. -27 and 10:5, by the com|)iler). But this last condition can be satisfied, for the period between 1775 and 1781, only by supposing the references just cited to have been to the events leading up to the so-called War of the Bavarian Succession. If, then, the Memoire of 1802 is to be assigned as a whole to the period of the American Revolution, it must be placed between late January and the middle of March, 1778. We know that, in the months preceding France's intervention, numerous memoirs were transmitted to the Foreign Office, and the Memoire of 1803 may therefore represent one from a sheaf of similar later j)roductions. Doniol I. 242 footnote. Mr. Paul C. Phillips, on the other hand, conjectures plausibly that the document published in 1802 owes its existence to an effort to bolster up Napoleon's then recent acqui-sition of Louisiana, The West in the Diplomacy of the American Reroliition p. 30 fn. 2.

would turn forthwith to French ports/^ Yet squarely confronted with the theory that this belief had been material in determining his program, Vergennes unqualifiedly rejected the notion. "They perhaps think at Madrid," he wrote after the alliance had been determined upon, "that the interest of acquiring a new trade had principally decided us." But he repelled the suggestion thus: "This motive, assessed at its true worth, can be only a very feeble accessory. American trade, viewed in its entirety and subject to the monopoly of the mother-country, was undoubtedly a great object of interest to the latter and an important source of the growth of her industry and power. But American trade, thrown open as it is to be henceforth to the avidity of all nations, will be for France a very petty consideration."^^

These words of Vergennes have, however, no merely negative value ; they bring us in fact to the veiy threshold of the object of our quest. Official thinking about trade was moulded in the

" Wharton, Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution (Washington, 1889), II. 79; Deane Papers (N. Y. Hist'l Soc. Cols., 1886), I. 181, 184 ff., 207; Doniol, I. 244. Deane later changed his views on this as well as certain other subjects. In his letter of June 10, 1781, to Robert Morris, he says: "America left at liberty will, I am persuaded, take at least three-fourths of the European articles she wants from Great Britain," Deane Papers, IV. 406.

"Doniol III. 140. Madrid received its impression from Aranda, Aranda to Florida Blanca, Jan. 31, 1778, Sparks MSS., CII.

THE AMERICAX ALLIANCE 15

eighteentli century in vast part by the categories of what is called "the Mercantile System," and it is the significance of the words just quoted that they show Vergennes to have been of this school. The salient features of Mercantilism mark it at once a system of statecraft rather than of economics, at least in any modern sense of these terms. Thus wealth was identified with that form of it in which, in a period when the machinery of public credit was rudimentary and the usual cement of international alliances was provided by cash subsidies, it was most available for political purposes. Again, the welfare of the subject was assessed for its contribution to the power of the state. Finally, the power of the state was evaluated in the terms furnished by the doctrine of the Balance of Power. But granting these premises and it followed, first, that the principal advantage to be sought from trade was a balance payable in coin or bullion, and secondly, that the most desirable branch of trade was that which was most susceptible of manipulation to produce such a balance, in other words, colonial trade. For subject as it was, within the laws of nature, to the unlimited control of the mother-country, the colony could be compelled to obtain all its manufactures from the mother-country and to return therefor raw materials and a cash balance. At least, by furnishing the mothercountrv raw materials which she would otherwise have to purchase from her pohtical rivals, the colony would contribute directly to the maintenance of a favorable balance of trade and, pro tanto, to that of a favorable balance of power, against those rivals. ^'^

" A good general account of the rise of Mercantilism and of its principles is to be found in C. F. Bastable's Commerce of Nations (1899), ch. IV. For an admirable statement of the connection which mercantilist theory and policy established between colonies and commerce, see Prof. C. M. Andrews, American Historical Review, XX. 43 ff. "During the greater part of our colonial period commerce and colonies were correlative terms, unthinkable each without the other," ib. 43. See also the same writer's article, ib., XX. 589 flf., entitled "Anglo-French Commercial Rivalry, 1700- 1750." "France and England were fairly matched rivals, in that their policies were the same, to acquire colonies in the interest of trade, shipping, and manufactures, to exclude the foreigner fron) the colonial market, and to make the welfare and wealth of the mother state the first and chief object of the efforts of all, colonies and mother-country alike," ib., 546. It will be noted that Professor Andrews makes welfare the objective of the mercantile policy, but power would perhaps be the better word even for English mercantilism. Note the following passage quoted by Professor Andrews from Otis I-ittle's The State of the Trade of the Northern Colonies Considered (1748), pp. 8-9: "As every state in Europe seems desirous of increasing its trade, and the acquisition of wealth enlarges the means of power, it is necessary, in order to preserve an equality with them, that this kingdom extend its commerce in proportion; but to acquire a superiority due encouragement ought to be given to such of its branches as will most effectually enrich its inhabitants. As trade enables the subject to support the administration of government, the lessening or destroying that of a rival has the same effect as if this kingdom had enlarged the sources of its own wealth. But as an ascendancy is to be gained by checking the growth of theirs, as well as by the increase of our own, whenever one of these happens to be the consequence of the other to this nation, its figure and

Applying these considerations to the case of French intervention in the American Revolution, we note at once that by tlie Treaty of Amity and Commerce all privileges of trade were to be "nmtiial" and none given France but what the United