how did the french alliance contribute to the american revolution

Washingtons defeat on Long Island and his retirement through the Jerseys made the Bourbon courts doubt if the war could succeed. 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. Two revolutions, both taking place in the 18th Century, both world-changing. A week later she was halfway out of the harbor when a British sloop and cutter were sighted. Though still reeling from the loss of its American colonies at the end of the Seven Years' War in 1763, the country remained a global power with a strong army and navy. Strengthen unity in the event of war with France in the west. In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, France supports U.S. engagement in the peace process. Since Wentworth often slipped across to Paris, much of Bancrofts information could be delivered verbally, but he made a weekly report in writing. Richardson (Bancrofts tiny, curiously contorted script was almost feminine). His background was no more humble than Franklins, but his friend could dress like a Quaker while Deane amassed a huge wardrobe of velvets and satins and drained his private purse entertaining his new French acquaintances. The Declaration of Independence served as a model for the French Revolution. Every step in preparing the lugger for a cruise was watched by the British in Dunkirk. It was an entirely new sort of war because the United States was a new sort of country, whose survival depended less on land fighting than on a complex of factors in which Franklin was . 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. 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. The dreadful thing is that Arthur Lees nightmare was accepted by perfectly sane men and that it not only outlived the Eighteenth Century but has persisted in a shadowy form into the Twentieth. This period of conflict began in 1698 with the War of the Grand . The United States, far from asking something for herself, was in reality advancing Bourbon interests and fighting their war. May 12, 1780. This rule was so thoroughly disobeyed that great shipping houses like Willing & Morris of Philadelphia kept factors, or at least correspondents, all over Europe and the Caribbean to take care of their trade. After Lees visit he proffered no more aid and listened to Floridablanca. By late June the captain and his men were released from jail, and the, But in mid-July Conyngham took his unharmed cutter out to sea and anchored at a safe rendezvous. 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. On Christmas Day Washington wrote Congress: Our want of powder is inconceivable. Three weeks later there was not a pound in his magazines. The requested battleships were not forthcoming; it was explained that France needed every unit of her Navy for her own purposes, which of course meant her expected war with Britain. He welcomed routine, even a pernicious routine, but any crisis produced a violent reaction. England registered the expected sense of outrage; the whole country seethed with the news. By then Congress had set up two secret committees on both of which Franklin was extremely busy. 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. 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. He raided in the North Sea and the Baltic; he sailed around England and then around Ireland, everywhere taking prizes. France's support deepened after the Americans beat the British in the October 1777 Battle of Saratoga, proving themselves committed to independence and worthy of a formal alliance. It encouraged the French to adopt the government system of popular sovereignty. But he was too late. Vergennes decided that honor was preferable to peace, faced down an ultimatum from England, and got the two Navy ships safely to sea, where they would have to take their chances with the British warships waiting for them. With British warships on the prowl the voyage was dangerous, but Franklin had brought his grandsons along. 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. The French loan was a godsend. His first wife soon died and he married the daughter of a great political familyand switched to politics. Hoping to calm down the furor, Franklin appeared in public as little as possible. 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. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975. Ironically, this was one of the key factors that caused the revolution in the first place. The only source for salt during the war was the Turks Islands beds at the tail of the Bahama chain, long a Bermudian monopoly. 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. 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. After the Seven Years' War, Britain found itself in about twice as much debt . 1778-1782. Most of them were of no earthly use to the Commander in Chief and drained an impoverished Congress of money and patience. People heavily associate the French Revolution with the American Revolution, due to the many general similarities. While Spain's influence on the Revolutionary War was significant, perhaps the most profound impact was the broader American Revolution's impact on Spain. Before they escaped they were furnished money and instructions about English allies who would get them across the Channel, and French merchants at the ports who would then take care of them. Lying close to British, Danish, French, and Spanish islands, Statia, as she was known to her friends, had for generations offered European goods at bargain rates, and arms to any enemy of Britain. There were sixty-odd American merchants established in Nantes, and when Franklin considered that all this activity was being repeated on a somewhat smaller scale in Bordeaux, Lorient, Le Havre, and Dunkirk, he felt that the Franco-American alliance was already a reality. E . But Bancroft was in the most strategic position of any informer, and his conduct at Passy was mysterious. It is true that these countries, and to some extent Spain, had for some time been shipping out contraband for America, mostly through their Caribbean islands. A year before the Declaration Beaumarchais wrote Vergennes that he was leaving for Flanders on a political mission, and that he had something tremendous to impart later. France Allied with American Colonies. And Franklin, Voltaire, and Rousseau were linked together as the presiding geniuses of the century. 