CHAPTER LVII.----LOUIS XVI.--FRANCE ABROAD.--UNITED STATES’ WAR OF

INDEPENDENCE. 1775-1783.

“Two things, great and difficult as they may be, are a man’s duty and may

establish his fame. To support misfortune and be sturdily resigned to

it; to believe in the good and trust in it perseveringly. [M. Guizot,

_Washington_].

“There is a sight as fine and not less salutary than that of a virtuous

man at grips with adversity; it is the sight of a virtuous man at the

head of a good cause and securing its triumph.

“If ever cause were just and had a right to success, it was that of the

English colonies which rose in insurrection to become the United States

of America. Opposition, in their case, preceded insurrection.

“Their opposition was founded on historic right and on facts, on rational

right and on ideas.

“It is to the honor of England that she had deposited in the cradle of

her colonies the germ of their liberty; almost all, at their foundation,

received charters which conferred upon the colonists the franchises of

the mother-country.

“At the same time with legal rights, the colonists had creeds. It was

not only as Englishmen, but as Christians, that they wanted to be free,

and they had their faith even more at heart than their charters. Their

rights would not have disappeared, even had they lacked their charters.

By the mere impulse of their souls, with the assistance of divine grace,

they would have derived them from a sublimer source and one inaccessible

to human power, for they cherished feelings that soared beyond even the

institutions of which they showed themselves to be so jealous.

“Such, in the English colonies, was the happy condition of man and of

society, when England, by an arrogant piece of aggression, attempted to

dispose, without their consent, of their fortunes and their destiny.”

The uneasiness in the relations between the mother-country and the

colonies was of old date; and the danger which England ran of seeing her

great settlements beyond the sea separating from her had for some time

past struck the more clear-sighted. “Colonies are like fruits which

remain on the tree only until they are ripe,” said M. Turgot in 1750;

“when they have become self-sufficing, they do as Carthage did, as

America will one day do.” It was in the war between England and France

for the possession of Canada that the Americans made the first trial of

their strength.

Alliance was concluded between the different colonies; Virginia marched

in tune with Massachusetts; the pride of a new power, young and already

victorious, animated the troops which marched to the conquest of Canada.

“If we manage to remove from Canada these turbulent Gauls,” exclaimed

John Adams, “our territory, in a century, will be more populous than

England herself. Then all Europe will be powerless to subjugate us.”

“I am astounded,” said the Duke of Choiseul to the English negotiator who

arrived at Paris in 1761, “I am astounded that your great Pitt should

attach so much importance to the acquisition of Canada, a territory too

scantily peopled to ever become dangerous for you, and one which, in our

hands, would serve to keep your colonies in a state of dependence from

which they will not fail to free themselves the moment Canada is ceded to

you.” A pamphlet attributed to Burke proposed to leave Canada to France

with the avowed aim of maintaining on the border of the American

provinces an object of anxiety and an everthreatening enemy.

America protested its loyalty and rejected with indignation all idea of

separation. “It is said that the development of the strength of the

colonies may render them more dangerous and bring them to declare their

independence,” wrote Franklin in 1760; “such fears are chimerical. So

many causes are against their union, that I do not hesitate to declare it

not only improbable but impossible; I say impossible--without the most

provoking tyranny and oppression. As long as the government is mild and

just, as long as there is security for civil and religious interests, the

Americans will be respectful and submissive subjects. The waves only

rise when the wind blows.”

In England, many distinguished minds doubted whether the government of

the mother-country would manage to preserve the discretion and moderation

claimed by Franklin. “Notwithstanding all you say of your loyalty, you

Americans,” observed Lord Camden to Franklin himself, “I know that some

day you will shake off the ties which unite you to us, and you will raise

the standard of independence.” “No such idea exists or will enter into

the heads of the Americans,” answered Franklin, “unless you maltreat them

quite scandalously.” “That is true,” rejoined the other, “and it is

exactly one of the causes which I foresee, and which will bring on the

event.”

The Seven Years’ War was ended, shamefully and sadly for France; M. de

Choiseul, who had concluded peace with regret and a bitter pang, was

ardently pursuing every means of taking his revenge. To foment

disturbances between England and her colonies appeared to him an

efficacious and a natural way of gratifying his feelings. “There is

great difficulty in governing States in the days in which we live,” he

wrote to M. Durand, at that time French minister in London; “still

greater difficulty in governing those of America; and the difficulty

approaches impossibility as regards those of Asia. I am very much

astonished that England, which is but a very small spot in Europe, should

hold dominion over more than a third of America, and that her dominion

should have no other object but that of trade. . . . As long as the

vast American possessions contribute no subsidies for the support of the

mother-country, private persons in England will still grow rich for some

time on the trade with America, but the State will be undone for want of

means to keep together a too extended power; if, on the contrary, England

proposes to establish imposts in her American domains, when they are more

extensive and perhaps more populous than the mother-country, when they

have fishing, woods, navigation, corn, iron, they will easily part

asunder from her, without any fear of chastisement, for England could not

undertake a war against them to chastise them.” He encouraged his agents

to keep him informed as to the state of feeling in America, welcoming and

studying all projects, even the most fantastic, that might be hostile to

England.

When M. de Choiseul was thus writing to M. Durand, the English government

had already justified the fears of its wisest and most sagacious friends.

On the 7th of March, 1765, after a short and unimportant debate,

Parliament, on the motion of Mr. George Grenville, then first lord of the

treasury, had extended to the American colonies the stamp-tax everywhere

in force in England. The proposal had been brought forward in the

preceding year, but the protests of the colonists had for some time

retarded its discussion. “The Americans are an ungrateful people,” said

Townshend; “they are children settled in life by our care and nurtured by

our indulgence.” Pitt was absent. Colonel Barre rose: “Settled by your

care!” he exclaimed; “nay, it was your oppression which drove them to

America; to escape from your tyranny, they exposed themselves in the

desert to all the ills that human nature can endure! Nurtured by your

indulgence! Nay, they have grown by reason of your indifference; and do

not forget that these people, loyal as they are, are as jealous as they

were at the first of their liberties, and remain animated by the same

spirit that caused the exile of their ancestors.” This was the only

protest. “Nobody voted on the other side in the House of Lords,” said

George Grenville at a later period.

In America the effect was terrible and the dismay profound. The Virginia

House was in session; nobody dared to speak against a measure which

struck at all the privileges of the colonies and went to the hearts of

the loyal gentlemen still passionately attached to the mother-country.

A young barrister, Patrick Henry, hardly known hitherto, rose at last,

and in an unsteady voice said, “I propose to the vote of the Assembly the

following resolutions: ‘Only the general Assembly of this colony has the

right and power to impose taxes on the inhabitants of this colony; every

attempt to invest with this power any person or body whatever other than

the said general Assembly has a manifest tendency to destroy at one and

the same time British and American liberties.’” Then becoming more and

more animated and rising to eloquence by sheer force of passion: “Tarquin

and Caesar,” he exclaimed, “had each their Brutus; Charles I. had his

Cromwell, and George III. . . .” “Treason! treason!” was shouted on

all sides . . . “will doubtless profit by their example,” continued

Patrick Henry proudly, without allowing himself to be moved by the wrath

of the government’s friends. His resolutions were voted by 20 to 19.

The excitement in America was communicated to England; it served the

political purposes and passions of Mr. Pitt; he boldly proposed in the

House of Commons the repeal of the stamp-tax. “The colonists,” he said,

“are subjects of this realm, having, like yourselves, a title to the

special privileges of Englishmen; they are bound by the English laws,

and, in the same measure as yourselves, have a right to the liberties of

this country. The Americans are the sons and not the bastards of

England. . . . When in this House we grant subsidies to his Majesty,

we dispose of that which is our own; but the Americans are not

represented here: when we impose a tax upon them, what is it we do? We,

the Commons of England, give what to his Majesty! Our own personal

property? No; we give away the property of the Commons of America.

There is absurdity in the very terms.”

The bill was repealed, and agitation was calmed for a while in America.

But ere long, Mr. Pitt resumed office under the title of Lord Chatham,

and with office he adopted other views as to the taxes to be imposed;

in vain he sought to disguise them under the form of custom-house duties;

the taxes on tea, glass, paper, excited in America the same indignation

as the stamp-tax. Resistance was everywhere organized.

“Between 1767 and 1771 patriotic leagues were everywhere formed against

the consumption of English merchandise and the exportation of American

produce; all exchange ceased between the mother-country and the colonies.

To extinguish the source of England’s riches in America, and to force her

to open her eyes to her madness, the colonists shrank from no privation

and no sacrifice: luxury had vanished, rich and poor welcomed ruin rather

than give up their political rights” [M. Cornelis de Witt, _Histoire de

Washington_]. “I expect nothing more from petitions to the king,” said

Washington, already one of the most steadfast champions of American

liberties, “and I would oppose them if they were calculated to suspend

the execution of the pact of non-importation. As sure as I live, there

is no relief to be expected for us but from the straits of Great Britain.

I believe, or at least I hope, that there is enough public virtue still

remaining among us to make us deny ourselves everything but the bare

necessaries of life in order to obtain justice. This we have a right to

do, and no power on earth can force us to a change of conduct short of

being reduced to the most abject slavery. . . .” He added, in a

spirit of strict justice: “As to the pact of non-exportation, that is

another thing; I confess that I have doubts of its being legitimate. We

owe considerable sums to Great Britain; we can only pay them with our

produce. To have a right to accuse others of injustice, we must be just

ourselves; and how can we be so if we refuse to pay our debts to Great

Britain? That is what I cannot make out.”

