how did the french alliance contribute to the american revolution how did the french alliance contribute to the american revolution

In the late 1780s, Jefferson witnessed first-hand the beginnings of the French Revolution and what would become the eventual overthrow of King Louis XVI and the French monarchy. Wickes took two small merchantmen which ran down their colors with alacrity. Edward Bancroft had been in British pay since 1772. Because of the Family Compact, Spain would have to approve the alliance with America, and accordingly Vergenness memoir was sent to Madrid with its proposal for a triple offensive and defensive alliance. His friend Sieur Montaudoin bought a great Dutch ship and named it Benjamin Franklin . Anthony Todd, secretary of the General Post Office, read Franklins letters to people in England. Grimaldi told him that the King was presenting the Americans stores of arms, clothing, and blankets which their ships could pick up at New Orleans and Havana. Like the first conflict of that name, it was a period of intermittent warfare and political and economic rivalry between the two powers. Franklins household, the unofficial American embassy, was never lonely, even when Benny was sent off to school. Moreover, importers of cannon and powder had to arm their merchantmen, and if their merchantmen were transformed into privateers, as many were, they needed a large supply of ammunition. Podcast: Libert, Unit, Egalit. Franklins arrival in Paris set off an extraordinary wave of public excitement that bordered on hysteria. This was the same thing as asking France and Spain to declare immediate war against Great Britain. After the scheme had been put into effect they explained the mechanism to their committee: For though the fitting out [of an American vessel in a French port] may be covered and concealed by various pretenses, so at least to be winked at by the Government here yet the bringing in of prizes by a vessel so fitted out is so notorious an act, and so contrary to treaties, that if suffered must cause an immediate war.. It happened that Franklin and Morris were the only members of the Committee of Secret Correspondence in town when the courier arrived, and they resolved to keep the news to themselves. For months, in fact, Franklin and Deane had slipped away in the evening for conferences with the minister, and Lee spread the word that the Doctor was having an affair with some French beauty. Part 2 focuses on the French land and naval forces that assisted the U.S. in combating the British military. how did the french alliance contribute to the american revolutionis york university uk hard to get into? Now the picture had entirely changed, and Spain hoped to make peace with the new king on the Portuguese throne. It is the House of Crommelin at Amsterdam which is chiefly concerned in this trade with the Colonies, tho some others have their share., In later reports Sir Joseph drew such an alarming picture of Dutch gunrunning, especially to the Caribbean, that the British sent a Navy sloop and cutter to spend the winter at Texel Island near Amsterdam. Captain Pearson of the, The islet of St. Eustatia, an international free port in the northern Leewards, was a fountainhead of what Samuel Adams called the, To the citizens of Nantes the alliance was not merely a commercial bond, but a blend of credos and enthusiasms which they shared with their friends overseas. This cat and mouse game was only part of the new turn in French policy. The war provided Great Britain enormous territorial gains in North America, but disputes over . When Franklin came to the signing . They asked that frigates be sent over by August to cruise against Englands Baltic trade and attack the British Isles. Vergennes had answered, Nous ne d sirons pas la guerre, mais nous ne la craignons pas. In sending on this encouraging word to Congress, Franklin added his own hopes about the Franco-British war: When all are ready for it, a small matter may suddenly bring it on.. Conyngham was still in the Dunkirk jail, the only safe place for him. He had made Saratoga possible. A.) France remains the center of political activity, and here, therefore, I should choose to be employed., He went on to suggest how Franklin and Deane might be erased altogether. In order to make the war effective he reminded Vergennes of things Vergennes could do. He came down to Passy to receive one of the captains commissions Franklin was empowered to issue, and then Carmichael took charge of him. The French and Indian War was the North American conflict that was part of a larger imperial conflict between Great Britain and France known as the Seven Years' War. Vergennes kept him safe in jail, for the minister was co-operating with Franklins policy up to a dangerous point. Long before it got into feeble action, eleven of the colonies had started their own navies, and several of them commissioned their own privateer fleets. Accordingly, the Doctor held his peace. Most of them were