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. This wealthy and devoted young Marylander had been educated in England and was qualified for diplomatic assignments. He came down to Passy to receive one of the captains commissions Franklin was empowered to issue, and then Carmichael took charge of him. How long could he continue? Independence Lost: Lives on the Edge of the American Revolution. The Reprisal was carrying a cargo of indigo worth 3,000 which was intended to pay the early expenses of the Paris mission. If Conyngham was not punished, Stormont would resign, breaking off diplomatic relations with France. His widening circle of intimates included people of great influence: Masons, scientists and scholars, men and women of the aristocracy. Moreover, every port in Europe was under the surveillance of the British Admiraltys intelligence service, directed from Rotterdam by Madame Marguerite Wolters, widow of the former chief. The court of France, he wrote, is the great wheel that moves them all and he added that of all posts he preferred Paris for himself. In his plain dress, still wearing his comfortable fur cap, he was the natural man Rousseau had taught the French to revere, and a symbol of Utopia. This treaty was a promise from France to help the fight against the British. A new nation had emerged, and in time each individual would realize his new identity. William Lee opened the campaign against Deane in a letter to Francis Lightfoot Lee. British Debt. However, Beaumarchais put his whole soul into his character as friend of the American Revolution. Here we are too near the sun, and the business is dangerous; with you it may be done more easily.. The warehouses lining her one street, a mile long, were crammed with munitions, ships stores, bolts of cloth; sacks of sugar and tobacco covered the very sands, and the roadstead was packed with merchantmen. The news of Howes occupation of Philadelphia arrived in November as the climax of an excruciating period in which Franklins own campaign had reached a stalemate. The Continental Navy would never be able to take on the larger British units. His new cutter, the, When Vergenness orders came through to sell the, 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. The French Revolution was one of the most senseless . He had connived in the Conyngham raid in the confidence that the next time Stormont came fuming into his Cabinet with threats of war, he could hand the pestiferous ambassador his portfolio and wish him a pleasant old age in England. Conyngham shook them off and began the most spectacular cruise of the war. 3. Congress had sent the King the Olive Branch Petition, which paralyzed war efforts for many months. But once these two great steps in the right direction were made, it was easy to push through resolutions for negotiating foreign alliances. Despite his own best efforts, Lees mission turned out to be a success. It meant only the familiar rite of changing the property on paper. If he had written the true story of his life as a drama no audience would have believed it. The table has been produced based upon "Ferguson's estimate of the total cost of the war": Edwin J. Perkins, American Public Finance and Financial Services, 1700-1815 (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 1994), 103, Table 5.4. His private period of turmoil and decision lay behind him, and he could think calmly of what must be done to make Jeffersons great charter a reality. He had sent some of his baggage ahead to Florence, never dreaming that an Izard would not be received in the duchy. Compare And Contrast The American Revolution And French Revolution. Patrick Henry delivering his famous speech on the Rights of the Colonies, before the . Franklin soon warned Congress not to enlarge its connections with this questionable pair. He and his friend the Marquis de Bouille, the new governor of Martinique, had a privateer fleet with American masters and French and Spanish crews which was making itself felt in the Caribbean. took place in France and India. It thus comprises the first seven years of the period of warfare that was continued through the Napoleonic Wars until Napoleon's abdication in 1814, with a year of interruption under the peace of Amiens (1802-03). At once, on March 17, the commissioners sent memoirs to the French and Spanish ministries urging a triple war against Britain and her ally Portugal. If Vergennes had any doubts about Franklins grasp of Bourbon aims, they were resolved by the Doctors masterly letter of January 5. By April American privateers had taken so many British seamen prisoner that the British fleet was not half manned, and Stormont hinted to Vergennes that peace could not last much longer if France continued to arm the United States. During the Revolution this tiny island was the clearinghouse for American trade with the Caribbean and Europe, including Britain. The end of 1799 may be conveniently taken as the . Shortly after this, Parliament authorized British privateering. The historian Henri Doniol, who edited the secret French archives of the period, claimed that Franklin did more than coach the Whigs; that he in fact started an international gunrunning ring by quiet negotiations with certain arms manufacturers and exporters in England, Holland, and France. In this desperate situation a few individuals took over as heads of non-existent departments. It was a delusion that cost him and the country dear and brought no profit to Tom Morris. 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. No charge was made against Deane, but for two years Congress kept him in Philadelphia at its pleasure while the press vilified him. 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. The campaign against Franklin, the father of mischief, took longer because, as Izard confessed in a letter to the president of Congress, Henry Laurens, it was extremely difficult to find any proofs of his crimes. Join, or Die, the first political cartoon in America, was created by Benjamin Franklin and was published in a newspaper on May 9, 1754.The cartoon later became a symbol of colonial unity during the American Revolution and remains popular. 