The opposition was as yet within the law, and the national effort was as

orderly as it was impassioned. “There is agitation, there are meetings,

there is mutual encouragement to the struggle, the provinces concert

opposition together, the wrath against Great Britain grows and the abyss

begins to yawn; but such are the habits of order among this people, that,

in the midst of this immense ferment among the nation, it is scarcely

possible to pick out even a few acts of violence here and there; up to

the day when the uprising becomes general, the government of George III.

can scarcely find, even in the great centres of opposition, such as

Boston, any specious pretexts for its own violence” [M. Cornelis de Witt,

_Histoire de Washington_]. The declaration of independence was by this

time becoming inevitable when Washington and Jefferson were still writing

in this strain:

Washington to Capt. Mackenzie.

“You are taught to believe that the people of Massachusetts are a people

of rebels in revolt for independence, and what not. Permit me to tell

you, my good friend, that you are mistaken, grossly mistaken. . . .

I can testify, as a fact, that independence is neither the wish nor the

interest of this colony or of any other on the continent, separately or

collectively. But at the same time you may rely upon it that none of

them will ever submit to the loss of those privileges, of those precious

rights which are essential to the happiness of every free State, and

without which liberty, property, life itself, are devoid of any

security.”

Jefferson to Mr. Randolph.

“Believe me, my dear sir, there is not in the whole British empire a man

who cherishes more cordially than I do the union with Great Britain.

But, by the God who made me, I would cease to live rather than accept

that union on the terms proposed by Parliament. We lack neither motives

nor power to declare and maintain our separation. It is the will alone

that we lack, and that is growing little by little under the hand of our

king.”

It was indeed growing. Lord Chatham had been but a short time in office;

Lord North, on becoming prime minister, zealously promoted the desires of

George III. in Parliament and throughout the country. The opposition,

headed by Lord Chatham, protested in the name of the eternal principles

of justice and liberty against the measures adopted towards the colonies.

“Liberty,” said Lord Chatham, “is pledged to liberty; they are

indissolubly allied in this great cause, it is the alliance between God

and nature, immutable, eternal, as the light in the firmament of heaven!

Have a care; foreign war is suspended over your heads by a thin and

fragile thread; Spain and France are watching over your conduct, waiting

for the fruit of your blunders; they keep their eyes fixed on America,

and are more concerned with the dispositions of your colonies than with

their own affairs, whatever they may be. I repeat to you, my lords, if

ministers persist in their fatal counsels, I do not say that they may

alienate the affections of its subjects, but I affirm that they will

destroy the greatness of the crown; I do not say that the king will be

betrayed, I affirm that the country will be ruined!”

Franklin was present at this scene. Sent to England by his

fellow-countrymen to support their petitions by his persuasive and

dexterous eloquence, he watched with intelligent interest the disposition

of the Continent towards his country. “All Europe seems to be on our

side,” he wrote; “but Europe has its own reasons: it considers itself

threatened by the power of England, and it would like to see her divided

against herself. Our prudence will retard for a long time yet, I hope,

the satisfaction which our enemies expect from our dissensions. . . .

Prudence, patience, discretion; when the catastrophe arrives, it must be

clear to all mankind that the fault is not on our side.”

[Illustration: Destruction of the Tea----378]

The catastrophe was becoming imminent. Already a riot at Boston had led

to throwing into the sea a cargo of tea which had arrived on board two

English vessels, and which the governor had refused to send away at once

as the populace desired; already, on the summons of the Virginia

Convention, a general Congress of all the provinces had met at

Philadelphia; at the head of the legal resistance as well as of the later

rebellion in arms marched the Puritans of New England and the sons of the

Cavaliers settled in Virginia; the opposition, tumultuous and popular in

the North, parliamentary and political in the South, was everywhere

animated by the same spirit and the same zeal. “I do not pretend to

indicate precisely what line must be drawn between Great Britain and the

colonies,” wrote Washington to one of his friends, “but it is most

decidedly my opinion that one must be drawn, and our rights definitively

secured.” He had but lately said: “Nobody ought to hesitate a moment to

employ arms in defence of interests so precious, so sacred, but arms

ought to be our last resource.”

The day had come when this was the only resource henceforth remaining to

the Americans. Stubborn and irritated, George III. and his government

heaped vexatious measures one upon another, feeling sure of crushing down

the resistance of the colonists by the ruin of their commerce as well as

of their liberties. “We must fight,” exclaimed Patrick Henry at the

Virginia Convention, “I repeat it, we must fight; an appeal to arms and

to the God of Hosts, that is all we have left.” Armed resistance was

already being organized, in the teeth of many obstacles and

notwithstanding active or tacit opposition on the part of a considerable

portion of the people.

It was time to act. On the 18th of April, 1775, at night, a picked body

of the English garrison of Boston left the town by order of General Gage,

governor of Massachusetts. The soldiers were as yet in ignorance of

their destination, but the American patriots had divined it. The

governor had ordered the gates to be closed; some of the inhabitants,

however, having found means of escaping, had spread the alarm in the

country; already men were repairing in silence to posts assigned in

anticipation. When the king’s troops, on approaching Lexington, expected

to lay hands upon two of the principal movers, Samuel Adams and John

Hancock, they came into collision, in the night, with a corps of militia

blocking the way. The Americans taking no notice of the order given them

to retire, the English troops, at the instigation of their officers,

fired; a few men fell; war was begun between England and America. That

very evening, Colonel Smith, whilst proceeding to seize the ammunition

depot at Concord, found himself successively attacked by detachments

hastily formed in all the villages; he fell back in disorder beneath the

guns of Boston.

Some few days later the town was besieged by an American army, and the

Congress, meeting at Philadelphia, appointed Washington “to be general-

in-chief of all the forces of the united colonies, of all that had been

or should be levied, and of all others that should voluntarily offer

their services or join the said army to defend American liberty and to

repulse every attack directed against it.”

George Washington was born on the 22d of February,

1732, on the banks of the Potomac, at Bridge’s Creek, in the county of

Westmoreland in Virginia. He belonged to a family of consideration among

the planters of Virginia, descended from that race of country gentlemen

who had but lately effected the revolution in England. He lost his

father early, and was brought up by a distinguished, firm, and judicious

mother, for whom he always preserved equal affection and respect.

Intended for the life of a surveyor of the still uncleared lands of

Western America, he had led, from his youth up, a life of freedom and

hardship; at nineteen, during the Canadian war, he had taken his place in

the militia of his country, and we have seen how he fought with credit at

the side of General Braddock. On returning home at the end of the war

and settling at Mount Vernon, which had been bequeathed to him by his

eldest brother, he had become a great agriculturist and great hunter,

esteemed by all, loved by those who knew him, actively engaged in his own

business as well as that of his colony, and already an object of

confidence as well as hope to his fellow-citizens. In 1774, on the eve

of the great struggle, Patrick Henry, on leaving the first Congress

formed to prepare for it, replied to those who asked which was the

foremost man in the Congress: “If you speak of eloquence, Mr. Rutledge of

South Carolina is the greatest orator; but, if you speak of solid

knowledge of things and of sound judgment, Colonel Washington is

indisputably the greatest man in the Assembly.” “Capable of rising to

the highest destinies, he could have ignored himself without a struggle,

and found in the culture of his lands satisfaction for those powerful

faculties which were to suffice for the command of armies and for the

foundation of a government. But when the occasion offered, when the need

came, without any effort on his own part, without surprise on the part of

others, the sagacious planter turned out a great man; he had in a

superior degree the two qualities which in active life render men capable

of great things: he could believe firmly in his own ideas, and act

resolutely upon them, without fearing to take the responsibility.” [M.

Guizot, _Washington_].

He was, however, deeply moved and troubled at the commencement of a

contest of which he foresaw the difficulties and the trials, without

fathoming their full extent, and it was not without a struggle that he

accepted the power confided to him by Congress. “Believe me, my dear

Patsy,” he wrote to his wife, “I have done all I could to screen myself

from this high mark of honor, not only because it cost me much to

separate myself from you and from my family, but also because I felt that

this task was beyond my strength.” When the new general arrived before

Boston to take command of the confused and undisciplined masses which

were hurrying up to the American camp, he heard that an engagement had

taken place on the 16th of June on the heights of Bunker’s Hill, which

commanded the town; the Americans who had seized the positions had

defended them so bravely that the English had lost nearly a thousand men

before they carried the batteries. A few months later, after unheard of

efforts on the general’s part to constitute and train his army, he had

taken possession of all the environs of the place, and General Howe, who

had superseded General Gage, evacuated Boston (March 17, 1776).

Every step was leading to the declaration of independence. “If everybody

were of my opinion,” wrote Washington in the month of February, 1776,

“the English ministers would learn in few words what we want to arrive

at. I should set forth simply, and without periphrasis, our grievances

and our resolution to have justice. I should tell them that we have long

and ardently desired an honorable reconciliation, and that it has been

refused. I should add that we have conducted ourselves as faithful

subjects, that the feeling of liberty is too strong in our hearts to let

us ever submit to slavery, and that we are quite determined to burst

every bond with an unjust and unnatural government, if our enslavement

alone will satisfy a tyrant and his diabolical ministry. And I should

tell them all this not in covert terms, but in language as plain as the

light of the sun at full noon.”

Many people still hesitated, from timidity, from foreseeing the

sufferings which war would inevitably entail on America, from hereditary,

faithful attachment to the mother-country. “Gentlemen,” had but lately

been observed by Mr. Dickinson, deputy from Pennsylvania, at the reading

of the scheme of a solemn declaration justifying the taking up of arms,

“there is but one word in this paper of which I disapprove--Congress.”

“And as for me, Mr. President,” said Mr. Harrison, rising, “there is but

one word in this paper of which I approve--Congress.”