of no earthly use to the Commander in Chief and drained an impoverished Congress of money and patience. He had to fend off a break with England until France was ready for war. If General Howe had guessed that, he could have ended the war then and there. But the accident was symbolic: Hortalez & Company had suffered a. On his first escape from Old Mill in 1779, Conyngham tunneled out with 53 companions. To formalize the colonial complaints against Parliament. As for the Reprisal , anchored at Lorient, she suddenly sprang a leak, and international usage allowed a ship in distress harbor privileges until she was fit to sail. The romantic era of secret aid was finished; there would be no more subsidies and loans from Versailles, and his company was already in financial straits. He added, Take care that America and the West Indies dont glide through our fingers.. Two revolutions, both taking place in the 18th Century, both world-changing. However, there are crucial differences that led to their respective results and their . He made for the English Channel, where he took four small merchantmen, which he sent to Lorient under prize masters. 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. The French Revolution was influenced by the experiences and systems of other nations. William Lee was rewarded with office as alderman of the city, a title which he did not relinquish until the war was almost over and he knew which side would win. The Declaration of Independence served as a model for the French Revolution. However, he had proved to himself more than once that prodigies could result from careful planning and unstinted effort. That switched him to the Caribbean trade. Without changing his normal contacts Franklin could easily have guided a conspiracy to make the Revolution a reality instead of a lost cause. All this was excruciating, since Lee had trumpeted in letters home that he had the ministry and Hortalez in his pocket. He had sent some of his baggage ahead to Florence, never dreaming that an Izard would not be received in the duchy. These prospects were bleak enough in December, 1775, but Franklin sent Bonvouloir back with such a rosy report that they immediately improved. He contributed a million livres to the colonies war chest and his uncle, Charles III of Spain, followed suit. His policy was to reconcile Britain and the United States; never, if he could help it, would Spain go to war on the American side. It was Carmichael who got the last of the Hortalez fleet on its way. He was delighted to find his brother William waiting for him in Paris. There must be a breaking point somewhere in his patience. No peace would be made except by the general consent. The chief results of the mission were the snuffing out of Prussia as a potential ally, and the theft of Lees papers by a professional burglar hired by the British ambassador. His Reprisal , a full-rigged ship in an age of sloops and brigs, flew under the strong westerlies and completed the voyage in five weeks. 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. France's prolonged involvement in the Seven Years' War of 1756-1763 drained the treasury, as did the country's participation in the American Revolution of 1775-1783. French involvement in the American Revolutionary War of 1775-1783 began in 1776 when the Kingdom of France secretly shipped supplies to the Continental Army of the Thirteen Colonies when it was established in June 1775. He waited until the Revenge was safely out of Dunkirk, and then he and the commissioners exchanged letters, purely to clear the record, about the necessity of France abiding by her treaties, which meant no more violations by American privateers. He was to evoke this nightmare more than once, but it never lost its effect. Much later Wentworth revealed the trick: the night before the official inspection Wickes had pumped water into the hold. America needed French aid of every sort: ships, supplies, loans, to begin with. Only a frayed rope anchored the nations to peace, and Franklin believed that an implement lay ready to hand which would saw through the hawser. Ferreiro, Larrie D. Brothers at Arms: American Independence and the Men of France & Spain Who Saved It. 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. All the colonizing powers tried to keep New World produce flowing home to the motherland. The choice of Washington as commander in chief of the military forces of all the colonies followed immediately upon the first fighting, though it was by no means inevitable and was the product of partly artificial forces. Conyngham lusted for his fine new cutter, which mounted 14 six-pounders and 22 swivels, and would have a crew of more than a hundred American and French seamen. British Debt. It was a fine moment for his debut. 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. Franklin was now seventy, afflicted with gout, and wretchedly tired from his labors in Congress and its candle-burning committees. However, Izard and Arthur Lee let no day pass without earnest efforts, and on January 2, 1781, a move was made in Congress for Franklins recall. 