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. The Statue of Liberty was a gift from the French people commemorating the alliance of France and the United States during the American Revolution. Since the previous summer he had had the invaluable help of an unpaid deputy, William Carmichael. He had to fend off a break with England until France was ready for war. If successful, France would get as her share half the Newfoundland fishery and all the sugar islands; Spain would be enriched by Portugal and the Floridas, and the United States would gain Canada, Bermuda, and the Bahamas. Congress had appointed Jefferson as the third commissioner, but he had declined to serve because of his wifes illness, and the Adams-Lee bloc in Congress rushed their man in as substitute. Louis XVI was making a new advance of 3,000,000 livres to Congress. 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. Whenever Stormont got good evidence that France was shipping contraband to America or admitting American prizes to her ports, he drove to Versailles to make a formal protest. The first move was to eliminate Franklin and Deane by creating a scandal in Congress about their peculation of public funds. Still hopeful that Congress had ships to command, they spoke of raids on Greenland whalers and Hudson Bay fishing fleets, and urged that Navy ships convoy shipping in the Caribbean, since England would now send privateers and heavy units of her fleet there. A disguised British vessel at Dunkirk had alerted the warships, and as soon as the, By the middle of July Vergennes had made up his mind to ask the King for armed intervention. Franklin, bobbing a thermometer over the Reprisal s rail to take the temperatures of the Gulf Stream, could think about the life of the sea, this western Atlantic and warm Caribbean which nature had chosen as the home for the new race of Americans. The prize crew of five Americans and sixteen Frenchmen were put in prison, and the prize master was forced to confess that Conyngham had made other captures. Among the papers was Lees private journal with a log of his Spanish transactions and details of every move made by the Paris mission up to that June. The country had no President and Cabinet, no executive departments, no constitution. Meanwhile, Grard warned, the negotiations must be kept secret. The man who believed there was never a good war or a bad peace was about to use all his powers to sweep the Bourbon nations into the War of Independence. Somehow the wild Irishman, repeating the maneuver of the sound and sober Wickes, created an infinitely greater reaction. On the third day of May he seized the, Conyngham was still in the Dunkirk jail, the only safe place for him. What event launched the beginning of witchcraft accusations in Salem. Conyngham was still in the Dunkirk jail, the only safe place for him. 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. Captain Pearson of the Speedwell had orders to follow any suspected American ship out to the open sea and there arrest her. Late in October, 1776, Benjamin Franklin sailed for France to direct the foreign sector of the extraordinary war into which his young country had been plunged. She threaded the colonies and Britain with her spies; Versailles knew much better than Whitehall how the Revolution was shaping. Deanes griefs were personal. 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. A growing fleet of American privateers had already brought prizes into the various French ports, and a system had been perfected for their disposal. Like a good diplomat, he conveyed these urgent demands to the ministries in a most persuasive form, but he had already gauged the situation in the royal courts and expected no miracles. Perhaps the greater part of Edward Bancroft was truly American. In France, however, this separation of function was impossible. At the first hint of this the Doctor tendered his resignation, which to his relief was not accepted. Like Great Britain, France had a young king. In a few swift parries Franklin suggested what his technique of dealing with the ministry would be. He made for the English Channel, where he took four small merchantmen, which he sent to Lorient under prize masters. The Committee of Secret Correspondence, under Franklin, engaged agents abroad to explore the possibilities of foreign alliances. 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. To formalize the colonial complaints against Parliament. He often held back information or distorted it, and Wentworth sensed this and by summer made him take an oath before he delivered an oral report. He soon went down to Spain, where Conyngham was taking fresh prizes. Captain Wickes, who had been one of the picked men of Morris trading fleet, was chosen for the voyage. The Doctor, instead of staying with the Montaudoins, allowed himself to be captured by people he disliked. 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. Revolutionary leadership of George Washington Head of the colonial forces. 1. Franco-American Alliance, (Feb. 6, 1778), agreement by France to furnish critically needed military aid and loans to the 13 insurgent American colonies, often considered the turning point of the U.S. War of Independence. He did extremely well in these successive careers, and now at forty held a position of high honor. Franklin was a shrewd judge of men, and his unclouded confidence in Bancroft needs some extraordinary explanation. He was free for a time to be the scientist, finding in nature a fidelity to laws beyond the reach of human meddling. Little Benny Bache would be put in school to learn French, and Temple Franklin would act as his grandfathers unpaid secretary. Beaumarchais was with the three commissioners when the official messenger arrived. Franklin and Morris could hardly have believed Captain Wickes news on his return to Philadelphia if a courier had not come back from Europe at the same time with even more wonderful tidings. They all hated and feared Britain as the newly dominant nation of Europe. Accordingly, the Doctor held his peace. The trouble with Silas Deane was tragically simple: he was never quite sure who he was. It caused many French nobles and clergy to move to the newly independent United States. The American Revolution of 1775-1789, which concluded as the revolution in France was unfolding, was perhaps the most significant. He was delighted to find his brother William waiting for him in Paris. This was amazing enough; France had broken through the limits of her ostensible neutrality and was allowing Martinique to become a base of war against Britain. He had corrupted his government from Lord North down in the hope of buying security for himself. 