Deeds had become bolder than words. “We have hitherto made war by

halves,” wrote John Adams to General Gates; “you will see in to-morrow’s

papers that for the future we shall probably venture to make it by three-

quarters. The continental navy, the provincial navies, have been

authorized to cruise against English property throughout the whole extent

of the ocean. Learn, for your governance, that this is not Independence.

Far from it! If one of the next couriers should bring you word of

unlimited freedom of commerce with all nations, take good care not to

call that Independence. Nothing of the sort! Independence is a spectre

of such awful mien that the mere sight of it might make a delicate person

faint.”

Independence was not yet declared, and already, at the end of their

proclamations, instead of the time-honored formula, ‘God save the king!’

the Virginians had adopted the proudly significant phrase, ‘God save the

liberties of America!’

The great day came, however, when the Congress resolved to give its true

name to the war which the colonies had been for more than a year

maintaining against the mothercountry. After a discussion which lasted

three days, the scheme drawn up by Jefferson, for the declaration of

Independence, was adopted by a large majority. The solemn proclamation

of it was determined upon on the 4th of July, and that day has remained

the national festival of the United States of America. John Adams made

no mistake when, in the transport of his patriotic joy, he wrote to his

wife: “I am inclined to believe that this day will be celebrated by

generations to come as the great anniversary of the nation. It should be

kept as the day of deliverance by solemn thanksgivings to the Almighty.

It should be kept with pomp, to the sound of cannon and of bells, with

games, with bonfires and illuminations from one end of the continent to

the other, for ever. You will think me carried away by my enthusiasm;

but no, I take into account, perfectly, the pains, the blood, the

treasure we shall have to expend to maintain this declaration, to uphold

and defend these States; but through all these shadows I perceive rays of

ravishing light and joy, I feel that the end is worth all the means and

far more, and that posterity will rejoice over this event with songs of

triumph, even though we should have cause to repent of it, which will not

be, I trust in God.”

The declaration of American Independence was solemn and grave; it began

with an appeal to those natural rights which the eighteenth century had

everywhere learned to claim. “We hold as self-evident all these truths,”

said the Congress of united colonies: “All men are created equal, they

are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; among those

rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Governments are

established amongst men to guarantee those rights, and their just power

emanates from the consent of the governed.”

To this declaration of the inalienable right of people to choose their

own government for the greatest security and greatest happiness of the

governed, succeeded an enumeration of the grievances which made it

forever impossible for the American colonists to render obedience to the

king of Great Britain; the list was long and overwhelming; it ended with

this declaration: “Wherefore we, the representatives of the United States

of America, met together in general Congress, calling the Supreme Judge

of the universe to witness the uprightness of our intentions, do solemnly

publish and declare in the name of the good people of these colonies,

that the United colonies are and have a right to be free and independent

States, that they are released from all allegiance to the crown of Great

Britain, and that every political tie between them and Great Britain is

and ought to be entirely dissolved. . . . Full of firm confidence in

the protection of Divine Providence, we pledge, mutually, to the

maintenance of this declaration our lives, our fortunes, and our most

sacred possession, our honor.”

The die was cast, and retreat cut off for the timid and the malcontent;

through a course of alternate successes and reverses Washington had kept

up hostilities during the rough campaign of 1776. Many a time he had

thought the game lost, and he had found himself under the necessity of

abandoning posts he had mastered to fall back upon Philadelphia. “What

will you do if Philadelphia is taken?” he was asked. “We will retire

beyond the Susquehanna, and then, if necessary, beyond the Alleghanies,”

answered the general without hesitation. Unwavering in his patriotic

faith and resolution, he relied upon the savage resources and the vast

wildernesses of his native country to wear out at last the patience and

courage of the English generals. At the end of the campaign, Washington,

suddenly resuming the offensive, had beaten the king’s troops at Trenton

and at Princeton one after the other. This brilliant action had restored

the affairs of the Americans, and was a preparatory step to the formation

of a new army. On the 30th of December, 1776, Washington was invested by

Congress with the full powers of a dictator.

Europe, meanwhile, was following with increasing interest the

vicissitudes of a struggle which at a distance had from the first

appeared to the most experienced an unequal one. “Let us not anticipate

events, but content ourselves with learning them when they occur,” said a

letter, in 1775, to M. de Guines, ambassador in London, from Louis XVI.’s

minister for foreign affairs, M. de Vergennes: “I prefer to follow, as a

quiet observer; the course of events rather than try to produce them.”

He had but lately said with prophetic anxiety: “Far from seeking to

profit by the embarrassment in which England finds herself on account of

affairs in America, we should rather desire to extricate her. The spirit

of revolt, in whatever spot it breaks out, is always of dangerous

precedent; it is with moral as with physical diseases, both may become

contagious. This consideration should induce us to take care that the

spirit of independence, which is causing so terrible an explosion in

North America, have no power to communicate itself to points interesting

to us in this hemisphere.”

For a moment French diplomatists had been seriously disconcerted;

remembrance of the surprise in 1755, when England had commenced

hostilities without declaring war, still troubled men’s minds. Count de

Guines wrote to M. de Vergennes “Lord Rochford confided to me yesterday

that numbers of persons on both sides were perfectly convinced that the

way to put a stop to this war in America was to declare it against

France, and that he saw with pain that opinion gaining ground. I assure

you, sir, that all which is said for is very extraordinary and far from

encouraging. The partisans of this plan argue that fear of a war,

disastrous for England, which might end by putting France once more in

possession of Canada, would be the most certain bugbear for America,

where the propinquity of our religion and our government is excessively

apprehended; they say, in fact, that the Americans, forced by a war to

give up their project of liberty and to decide between us and them, would

certainly give them the preference.”

The question of Canada was always, indeed, an anxious one for the

American colonists; Washington had detached in that direction a body of

troops which had been repulsed with loss. M. de Vergennes had determined

to keep in the United States a semi-official agent, M. de Bonvouloir,

commissioned to furnish the ministry with information as to the state of

affairs. On sending Count de Guines the necessary instructions, the

minister wrote on the 7th of August, 1775: “One of the most essential

objects is to reassure the Americans on the score of the dread which they

are no doubt taught to feel of us. Canada is the point of jealousy for

them; they must be made to understand that we have no thought at all

about it, and that, so far from grudging them the liberty and

independence they are laboring to secure, we admire, on the contrary, the

grandeur and nobleness of their efforts, and that, having no interest in

injuring them, we should see with pleasure such a happy conjunction of

circumstances as would set them at liberty to frequent our ports; the

facilities they would find for their commerce would soon prove to them

all the esteem we feel for them.”

Independence was not yet proclaimed, and already the committee charged by

Congress “to correspond with friends in England, Ireland, and other parts

of the world,” had made inquiry of the French government, by roundabout

ways, as to what were its intentions regarding the American colonies, and

was soliciting the aid of France. On the 3d of March, 1776, an agent of

the committee, Mr. Silas Deane, started for France; he had orders to put

the same question point blank at Versailles and at Paris.

The ministry was divided on the subject of American affairs; M. Turgot

inclined towards neutrality. “Let us leave the insurgents,” he said,

“at full liberty to make their purchases in our ports, and to provide

themselves by the way of trade with the munitions, and even the money,

of which they have need. A refusal to sell to them would be a departure

from neutrality. But it would be a departure likewise to furnish then

with secret aid in money, and this step, which it would be difficult to

conceal, would excite just complaints on the part of the English.”

This was, however, the conduct adopted on the advice of M. de Vergennes;

he had been powerfully supported by the arguments presented in a

memorandum drawn up by M. de Rayneval, senior clerk in the foreign

office; he was himself urged and incited by the most intelligent, the

most restless, and the most passionate amongst the partisans of the

American rebellion--Beaumarchais.

Peter Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, born at Paris on the 24th of

January, 1732, son of a clockmaker, had already acquired a certain

celebrity by his lawsuit against Councillor Goezman before the parliament

of Paris. Accused of having defamed the wife of a judge, after having

fruitlessly attempted to seduce her, Beaumarchais succeeded, by dint of

courage, talent, and wit, in holding his own against the whole magistracy

leagued against him. He boldly appealed to public opinion. “I am a

citizen,” he said; “that is to say, I am not a courtier, or an abbe, or a

nobleman, or a financier, or a favorite, nor anything connected with what

is called influence (_puissance_) nowadays. I am a citizen; that is to

say, something quite new, unknown, unheard of in France. I am a citizen;

that is to say, what you ought to have been for the last two hundred

years, what you will be, perhaps, in twenty!” All the spirit of the

French Revolution was here, in those most legitimate and at the same time

most daring aspirations of his.

French citizen as he proclaimed himself to be, Beaumarchais was quite

smitten with the American citizens; he had for a long while been pleading

their cause, sure, he said, of its ultimate triumph. On the 10th of

January, 1776, three weeks before the declaration of independence, M. de

Vergennes secretly remitted a million to M. de Beaumarchais; two months

later the same sum was intrusted to him in the name of the King of Spain.

Beaumarchais alone was to appear in the affair and to supply the

insurgent Americans with arms and ammunition. “You will found,” he had

been told, “a great commercial house, and you will try to draw into it

the money of private individuals; the first outlay being now provided, we

shall have no further hand in it, the affair would compromise the

government too much in the eyes of the English.” It was under the style

and title of Rodrigo Hortalez and Co. that the first instalment of

supplies, to the extent of more than three millions, was forwarded to the

Americans; and, notwithstanding the hesitation of the ministry and the

rage of the English, other instalments soon followed. Beaumarchais was

henceforth personally interested in the enterprise; he had commenced it

from zeal for the American cause, and from that yearning for activity and

initiative which characterized him even in old age. “I should never have

succeeded in fulfilling my mission here without the indefatigable,

intelligent, and generous efforts of M. de Beaumarchais,” wrote Silas

Deane to the secret committee of Congress: “the United States are more

indebted to him, on every account, than to any other person on this side

of the ocean.”