1783. George III, faced with plain warnings from Bancroft and Wentworth that a French alliance was pending, would not believe them. Bancroft had sped to London, mainly to make a killing on the stock market, but he would not fail to bring George III the bad news. The only source for salt during the war was the Turks Islands beds at the tail of the Bahama chain, long a Bermudian monopoly. All George III had to offer his erring children, who would of course return to colonial status, was the repeal of the obnoxious acts since 1763, which had precipitated the war. Communications with Congress were rapidly being snuffed out by the capture of dispatches on the high seas and even more by the skill of British agents in intercepting letters, especially those bound for America. The King was progressing from the swaddling clothes of a dominant mother to the strait jacket of his manic seizures, and even in his long periods of sanity his balance was precarious. Sitting together in Deanes hotel while the crowds outside waited for a glimpse of their idol, the two men were already dreading the arrival of Arthur Lee as their colleague. When Deane arrived in Paris in the summer of 1776 Arthur Lee rushed over from London. 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. He knew that this purpose was the weakening of Britain rather than the emancipation of the United States. 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. On the very day the French ministry decided for the alliance, Paul Wentworth was back in Paris. The Americans' victory over the British may have been one of the greatest catalysts for the French Revolution. The situation at home was alarming. (The third captain of that cruise was staying behind to take out one of the new American frigates built at Nantes.) Vergennes had patiently dissembled Frances violations of neutrality in one encounter after the other with Stormont. 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. Deane was up to his neck in business affairs and was essential to their success, for Tom Morris was clearly unfit to carry out any operation but commandeering cargoes from Congress to finance his endless debauch. In November Congress resolved to recall Deane for questioning, and sent John Adams to take his place in the mission. Affairs at Nantes became more and more tangled, and William Lee did nothing to straighten them out. Young Gustavus Conyngham of the landed Irish gentry had emigrated as a boy to Philadelphia where his relatives were prominent shipping merchants. King Louis XVI was born in 1754 and was pronounced king of France when he succeeded his grandfather in 1774. The colonies needed these things . The two Lees and Izard were busily writing letters about the expected alliance. This well-connected young man had been sent direct from Congress to buy two ships to serve as packets for the mission. William Lee opened the campaign against Deane in a letter to Francis Lightfoot Lee. When Wickes brought his captured brigantines to Nantes they were speedily bought by a French purchaser for less than half their value. Bancroft is entirely an American and every word he used on the late occasion was to deceive; perhaps they think Mr. Wentworth has been sent from motives of fear and if that is Franklins opinion the whole conduct he has shewn, is wise and to me it [unravels] what other ways would appear inexplicable.. only affected North America. To the citizens of Nantes the alliance was not merely a commercial bond, but a blend of credos and enthusiasms which they shared with their friends overseas. This blogpost looks at the important French role in the American Revolution. Nobody could find the prizes, which had been sold. It did contribute to the huge French debt that was the root cause of the French Revolution by accepting Military and economic assisstance from France during the American Revolution. Franklins hosts were the merchants Pliarne and Penet, who had little standing in Nantes, but who may have been subsidized by Vergennes. Richardson (Bancrofts tiny, curiously contorted script was almost feminine). New York: Random House, 2015. However, Deane had already made a magnificent contribution to the Revolution in helping France to help America. Bermuda, which barely escaped becoming the fourteenth state, had a large merchant colony on the Dutch island, and there sold her American friends the thousand fine cedar sloops she built or refitted for them. Sixty years after his death the incredible truth came out. 