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. 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. Franklin dealt with these suicidal moves in his usual oblique fashion. Arguably the key French contribution to the war came during the Yorktown campaign. 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. What was the intended purpose of the Albany Congress in 1754? He gave the Doctor the unsigned letter from Eden, which said that Britain was ready to fight for another ten years rather than grant American independence. Their difficulties in shipping out supplies to America were also greatly increased, for Lee had set down everything he could learn without coding it. The alliance of France with the American Patriots started on February 6, 1778, when the King of France signed a treaty with Benjamin Franklin, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. His sense of competition for the favor of America was plain in the letter he immediately wrote the French ambassador at Madrid. He had never outgrown some early drive to make the blacksmiths son a great gentleman. The conversation continued with this sort of exchange, and Franklin kept it going for two hours. First, they provided the colonists with many of the supplies they needed and with a great deal of money. Finally, not daring to return to France, he made for Cap Ferrol in Spain. This released a great stock of surplus arms for Hortalez to buy up cheaply. In order to make the war effective he reminded Vergennes of things Vergennes could do. Washington was the War Department, Robert Morris at various times was Treasury and Navy and always was Commerce, and Franklin was the Department of State. No peace would be made except by the general consent. Franklin insisted that Arthur Lee was mad, and perhaps only a madman could have created a cabal of such malignity and scope out of nothing but his own emotions. The foreign alliances of France have a long and complex history spanning more than a millennium. When the royal nod transmogrified Beaumarchais into Roderigue Hortalez, he wrote Lee over that signature, announcing the formation of his house and his intended shipments to the Cape, to be paid for by remittances of American tobacco. Over the course of the war, France contributed an estimated 12,000 soldiers and 32,000 sailors to the American war effort. The Treaty of Alliance (1778) between the United State and France was signed February 6, 1778. Whereas French intervention in the war would help turn the tide in favor of the Americans, the debt it incurred would contribute to the later French Revolution (1789-1799 . However, when Franklin arrived in Paris, Bancroft was in an ideal position to watch the Kings most dangerous enemy, and he made a good bargain with the secret service. They provided ideological underpinnings. 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. He returned to Paris with his usual air of pompous impeccability, for his conscience was light. During Franklins years in London he had watched the old power pattern repeat itself. It was February, and the ominous shift in the ministry from the friendly Grimaldi to the hostile Floridablanca was taking place. Spain had ceased her royal aids to America. 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 British had many other secret agents in France, and other avenues of information. The power which first recognizes the independence of the Americans, he said, will be the one to gather all the fruits of this war.. Franklin faced the critical year of 1777 with the knowledge that the British fleet would pound American hopes to nothing unless France and Britain began their ordained war. The traffic which had started about 1770 was very large. In November Congress resolved to recall Deane for questioning, and sent John Adams to take his place in the mission. These British snoopers were the very ones who had quarantined the American powder runners in Amsterdam in 1774, and they came with orders to burn the Revenge if she sailed out. It was Carmichael who got the last of the Hortalez fleet on its way. He already knew Deane, and wished not to know Arthur Lee, but he was consumed with curiosity about Franklin. It is hard to see how the patriots could have started their war, or kept it going, without the help of the islanders. Above all we needed an ally. Edmund Pendleton was, according to John Adams . "Rear alliance"), aiming at allying with countries situated on the opposite side or "in the back" of an adversary, in order to open a second front encircling the adversary and thus re . C.) It encouraged the French to adopt the government system of popular sovereignty. Then he tried to tempt Deane with the honours and emoluments which the King would bestow on him if he brought about a reconciliation. Miss Augur, one of many writers who have honored the great old man on his 250th anniversary this year, is the author of several other books, including Tall Ships to Cathay and biographies of Anne Hutchinson and John Ledyard. With a fur cap on his unwigged gray head, Franklin took up his studies of the Gulf Stream where he had dropped them on his voyage home from England. He had written his own instructions for Commissioner Franklin to carry out. Silas Deane was invaluable. A courier was on his way to Madrid, and the decision of Charles III should be known within three weeks. France is one of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO) top five troop contributors. In March the Doctor was given a charming house at Passy on the grounds of the Htel Valentinois, which belonged to the merchant prince Donatien le Rey de Chaumont. By a supple turn of the wrist, Franklin transformed Franco-American relations.

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