Negotiations were proceeding at Paris; Franklin had joined Silas Deane

there. His great scientific reputation, the diplomatic renown he had won

in England, his able and prudent devotion to the cause of his country,

had paved the way for the new negotiator’s popularity in France: it was

immense. Born at Boston on the 17th of January, 1706, a printer before

he came out as a great physicist, Franklin was seventy years old when he

arrived in Paris. His sprightly good-nature, the bold subtilty of his

mind cloaked beneath external simplicity, his moderation in religion and

the breadth of his philosophical tolerance, won the world of fashion as

well as the great public, and were a great help to the success of his

diplomatic negotiations. Quartered at Passy, at Madame Helvetius’, he

had frequent interviews with the ministers under a veil of secrecy and

precaution which was, before long, skilfully and discreetly removed; from

roundabout aid accorded to the Americans, at Beaumarchais’ solicitations,

on pretext of commercial business, the French Government had come to

remitting money straight to the agents of the United States; everything

tended to recognition of the independence of the colonies. In England,

people were irritated and disturbed; Lord Chatham exclaimed with the

usual exaggeration of his powerful and impassioned genius “Yesterday

England could still stand against the world, today there is none so poor

as to do her reverence. I borrow the poet’s words, my lords, but what

his verse expresses is no fiction. France has insulted you, she has

encouraged and supported America, and, be America right or wrong, the

dignity of this nation requires that we should thrust aside with contempt

the officious intervention of France; ministers and ambassadors from

those whom we call rebels and enemies are received at Paris, there they

treat of the mutual interests of France and America, their countrymen are

aided, provided with military resources, and our ministers suffer it,

they do not protest! Is this maintaining the honor of a great kingdom,

of that England which but lately gave laws to the House of Bourbon?”

The hereditary sentiments of Louis XVI. and his monarchical principles,

as well as the prudent moderation of M. Turgot, retarded at Paris the

negotiations which caused so much illhumor among the English; M. de

Vergennes still preserved, in all diplomatic relations, an apparent

neutrality. “It is my line (_metier_), you see, to be a royalist,” the

Emperor Joseph II. had said during a visit he had just paid to Paris,

when he was pressed to declare in favor of the American insurgents. At

the bottom of his heart the King of France was of the same opinion; he

had refused the permission to serve in America which he had been asked

for by many gentlemen: some had set off without waiting for it; the most

important, as well as the most illustrious of them all, the Marquis of La

Fayette, was not twenty years old when he slipped away from Paris,

leaving behind his young wife close to her confinement, to go and embark

upon a vessel which he had bought, and which, laden with arms, awaited

him in a Spanish port; arrested by order of the court, he evaded the

vigilance of his guards; in, the month of July, 1777, he disembarked in

America.

Washington did not like France; he did not share the hopes which some of

his fellow-countrymen founded upon her aid; he made no case of the young

volunteers who came to enroll themselves among the defenders of

independence, and whom Congress loaded with favors. “No bond but

interest attaches these men to America,” he would say; “and, as for

France, she only lets us get our munitions from her, because of the

benefit her commerce derives from it.” Prudent, reserved, and proud,

Washington looked for America’s salvation to only America herself;

neither had he foreseen nor did he understand that enthusiasm, as

generous as it is unreflecting, which easily takes possession of the

French nation, and of which the United States were just then the object.

M. de La Fayette was the first who managed to win the general’s affection

and esteem. A great yearning for excitement and renown, a great zeal for

new ideas and a certain political perspicacity, had impelled M. de La

Fayette to America; he showed himself courageous, devoted, more judicious

and more able than had been expected from his youth and character.

Washington came to love him as a son.

It was with the title of major-general that M. de La Fayette made his

first campaign; Congress had passed a decree conferring upon him this

grade, rather an excess of honor in Washington’s opinion; the latter was

at that time covering Philadelphia, the point aimed at by the operations

of General Howe. Beaten at Brandywine and at Germantown, the Americans

were obliged to abandon the town to the enemy and fall back on Valley

Forge, where the general pitched his camp for wintering. The English had

been beaten on the frontiers of Canada by General Gates; General

Burgoyne, invested on all sides by the insurgents, had found himself

forced to capitulate at Saratoga. The humiliation and wrath of the

public in England were great, but the resolution of the politicians was

beginning to waver; on the 10th of February, 1778, Lord North had

presented two bills whereby England was to renounce the right of levying

taxes in the American colonies, and was to recognize the legal existence

of Congress. Three commissioners were to be sent to America to treat for

conditions of peace. After a hot discussion, the two bills had been

voted.

This was a small matter in view of the growing anxiety and the political

manoeuvrings of parties. On the 7th of April, 1778, the Duke of Richmond

proposed in the House of Lords the recall of all the forces, land and

sea, which were fighting in America. He relied upon the support of Lord

Chatham, who was now at death’s door, but who had always expressed

himself forcibly against the conduct of the government towards the

colonists. The great orator entered the House, supported by two of his

friends, pale, wasted, swathed in flannel beneath his embroidered robe.

He with difficulty dragged himself to his place. The peers, overcome at

the sight of this supreme effort, waited in silence. Lord Chatham rose,

leaning on his crutch and still supported by his friends. He raised one

hand to heaven. “I thank God,” he said, “that I have been enabled to

come hither to-day to fulfil a duty and say what has been weighing so

heavily on my heart. I have already one foot in the grave; I shall soon

descend into it; I have left my bed to sustain my country’s cause in this

House, perhaps for the last time. I think myself happy, my lords, that

the grave has not yet closed over me, and that I am still alive to raise

my voice against the dismemberment of this ancient and noble monarchy!

My lords, his Majesty succeeded to an empire as vast in extent as proud

in reputation. Shall we tarnish its lustre by a shameful abandonment of

its rights and of its fairest possessions? Shall this great kingdom,

which survived in its entirety the descents of the Danes, the incursions

of the Scots, the conquest of the Normans, which stood firm against the

threatened invasion of the Spanish Armada, now fall before the House of

Bourbon? Surely, my lords, we are not what we once were! . . . In

God’s name, if it be absolutely necessary to choose between peace and

war, if peace cannot be preserved with honor, why not declare war without

hesitation? . . . My lords, anything is better than despair; let us

at least make an effort, and, if we must fail, let us fail like men!”

He dropped back into his seat, exhausted, gasping. Soon he strove to

rise and reply to the Duke of Richmond, but his strength was traitor to

his courage, he fainted; a few days later he was dead (May 11th, 1778);

the resolution’ of the Duke of Richmond had been rejected.

When this news arrived in America, Washington was seriously uneasy.

He had to keep up an incessant struggle against the delays and the

jealousies of Congress; it was by dint of unheard-of efforts and of

unwavering perseverance that he succeeded in obtaining the necessary

supplies for his army. “To see men without clothes to cover their

nakedness,” he exclaimed, “without blankets to lie upon, without victuals

and often without shoes (for you might follow their track by the blood

that trickled from their feet), advancing through ice and snow, and

taking up their winter-quarters, at Christmas, less than a day’s march

from the enemy, in a place where they have not to shelter them either

houses or huts but such as they have thrown up themselves,--to see these

men doing all this without a murmur, is an exhibition of patience and

obedience such as the world has rarely seen.”

As a set-off against the impassioned devotion of the patriots, Washington

knew that the loyalists were still numerous and powerful; the burden of

war was beginning to press heavily upon the whole country, he feared some

act of weakness. “Let us accept nothing short of Independence,” he wrote

at once to his friends: “we can never forget the outrages to which Great

Britain has made us--submit; a peace on any other conditions would be a

source of perpetual disputes. If Great Britain, urged on by her love for

tyranny, were to seek once more to bend our necks beneath her iron yoke,

--and she would do so, you may be sure, for her pride and her ambition

are indomitable,--what nation would believe any more in our professions

of faith and would lend us its support? It is to be feared, however,

that the proposals of England will produce a great effect in this

country. Men are naturally friends of peace, and there is more than one

symptom to lead me to believe that the American people are generally

weary of war. If it be so, nothing can be more politic than to inspire

the country with confidence by putting the army on an imposing footing,

and by showing greater energy in our negotiations with European powers.

I think that by now France must have recognized our independence, and

that she will immediately declare war against Great Britain, when she

sees that we have made serious proposals of alliance to her. But if,

influenced by a false policy, or by an exaggerated opinion of our power,

she were to hesitate, we should either have to send able negotiators at

once, or give fresh instructions to our charges d’affaires to obtain a

definitive answer from her.”

It is the property of great men, even when they share the prejudices of

their time and of their country, to know how to get free from them, and

how to rise superior to their natural habits of thought. It has been

said that, as a matter of taste, Washington did not like France and had

no confidence in her, but his great and strong common sense had

enlightened him as to the conditions of the contest he had entered upon.

He knew it was a desperate one, he foresaw that it would be a long one;

better than anybody he knew the weaknesses as well as the merits of the

instruments which he had at disposal; he had learned to desire the

alliance and the aid of France. She did not belie his hopes: at the very

moment when Congress was refusing to enter into negotiations with Great

Britain as long as a single English soldier remained on American soil,

rejoicings and thanksgivings were everywhere throughout the thirteen

colonies greeting the news of the recognition by France of the

Independence of the United States; the treaties of alliance, a triumph of

diplomatic ability on the part of Franklin, had been signed at Paris on

the 6th of February, 1778.

“Assure the English government of the king’s pacific intentions,” M. de

Vergennes had written to the Marquis of Noailles, then French ambassador

in England. George III. replied to these mocking assurances by recalling

his ambassador.