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. Free subscription>>, Please consider a donation to help us keep this American treasure alive. What major problem did the Continental army face in the winter of 1777? Franklin found that the American stock had lately plunged to its lowest point. Compared to the antics of the French Revolution, the infamous Tea Party in Boston was like the sisters at the convent sneaking into the dorm of the rival convent and shorting their sheets. Later Congress backed up this pledge and authorized all tenders necessary to get Bourbon help. Arthur was installed in the place where he could counteract Deane and that wicked old man, as R. H. Lee called Franklin. First off, the debt of the French Indian War was the reason parliament started imposing taxes on the colonist in the first place. 1778-1782. A clever negotiator could have done much there, for Frederick the Great despised the British and the little German states that sold them mercenaries; he took a lively interest in the progress of the American war and was ready to expand Prussias trade with the Americans, which so far had been clandestine. George III now realized that the purpose behind the Wickes and Conyngham raids was to stir him up against France, which only increased his fury. All that was needed was to add up the amount of money the mission had received, and then tell the Adams-Lee bloc in Congress that Franklin and Deane had stolen it. They were in the best possible hands; Captain Lambert Wickes was one of the few masters seasoned in the merchant fleet who had joined the Continental Navy. By September, 1775, the crusader was back in Versailles, and with Vergennes intensified the campaign to draw the King into their dangerous project of largescale aid to the colonies. took place in France and India. 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 could not urge France into the war without Spanish support and without patriot victories to insure the survival of the young nation across the Atlantic. But Bancroft was in the most strategic position of any informer, and his conduct at Passy was mysterious. He was the dark personality of the family: a paranoid constantly haunted by the most fantastic suspicions of the people around him; a captious, hypercritical man who never married or made a simple friendship; a man with inflated notions of his own Tightness and genius who suffered tortures of jealousy of anybody above him. The American Revolution was by no means a purely American-British conflict. Soon the old names were changed to the Committee of Foreign Affairs and the Commercial Committee to make this distinction clear. 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. 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. Franklin knew that Vergennes, who for years had befriended America, would scuttle her the instant she ceased to serve his purpose. Anything he could learn about the missions connections with Spain and other countries was wanted. 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. His, Privateers could accomplish wonders, but they could not fight the great British ships of the line. He had spent eighteen years in England as colonial agent and the last eighteen months at home in the Continental Congress. He agreed to investigate the matter. Shortly after this, Parliament authorized British privateering. France, wretchedly poor at the bottom of its society and jaded and apprehensive at the top, was rushing towards its own revolution, and the violent emotions which would ruin the French Revolution were tripped off in wild demonstrations of welcome. American morale was so low that only the immediate entrance of France into the war could put heart into the country. Introduction. The Treaty of Amity and Commerce recognized the U.S. as an independent nation and promoted trade between France and America. Q. America could fight only her own sort of war on the seas, and this had started before Lexington and would continue long after Yorktown. These reports were written in invisible ink between the lines of love letters addressed to Mr. Conclusion. His discretion was fathomless, and he may purposely have avoided emphasizing his old friendship with the man who carried out some of the ministrys most secret work for America. They sent eight of them to France and got back safely. He was evidently buying arms and setting up a smuggling base in the Low Countries. Nothing came of these appeals, and meanwhile Franklin and Deane had been working at a highly secret project which might prove more effective in precipitating a Franco-British war. Franklin had no doubt guessed, when the courier returned from Europe in September with news of tremendous shipments of arms by Monsieur Hortalez, that the real name of this mysterious friend was France. He seemed to be everywhere at once, a nightmare figure. D.) It caused many French nobles and clergy to move to the newly independent United States. France Allied with American Colonies. Privateers could accomplish wonders, but they could not fight the great British ships of the line. The powder was stolen; Bermuda was fed. Islanders and continentals had worked out a prototype of the free trade which was one of Franklins major objectives. But Franklin and Deane knew what to expect from Arthur Lee. They all hated and feared Britain