“Anticipate your enemies,” Franklin had said to the ministers of Louis

XVI.;” act towards them as they did to you in 1755: let your ships put to

sea before any declaration of war, it will be time to speak when a French

squadron bars the passage of Admiral Howe who has ventured to ascend the

Delaware.” The king’s natural straightforwardness and timidity were

equally opposed to this bold project; he hesitated a long while; when

Count d’Estaing at last, on the 13th of April, went out of Toulon harbor

to sail for America with his squadron, it was too late, the English were

on their guard.

When the French admiral arrived in America, hostilities had commenced

between France and England, without declaration of war, by the natural

pressure of circumstances and the state of feeling in the two countries.

England fired the first shot on the 17th of June, 1778. The frigate La

Belle Poule, commanded by M. Chaudeau de la Clochetterie, was cruising in

the Channel; she was surprised by the squadron of Admiral Keppel, issuing

from Portsmouth; the Frenchman saw the danger in time, he crowded sail;

but an English frigate, the Arethusa, had dashed forward in pursuit. La

Clochetterie waited for her and refused to make the visit demanded by the

English captain: a cannon-shot was the reply to this refusal. La Belle

Poule delivered her whole broadside. When the Arethusa rejoined Lord

Keppel’s squadron, she was dismasted and had lost many men. A sudden

calm had prevented two English vessels from taking part in, the

engagement. La Clochetterie went on and landed a few leagues from Brest.

The fight had cost the lives of forty of his crew, fifty-seven had been

wounded. He was made postcaptain (_capitaine de vaisseau_). The glory

of this small affair appeared to be of good augury; the conscience of

Louis XVI. was soothed; he at last yielded to the passionate feeling

which was hurrying the nation into war, partly from sympathy towards the

Americans, partly from hatred and rancor towards England. The treaty of

1763 still lay heavy on the military honor of France.

From the day when the Duke of Choiseul had been forced to sign that

humiliating peace, he had never relaxed in his efforts to improve the

French navy. In the course of ministerial alternations, frequently

unfortunate for the work in hand, it had nevertheless been continued by

his successors. A numerous fleet was preparing at Brest; it left the

port on the 3d of July, under the orders of Count d’Orvilliers. It

numbered thirty-two men-of-war and some frigates. Admiral Keppel came

to the encounter with thirty ships, mostly superior in strength to the

French vessels. The engagement took place on the 27th, at thirty

leagues’ distance from Wessant and about the same from the Sorlingues

Islands. The splendid order of the French astounded the enemy, who had

not forgotten the deplorable _Journee de M. de Conflans_. The sky was

murky, and the manoeuvres were interfered with from the difficulty of

making out the signals. Lord Keppel could not succeed in breaking the

enemy’s line; Count d’Orvilliers failed in a like attempt. The English

admiral extinguished his fires and returned to Plymouth harbor, without

being forced to do so from any serious reverse; Count d’Orvilliers fell

back upon Brest under the same conditions. The English regarded this

retreat as a humiliation to which they were unaccustomed Lord Keppel had

to appear before a court-martial. In France, after the first burst of

enthusiasm, fault was found with the inactivity of the Duke of Chartres,

who commanded the rear-guard of the fleet, under the direction of M. de

La Motte-Piquet; the prince was before long obliged to leave the navy, he

became colonel-general of the hussars. A fresh sally on the part of the

fleet did not suffice to protect the merchant-navy, the losses of which

were considerable. The English vessels everywhere held the seas.

Count d’Estaing had at last arrived at the mouth of the Delaware on the

9th of July, 1778; Admiral Howe had not awaited him, he had sailed for

the anchorage of Sandy Hook. The heavy French ships could not cross the

bar; Philadelphia had been evacuated by the English as soon as the

approach of Count d’Estaing was signalled. “It is not General Howe who

has taken Philadelphia,” said Franklin; “it is Philadelphia that has

taken General Howe.” The English commander had foreseen the danger; on

falling back upon New York he had been hotly pursued by Washington, who

had, at Monmouth, gained a serious advantage over him. The victory of

the Americans would have been complete but for the jealous disobedience

of General Lee. Washington pitched his camp thirty miles from New York.

“After two years’ marching and counter-marching,” he wrote, “after

vicissitudes so strange that never perhaps did any other war exhibit the

like since the beginning of the world, what a subject of satisfaction and

astonishment for us to see the two armies back again at the point from

which they started, and the assailants reduced in self-defence to have

recourse to the shovel and the axe!”

The combined expedition of D’Estaing and General Sullivan against the

little English corps which occupied Rhode Island had just failed; the

fleet of Admiral Howe had suddenly appeared at the entrance of the roads,

the French squadron had gone out to meet it, an unexpected tempest

separated the combatants; Count d’Estaing, more concerned for the fate of

his vessels than with the clamors of the Americans, set sail for Boston

to repair damages. The campaign was lost; cries of treason were already

heard. A riot was the welcome which awaited the French admiral at

Boston. All Washington’s personal efforts, seconded by the Marquis of La

Fayette, were scarcely sufficient to restore harmony. The English had

just made a descent upon the coasts of Georgia, and taken possession of

Savannah. They threatened Carolina, and even Virginia.

Scarcely were the French ships in trim to put to sea when Count d’Estaing

made sail for the Antilles. Zealous and brave, but headstrong and

passionate, like M. de Lally-Tollendal, under whom he had served in

India, the admiral could ill brook reverses, and ardently sought for an

occasion to repair them. The English had taken St. Pierre and Miquelon.

M. de Bouille, governor of Iles-du-Vent, had almost at the same time made

himself master of La Dominique. Four thousand English had just landed at

St. Lucie; M. d’Estaing, recently arrived at Martinique, headed thither

immediately with his squadron, without success, however: it was during

the absence of the English admiral, Byron, that the French seamen

succeeded in taking possession first of St. Vincent, and soon afterwards

of Grenada. The fort of this latter island was carried after a brilliant

assault. The admiral had divided his men into three bodies; he commanded

the first, the second marched under the orders of Viscount de Noailles,

and Arthur Dillon, at the head of the Irish in the service of France, led

the third. The cannon on the ramparts were soon directed against the

English, who thought to arrive in time to relieve Grenada.

Count d’Estaing went out of port to meet the English admiral; as he was

sailing towards the enemy, the admiral made out, under French colors, a

splendid ship of war, _Le Fier-Rodrigue,_ which belonged to Beaumarchais,

and was convoying ten merchant-men. “Seeing the wide berth kept by this

fine ship, which was going proudly before the wind,” says the sprightly

and sagacious biographer of Beaumarchais, M. de Lomdnie, “Admiral

d’Estaing signalled to her to bear down; learning that she belonged to

his majesty Caron de Beaumarchais, he felt that it would be a pity not to

take advantage of it, and, seeing the exigency of the case, he appointed

her her place of battle without asking her proprietor’s permission,

leaving to the mercy of the waves and of the English the unhappy

merchant-ships which the man-of-war was convoying. _Le Fier-Rodrique_

resigned herself bravely to her fate, took a glorious part in the battle

off Grenada, contributed in forcing Admiral Byron to retreat, but had her

captain killed, and was riddled with bullets.” Admiral d’Estaing wrote

the same evening to Beaumarchais; his letter reached the scholar-merchant

through the medium of the minister of marine. To the latter Beaumarchais

at once replied: “Sir, I have to thank you for having forwarded to me the

letter from Count d’Estaing. It is very noble in him at the moment of

his triumph to have thought how very agreeable it would be to me to have

a word in his handwriting. I take the liberty of sending you a copy of

his short letter, by which I feel honored as the good Frenchman I am, and

at which I rejoice as a devoted adherent of my country against that proud

England. The brave Montault appears to have thought that he could not

better prove to me how worthy be was of the post with which he was

honored than by getting killed; whatever may be the result as regards my

own affairs, my poor friend Montault has died on the bed of honor, and I

feel a sort of childish joy in being certain that those English who have

cut me up so much in their papers for the last four years will read

therein that one of my ships has helped to take from them the most

fertile of their possessions. And as for the enemies of M. d’Estaing and

especially of yourself, sir, I see them biting their nails, and my heart

leaps for joy!”

The joy of Beaumarchais, as well as that of France, was a little

excessive, and smacked of unfamiliarity with the pleasure of victory.

M. d’Estaing had just been recalled to France; before he left, he would

fain have rendered to the Americans a service pressingly demanded of him.

General Lincoln was about to besiege Savannah; the English general, Sir

Henry Clinton, a more able man than his predecessor, had managed to

profit by the internal disputes of the Union, he had rallied around him

the loyalists in Georgia and the Carolinas, civil war prevailed there

with all its horrors; D’Estaing bore down with his squadron for Savannah.

Lincoln was already on the coast ready to facilitate his landing; the

French admiral was under pressure of the orders from Paris, he had no

time for a regular siege. The trenches had already been opened twenty

days, and the bombardment, terrible as it was for the American town, had

not yet damaged the works of the English. On the 9th of October,

D’Estaing determined to deliver the assault. Americans and French vied

with each other in courage. For a moment the flag of the Union floated

upon the ramparts, some grenadiers made their way into the place, the

admiral was wounded; meanwhile, the losses were great, and perseverance

was evidently useless. The assault was repulsed. Count D’Estaing still

remained nine days before the place, in hopes of finding a favorable

opportunity; he was obliged to make sail for France, and the fleet

withdrew, leaving Savannah in the hands of the English. The only

advantage from the admiral’s expedition was the deliverance of Rhode

Island, abandoned by General Clinton, who, fearing an attack from the

French, recalled the garrison to New York. Washington had lately made

himself master of the fort at Stony Point, which had up to that time

enabled the English to command the navigation of the Hudson.

In England the commotion was great: France and America in arms against

her had just been joined by Spain. A government essentially monarchical,

faithful to ancient traditions, the Spaniards had for a long while

resisted the entreaties of M. de Vergennes, who availed himself of the

stipulations of the Family pact. Charles III. felt no sort of sympathy

for a nascent republic; he feared the contagion of the example it showed

to the Spanish colonies; he hesitated to plunge into the expenses of a

war. His hereditary hatred against England prevailed at last over the

dictates of prudence. He was promised, moreover, the assistance of

France to reconquer Gibraltar and Minorca. The King of Spain consented

to take part in the war, without however recognizing the independence of

the United States, or entering into alliance with them.

The situation of England was becoming serious, she believed herself to be

threatened with a terrible invasion. As in the days of the Great Armada,

“orders were given to all functionaries, civil and military, in case of a

descent of the enemy, to see to the transportation into the interior and

into a place of safety of all horses, cattle, and flocks that might

happen to be on the coasts.” “Sixty-six allied ships of the line

ploughed the Channel, fifty thousand men, mustered in Normandy, were

preparing to burst upon the southern counties. A simple American

corsair, Paul Jones, ravaged with impunity the coasts of Scotland. The

powers of the North, united with Russia and Holland, threatened to

maintain, with arms in hand, the rights of neutrals, ignored by the

English admiralty courts. Ireland awaited only the signal to revolt;

religious quarrels were distracting Scotland and England; the authority

of Lord North’s cabinet was shaken in Parliament as well as throughout

the country; the passions of the mob held sway in London, and among the

sights that might have been witnessed was that of this great city given

up for nearly a week to the populace, without anything that could stay

its excesses save its own lassitude and its own feeling of shame “ [M.

Cornelis de Witt, _Histoire de Washington_].

So many and such imposing preparations were destined to produce but

little fruit. The two fleets, the French and the Spanish, had effected

their junction off Corunna, under the orders of Count d’Orvilliers; they

slowly entered the Channel on the 31st of August, near the Sorlingues

(Scilly) Islands; they sighted the English fleet, with a strength of only

thirty, seven vessels. Count de Guichen, who commanded the vanguard, was

already manoeuvring to cut off the enemy’s retreat; Admiral Hardy had the

speed of him, and sought refuge in Plymouth Sound. Some engagements

which took place between frigates were of little importance, but glorious

for both sides. On the 6th of October, the _Surveillante,_ commanded by

Chevalier du Couedic, had a tussle with the _Quebec;_ the broadsides were

incessant, a hail of lead fell upon both ships, the majority of the

officers of the _Surveillante_ were killed or wounded. Du Couedic had

been struck twice on the head. A fresh wound took him in the stomach;

streaming with blood, he remained at his post and directed the fight.

The three masts of the _Surveillante_ had just fallen, knocked to pieces

by balls, the whole rigging of the _Quebec_ at the same moment came down

with a run. The two ships could no longer manoeuvre, the decimated crews

were preparing to board, when a thick smoke shot up all at once from the

between-decks of the _Quebec;_ the fire spread with unheard of rapidity;

the _Surveillante,_ already hooked on to her enemy’s side, was on the

point of becoming, like her, a prey to the flames, but her commander,

gasping as he was and scarcely alive, got her loose by a miracle of

ability. The _Quebec_ had hardly blown up when the crew of the

_Surveillante_ set to work picking up the glorious wreck of their

adversaries; a few prisoners were brought into Brest on the victorious

vessel, which was so blackened by the smoke and damaged by the fight that

tugs had to be sent to her assistance. A few months afterwards Du

Couedic died of his wounds, carrying to the grave the supreme honor of

having been the only one to render his name illustrious in the great

display of the maritime forces of France and Spain. Count d’Orvilliers

made no attempt; the inhabitants upon the English coasts ceased to

tremble; sickness committed ravages amongst the crews. After a hundred

and four days’ useless cruising in the Channel, the huge fleet returned

sorrowfully to Brest; Admiral d’Orvilliers had lost his son in a partial

engagement; he left the navy and retired ere long to a convent. Count de

Guichen sailed for the Antilles with a portion of the French fleet, and

maintained with glory the honor of his flag in a series of frequently

successful affairs against Admiral Rodney. At the beginning of the war,

the latter, a great scapegrace and overwhelmed with debt, happened to be

at Paris, detained by the state of his finances. “If I were free,” said

he one day in the presence of Marshal Biron, “I would soon destroy all

the Spanish and French fleets.” The marshal at once paid his debts.

“Go, sir,” said he, with a flourish of generosity to which the eighteenth

century was a little prone, “the French have no desire to gain advantages

over their enemies save by their bravery.” Rodney’s first exploit was to

revictual Gibraltar, which the Spanish and French armaments had invested

by land and sea.

Everywhere the strength of the belligerents was being exhausted without

substantial result and without honor; for more than four years now

America had been keeping up the war, and her Southern provinces had been

everywhere laid waste by the enemy; in spite of the heroism which was

displayed by the patriots, and of which the women themselves set the

example, General Lincoln had just been forced to capitulate at

Charleston. Washington, still encamped before New York, saw his army

decimated by hunger and cold, deprived of all resources, and reduced to

subsist at the expense of the people in the neighborhood. All eyes were

turned towards France; the Marquis of La Fayette had succeeded in

obtaining from the king and the French ministry the formation of an

auxiliary corps; the troops were already on their way under the orders of

Count de Rochambeau.

Misfortune and disappointments are great destroyers of some barriers,

prudent tact can overthrow others. Washington and the American army

would but lately have seen with suspicion the arrival of foreign

auxiliaries; in 1780, transports of joy greeted the news of their

approach. M. de La Fayette, moreover, had been careful to spare the

American general all painful friction. Count de Rochambeau and the

French officers were placed under the orders of Washington, and the

auxiliary corps entirely at his disposal. The delicate generosity and

the disinterestedness of the French government had sometimes had the

effect of making it neglect the national interests in its relations with

the revolted colonies; but it had derived therefrom a spirit of conduct

invariably calculated to triumph over the prejudices as well as the

jealous pride of the Americans.

“The history of the War of Independence is a history of hopes deceived,”

said Washington. He had conceived the idea of making himself master of

New York with the aid of the French. The transport of the troops had

been badly calculated; Rochambeau brought to Rhode Island only the first

division of his army, about five thousand men; and Count de Guichen,

whose squadron had been relied upon, had just been recalled to France.

Washington was condemned to inaction. “Our position is not sufficiently

brilliant,” he wrote to M. de La Fayette, “to justify our putting

pressure upon Count de Rochambeau; I shall continue our arrangements,

however, in the hope of more fortunate circumstances.” The American army

was slow in getting organized, obliged as it had been to fight

incessantly and make head against constantly recurring difficulties; it

was getting organized, however; the example of the French, the discipline

which prevailed in the auxiliary corps, the good understanding

thenceforth established among the officers, helped Washington in his

difficult task. From the first the superiority of the general was

admitted by the French as well as by the Americans; naturally, and by the

mere fact of the gifts he had received from God, Washington was always

and everywhere chief of the men placed within his range and under his

influence.

This natural ascendency, which usually triumphed over the base jealousies

and criminal manoeuvres into which the rivals of General Washington had

sometimes allowed themselves to be drawn, had completely failed in the

case of one of his most brilliant lieutenants; in spite of his inveterate

and well-known vices, Benedict Arnold had covered himself with glory by

daring deeds and striking bravery exhibited in a score of fights, from

the day when, putting himself at the head of the first bands raised in

Massachusetts, he had won the grade of general during his expedition to

Canada. Accused of malversation, and lately condemned by a court-martial

to be reprimanded by the general-in-chief, Arnold, through an excess of

confidence on Washington’s part, still held the command of the important

fort of West Point: he abused the trust. Washington, on returning from

an interview with Count de Rochambeau, went out of his way to visit the

garrison of West Point: the commandant was absent. Surprised and

displeased, the general was impatiently waiting for his return, when his

aide-de-camp and faithful friend, Colonel Hamilton, brought him important

despatches. Washington’s face remained impassible; but throughout the

garrison and among the general’s staff there had already spread a whisper

of Arnold’s treachery: he had promised, it was said, to deliver West

Point to the enemy. An English officer, acting as a spy, had actually

been arrested within the American lines.

It was true; and General Arnold, turning traitor to his country from

jealousy, vengeance, and the shameful necessities entailed by a

disorderly life, had sought refuge at New York with Sir Henry Clinton.

Major Andre was in the hands of the Americans. Young, honorable, brave,

endowed with talents, and of elegant and cultivated tastes, the English

officer, brought up with a view to a different career, but driven into

the army from a disappointment in love, had accepted the dangerous

mission of bearing to the perfidious commandant of West Point the English

general’s latest instructions. Sir Henry Clinton had recommended him not

to quit his uniform; but, yielding to the insinuating Arnold, the unhappy

young man had put on a disguise; he had been made prisoner. Recognized

and treated as a spy, he was to die on the gallows. It was the ignominy

alone of this punishment which perturbed his spirit. “Sir,” he wrote to

Washington, “sustained against fear of death by the reflection that no

unworthy action has sullied a life devoted to honor, I feel confident

that in this my extremity, your Excellency will not be deaf to a prayer

the granting of which will soothe my last moments. Out of sympathy for a

soldier, your Excellency will, I am sure, consent to adapt the form of my

punishment to the feelings of a man of honor. Permit me to hope that, if

my character have inspired you with any respect, if I am in your eyes

sacrificed to policy and not to vengeance, I shall have proof that those

sentiments prevail in your heart by learning that I am not to die on the

gallows.”