as the newly dominant nation of Europe. Little Benny Bache would be put in school to learn French, and Temple Franklin would act as his grandfathers unpaid secretary. It was February, and the ominous shift in the ministry from the friendly Grimaldi to the hostile Floridablanca was taking place. By early 1775 the British embassy in France estimated that war supplies worth 32,000,000 livres (about $6,000,000) had been shipped from that kingdom to the colonies. Franklin immediately got to work at this dismal situation. Later Lee developed this fantasy into a sinister engine of destruction against those he hated. On February i he urged that France enter her unavoidable war at once, and the next day gave Vergennes the personal pledge of the commissioners that if France entered the war the United States would not make a separate peace with Britain. Much paper would be required for their letter campaign, and a spate of words would cover their omission of proofs. At the same time he yearned to be a statesman like Franklin. He did extremely well in these successive careers, and now at forty held a position of high honor. They were based on the Plan of 1776, drafted chiefly by Franklin, and they laid down his cherished, and essentially modern, principles of free trade and settled the wholly new problem of how a republic should conduct its relations with a kingdom. A blacksmiths son, he had worked his way through Yale and had started to practice law when he married the daughter of a great merchant family. These three phases reveal an orderly progression in Franklins mind. Representatives of the French and American governments signed the Treaty of Alliance and a Treaty of Amity and Commerce on February 6, 1778. In 1782, Benjamin Franklin rejected informal peace overtures from Great Britain for a settlement that would provide the thirteen states with some measure of autonomy within the British Empire. Deane and Beaumarchais were already fast friends, working in harmony to load the Hortalez fleet with war supplies. Finally, not daring to return to France, he made for Cap Ferrol in Spain. As a result of Lees carelessness in leaving his portfolio in his room when he went out to dine, the commissioners had to abandon the building of a great frigate in Amsterdam, and she was sold to Louis XVI at cost. Many of them were now flocking to Europe, for the word had been passed of the hospitality of French and Spanish ports if the proper techniques of evasion were followed. Conyngham shook them off and began the most spectacular cruise of the war. Since Wentworth often slipped across to Paris, much of Bancrofts information could be delivered verbally, but he made a weekly report in writing. First, they provided the colonists with many of the supplies they needed and with a great deal of money. Intended as a defensive alliance, it saw France provide both supplies . Inequality of Rights. As soon as Arthur Lee arrived from London the three commissioners wrote Vergennes announcing their appointment to negotiate a treaty of amity and commerce with France. Franklin had a share in preserving the friendship between the mainland and Bermuda at a moment when it was severely strained. If Conyngham was not punished, Stormont would resign, breaking off diplomatic relations with France. American merchantmen picked up contraband all over Europe; the British, Dutch, and French sent some cargoes direct to the thirteen colonies, but far greater amounts to their islands in the Caribbean, to be picked up by American traders. Conyngham hastily sailed back to his berth and unloaded the powder. For all his enjoyment of high life and high-level intrigue, he was a seismograph about social upheavals and an intellectual who understood their necessity. (We must remember that all this was happening before Lexington.). But his eventual victory depended on two essentials which only Europe could provide: military supplies of all sorts and a powerful navy. His emotional balance was precarious. The American Revolution had a multifaceted effect in France, extending the national debt, contributing . Then he captured the Kings packet Swallow , running between Falmouth and Lisbon. When they arrived at Martinique, the Americans were so cordially received that Bingham settled down as resident agent for Congress. He had spent years in Surinam and was an expert on tropical plants; he had written a natural history of Guiana and perfected new vegetable dyes for cloth. First these navies quarreled head-on, in the English Channel and then in the entirety of the Atlantic Ocean, in a war of escorts. DuVal, Kathleen. A number of ill-advised financial maneuvers in the late 1700s worsened the financial situation of the already cash-strapped French government. To license content, please contact licenses [at] americanheritage.com. French King and Great Contributor to the American Revolution King Louis XVI was a great contributor to the American Revolution, sending supplies and troops to the colonies.