With a harshness of which there is no other example in his life, and of

which he appeared to always preserve a painful recollection, Washington

remained deaf to his prisoner’s noble appeal: Major Andre underwent the

fate of a spy. “You are a witness that I die like a man of honor,” he

said to an American officer whose duty it was to see the orders carried

out. The general did him justice. “Andre,” he said, “paid his penalty

with the spirit to be expected from a man of such merit and so brave an

officer. As to Arnold, he has no heart. . . . Everybody is surprised

to see that he is not yet swinging on a gibbet.” The passionate

endeavors of the Americans to inflict upon the traitor the chastisement

he deserved remained without effect. Constantly engaged, as an English

general, in the war, with all the violence bred of uneasy hate, Arnold

managed to escape the just vengeance of his countrymen; he died twenty

years later, in the English possessions, rich and despised. “What would

you have done if you had succeeded in catching me?” he asked an American

prisoner one day. “We would have severed from your body the leg that had

been wounded in the service of the country, and would have hanged the

rest on a gibbet,” answered the militiaman quietly.

The excitement caused by the treachery of Arnold had not yet

subsided, when a fresh cup of bitterness was put to the lips of

the general-in-chief, and disturbed the hopes he had placed on the

reorganization of his army. Successive revolts among the troops of

Pennsylvania, which threatened to spread to those of New Jersey, had

convinced him that America had come to the end of her sacrifices. “The

country’s own powers are exhausted,” he wrote to Colonel Lawrence in a

letter intended to be communicated to Louis XVI.; “single-handed we

cannot restore public credit and supply the funds necessary for

continuing the war. The patience of the army is at an end, the people

are discontented; without money, we shall make but a feeble effort, and

probably the last.”

The insufficiency of the military results obtained by land and sea, in

comparison with the expenses and the exhibition of force, and the

slowness and bad management of the operations, had been attributed, in

France as well as in America, to the incapacity of the ministers of war

and marine, the Prince of Montbarrey and M. de Sartines. The finances

had up to that time sufficed for the enormous charges which weighed upon

the treasury; credit for the fact was most justly given to the consummate

ability and inexhaustible resources of M. Necker, who was, first of all,

made director of the treasury on October 22, 1776, and then

director-general of finance on June 29, 1777, By his advice, backed by

the favor of the queen, the two ministers were superseded by M. de Segur

and the Marquis of Castries. A new and more energetic impulse before

long restored the hopes of the Americans. On the 21st of March, 1780,

a fleet left under the orders of Count de Grasse; after its arrival at

Martinique, on the 28th of April, in spite of Admiral Hood’s attempts to

block his passage, Count de Grasse took from the English the Island of

Tobago, on the 1st of June; on the 3d of September, he brought Washington

a reinforcement of three thousand five hundred men, and twelve hundred

thousand livres in specie. In a few months King Louis XVI. had lent to

the United States or procured for them on his security sums exceeding

sixteen million livres. It was to Washington personally that the French

government confided its troops as well as its subsidies. “The king’s

soldiers are to be placed exclusively under the orders of the

general-in-chief,” M. Girard, the French minister in America, had said,

on the arrival of the auxiliary corps.

After so many and such painful efforts, the day of triumph was at last

dawning upon General Washington and his country. Alternations of success

and reverse had signalized the commencement of the campaign of 1781.

Lord Cornwallis, who commanded the English armies in the South, was

occupying Virginia with a considerable force, when Washington, who had

managed to conceal his designs from Sir Henry Clinton, shut up in New

York, crossed Philadelphia on the 4th of September, and advanced by

forced marches against the enemy. The latter had been for some time past

harassed by the little army of M. de La Fayette. The fleet of Admiral de

Grasse cut off the retreat of the English. Lord Cornwallis threw himself

into Yorktown; on the 30th of September the place was invested.

It was but slightly and badly fortified; the English troops were fatigued

by a hard campaign; the besiegers were animated by a zeal further

stimulated by emulation; French and Americans vied with one another in

ardor. Batteries sprang up rapidly, the soldiers refused to take any

rest, the trenches were opened by the 6th of October. On the 10th, the

cannon began to batter the town; on the 14th an American column,

commanded by M. de La Fayette, Colonel Hamilton and Colonel Lawrence,

attacked one of the redoubts which protected the approaches to the town,

whilst the French dashed forward on their side to attack the second

redoubt, under the orders of Baron de Viomenil, Viscount de Noailles, and

Marquis de St. Simon, who, ill as he was, had insisted on being carried

at the head of his regiment. The flag of the Union floated above both

works at almost the same instant; when the attacking columns joined again

on the other side of the outwork they had attacked, the French had made

five hundred prisoners. All defence became impossible. Lord Cornwallis

in vain attempted to escape; he was reduced, on the 17th of October, to

signing a capitulation more humiliating than that of Saratoga: eight

thousand men laid down their arms, the vessels which happened to be lying

at Yorktown and Gloucester were given up to the victors. Lord Cornwallis

was ill of grief and fatigue. General O’Hara, who took his place,

tendered his sword to Count de Rochambeau; the latter stepped back, and,

pointing to General Washington, said aloud, “I am only an auxiliary.” In

receiving the English general’s sword, Washington was receiving the

pledge of his country’s independence.

England felt this. “Lord North received the news of the capitulation

like a bullet in his breast,” said Lord George Germaine, secretary of

state for the colonies; he threw up his arms without being able to utter

a word beyond ‘My God, all’s lost!’” To this growing conviction on the

part of his ministers, as well as of the nation, George III. opposed an

unwavering persistency. “None of the members of my cabinet,” he wrote

immediately, “will suppose, I am quite sure, that this event can in any

way modify the principles which have guided me hitherto and which will

continue to regulate my conduct during the rest of this struggle.”

Whilst the United States were celebrating their victory with

thanksgivings and public festivities, their allies were triumphing at all

the different points, simultaneously, at which hostilities had been

entered upon. Becoming embroiled with Holland, where the republican

party had prevailed against the stadtholder, who was devoted to them, the

English had waged war upon the Dutch colonies. Admiral Rodney had taken

St. Eustache, the centre of an immense trade; he had pillaged the

warehouses and laden his vessels with an enormous mass of merchandise;

the convoy which was conveying a part of the spoil to England was

captured by Admiral La Motte-Piquet; M. Bouille surprised the English

garrison remaining at St. Eustache and recovered possession of the

island, which was restored to the Dutch. They had just maintained

gloriously, at Dogger Bank, their old maritime renown. “Officers and

men all fought like lions,” said Admiral Zouttman. The firing had not

commenced until the two fleets were within pistol-shot. The ships on

both sides were dismasted, scarcely in a condition to keep afloat; the

glory and the losses were equal; but the English admiral, Hyde Parker,

was irritated and displeased. George III. went to see him on board his

vessel. “I wish your Majesty younger seamen and better ships,” said the

old sailor, and he insisted on resigning. This was the only action

fought by the Dutch during the war; they left to Admiral de Kersaint the

job of recovering from the English their colonies of Demerara, Essequibo,

and Berbice, on the coasts of Guiana.

A small Franco-Spanish army was at the same time besieging Minorca.

The fleet was considerable, the English were ill-prepared; they were soon

obliged to shut themselves up in Fort St. Philip. The ramparts were as

solid, the position was as impregnable, as in the time of Marshal

Richelieu. The admirals were tardy in bringing up the fleet; their

irresolution caused the failure of operations that had been ill-combined;

the squadrons entered port again. The Duke of Crillon, who commanded the

besieging force, weary of investing the fortress, made a proposal to the

commandant to give the place up to him: the offers were magnificent, but

Colonel Murray answered indignantly: “Sir, when the king his master

ordered your brave ancestor to assassinate the Duke of Guise, he replied

to Henry III., Honor forbids! You ought to have made the same answer to

the king of Spain when he ordered you to assassinate the honor of a man

as well born as the Duke of Guise or yourself. I desire to have no

communication with you but by way of arms.” And he kept up the defence

of his fortress, continually battered by the besiegers’ cannonballs.

Assault succeeded assault: the Duke of Crillon himself escaladed the

ramparts to capture the English flag which floated on the top of a tower:

he was slightly wounded. “How long have generals done grenadiers’ work?”

said the officers to one another. The general heard them. “I wanted to

make my Spaniards thorough French,” he said, “that nobody might any

longer perceive that there are two nationalities here.” Murray at last

capitulated on the 4th of February, 1782: the fortress contained but a

handful of soldiers exhausted with fatigue and privation.

Great was the joy at Madrid as well as in France, and deep the dismay in

London: the ministry of Lord North could not stand against this last

blow. So many efforts and so many sacrifices ending in so many disasters

were irritating and wearing out the nation. “Great God!” exclaimed

Burke, “is it still a time to talk to us of the rights we are upholding

in this war! Oh! excellent rights! Precious they should be, for they

have cost us dear. Oh! precious rights, which have cost Great Britain

thirteen provinces, four islands, a hundred thousand men, and more than

ten millions sterling! Oh! wonderful rights, which have cost Great

Britain her empire upon the ocean and that boasted superiority which made

all nations bend before her! Oh! inestimable rights, which have taken

from us our rank amongst the nations, our importance abroad and our

happiness at home, which have destroyed our commerce and our

manufactures, which have reduced us from the most flourishing empire in

the world to a kingdom circumscribed and grandeur-less! Precious rights,

which will, no doubt, cost us all that we have left!” The debate was

growing more and more bitter. Lord North entered the House with his

usual serenity. “This discussion is a loss of valuable time to the

House,” said he: “His Majesty has just accepted the resignation of his

ministers.” The Whigs came into power; Lord Rockingham, the Duke of

Richmond, Mr. Fox; the era of concessions was at hand. An unsuccessful

battle delivered against Hood and Rodney by Admiral de Grasse restored

for a while the pride of the English. A good sailor, brave and for a

long time successful in war, Count de Grasse had many a time been

out-manoeuvred by the English. He had suffered himself to be enticed

away from St. Christopher, which he was besieging, and which the Marquis

of Bouille took a few days later; embarrassed by two damaged vessels,

he would not abandon them to the English, and retarded his movements to

protect them. The English fleet was superior to the French in vessels

and weight of metal; the fight lasted ten hours; the French squadron was

broken, disorder ensued in the manoeuvres; the captains got killed one

after another, nailing their colors to the mast or letting their vessels

sink rather than strike; the flag-ship, the Ville de Paris, was attacked

by seven of the enemy’s ships at once, her consorts could not get at her;

Count de Grasse, maddened with grief and rage, saw all his crew falling

around him. “The admiral is six foot every day,” said the sailors, “on a

fighting day he is six foot one.” So much courage and desperation could

not save the fleet, the count was forced to strike; his ship had received

such damage that it sank before its arrival in England; the admiral was

received in London with great honors against which his vanity was not

proof, to the loss of his personal dignity and his reputation in Europe.

A national subscription in France reinforced the fleet with new vessels:

a squadron, commanded by M. de Suffren, had just carried into the East

Indies the French flag, which had so long been humiliated, and which his

victorious hands were destined to hoist aloft again for a moment.

As early as 1778, even before the maritime war had burst out in Europe,

France had lost all that remained of her possessions on the Coromandel

coast. Pondicherry, scarcely risen from its ruins, was besieged by the

English, and had capitulated on the 17th of October, after an heroic

resistance of forty days’ open trenches. Since that day a Mussulman,

Hyder Ali, conqueror of the Carnatic, had struggled alone in India

against the power of England: it was around him that a group had been

formed by the old soldiers of Bussy and by the French who had escaped

from the disaster of Pondicherry. It was with their aid that the able

robber-chief, the crafty politician, had defended and consolidated the

empire he had founded against that foreign dominion which threatened the

independence of his country. He had just suffered a series of reverses,

and he was on the point of being forced to evacuate the Carnatic and take

refuge in his kingdom of Mysore, when he heard, in the month of July,

1782, of the arrival of a French fleet commanded by M. de Suffren. Hyder

Ali had already been many times disappointed. The preceding year Admiral

d’Orves had appeared on the Coromandel coast with a squadron; the Sultan

had sent to meet him, urging him to land and attack Madras, left

defenceless; the admiral refused to risk a single vessel or land a single

man, and he returned without striking a blow to Ile-de-France. Ever

indomitable and enterprising, Hyder Ali hoped better things of the

new-comers; he was not deceived.

Born at St. Cannat in Provence, on the 13th of July, 1726, of an old and

a notable family amongst the noblesse of his province, Peter Andrew de

Suffren, admitted before he was seventeen into the marine guards, had

procured his reception into the order of Malta; he had already

distinguished himself in many engagements, when M. de Castries gave him

the command of the squadron commissioned to convey to the Cape of Good

Hope a French garrison promised to the Dutch, whose colony was

threatened. The English had seized Negapatam and Trincomalee; they hoped

to follow up this conquest by the capture of Batavia and Ceylon. Suffren

had accomplished his mission, not without a brush with the English

squadron commanded by Commodore Johnston. Leaving the Cape free from

attack, he had joined, off Ile-de-France, Admiral d’Orves, who was ill

and at death’s door. The vessels of the commander (of the Maltese order)

were in a bad state, the crews were weak, the provisions were deficient;

the inexhaustible zeal and the energetic ardor of the chief sufficed to

animate both non-combatants and combatants. When he put to sea on the

7th of December, Count d’Orves still commanded the squadron; on the 9th

of February he expired out at sea, having handed over his command to M.

de Suffren. All feebleness and all hesitation disappeared from that

moment in the management of the expedition. When the nabob sent a French

officer in his service to compliment M. de Suffren and proffer alliance,

the commander interrupted the envoy: “We will begin,” said he, “by

settling the conditions of this alliance;” and not a soldier set foot on

land before the independent position of the French force, the number of

its auxiliaries, and the payment for its services had been settled by a

treaty.

Hyder Ali consented to everything. M. de Suffren set sail to go in

search of the English.

[Illustration: Suffren----413]

He sought them for three months without any decisive result; it was only

on the 4th of July in the morning, at the moment when Hyder Ali was to

attack Negapatam, that a serious engagement began between the hostile

fleets. The two squadrons had already suffered severely; a change of

wind had caused disorder in the lines: the English had several vessels

dismantled; one single French vessel, the _Severe,_ had received serious

damage; her captain, with cowardly want of spirit, ordered the flag to be

hauled down. His lieutenants protested; the volunteers to whom he had

appealed refused to execute his orders. By this time the report was

spreading among the batteries that the captain, was giving the order to

cease firing; the sailors were as indignant as the officers: a cry arose,

“The flag is down!” A complaisant subaltern had at last obeyed the

captain’s repeated orders. The officers jumped upon the quarter-deck.

“You are master of your flag,” fiercely cried an officer of the blue,

Lieutenant Dien, “but we are masters as to fighting, and the ship shall

not surrender!” By this time a boat from the English ship, the _Sultan,_

had put off to board the Severe, which was supposed to have struck, when

a fearful broadside from all the ship’s port-holes struck the _Sultan,_

which found herself obliged to sheer off. Night came; without waiting

for the admiral’s orders, the English went and cast anchor under

Negapatam.

M. de Suffren supposed that hostilities would be resumed; but, when the

English did not appear, he at last prepared to set sail for Gondelour to

refit his vessels, when a small boat of the enemy’s hove in sight: it

bore a flag of truce. Admiral Hughes claimed the _Severe,_ which had for

an instant hauled down her flag. M. de Suffren had not heard anything

about her captain’s poltroonery; the flag had been immediately replaced;

he answered that none of the French vessels had surrendered. “However,”

he added with a smile, “as this vessel belongs to Sir Edward Hughes, beg

him from me to come for it himself.” Suffren arrived without hinderance

at Gondelour (_Kaddalore_).

Scarcely was he there, when Hyder Ali expressed a desire to see him, and

set out for that purpose without waiting for his answer. On the 26th of

July, M. de Suffren landed with certain officers of his squadron; an

escort of cavalry was in waiting to conduct him to the camp of the nabob,

who came out to meet him. “Heretofore I thought myself a great man and a

great general,” said Hyder Ali to the admiral; “but now I know that you

alone are a great man.” Suffren informed the nabob that M. de Bussy-

Castelnau, but lately the faithful lieutenant of Dupleix and the

continuer of his victories, had just been sent to India with the title of

commander-in-chief; he was already at Ile de France, and was bringing

some troops. “Provided that you remain with us, all will go well,” said

the nabob, detaching from his turban an aigrette of diamonds which he

placed on M. de Suffren’s hat. The nabob’s tent was reached; Suffren was

fat, he had great difficulty in sitting upon the carpets; Hyder Ali

perceived this and ordered cushions to be brought. “Sit as you please,”

said he to the commander, “etiquette was not made for such as you.” Next

day, under the nabob’s tent, all the courses of the banquet offered to M.

de Suffren were prepared in European style. The admiral proposed that

Hyder Ali should go to the coast and see all the fleet dressed, but, “I

put myself out to see you only,” said the nabob, “I will not go any

farther.” The two great warriors were never to meet again.

The French vessels were ready; the commander had more than once put his

own hand to the work in order to encourage the workmen’s zeal.

Carpentry-wood was wanted; he had ransacked Gondelour (_Kaddalore_) for

it, sometimes pulling down a house to get hold of a beam that suited him.

His officers urged him to go to Bourbon or Ile-de-France for the

necessary supplies and for a good port to shelter his damaged ships.

“Until I have conquered one in India, I will have no port but the sea,”

answered Suffren. He had re-taken Trincomalee before the English could

come to its defence. The battle began. As had already happened more

than once, a part of the French force showed weakness in the thick of the

action either from cowardice or treason; a cabal had formed against the

commander; he was fighting single-handed against five or six assailants:

the main-mast and the flag of the _Heros,_ which he was on, fell beneath

the enemy’s cannon-balls. Suffren, standing on the quarter-deck, shouted

beside himself “Flags! Set white flags all round the Heros!” The

vessel, all bristling with flags, replied so valiantly to the English

attacks, that the rest of the squadron had time to re-form around it; the

English went and anchored before Madras.

Bussy had arrived, but aged, a victim to gout, quite a stranger amid

those Indian intrigues with which he had but lately been so well

acquainted. Hyder Ali had just died on the 7th of December, 1782,

leaving to his son Tippoo Sahib affairs embroiled and allies enfeebled.

At this news the Mahrattas, in revolt against England, hastened to make

peace; and Tippoo Sahib, who had just seized Tanjore, was obliged to

abandon his conquest and go to the protection of Malabar. Ten thousand

men only remained in the Carnatic to back the little corps of French.

Bussy allowed himself to be driven to bay by General Stuart beneath the

walls of Gondelour; he had even been forced to shut himself up in the

town. M. de Suffren went to his release. The action was hotly

contested; when the victor landed, M. de Bussy was awaiting him on the

shore. “Here is our savior,” said the general to his troops, and the

soldiers taking up in their arms M. de Suffren, who had been lately

promoted by the grand master of the order of Malta to the rank of grand-

cross (_bailli_), carried him in triumph into the town. “He pressed

M. de Bussy every day to attack us,” says Sir Thomas Munro, “offering to

land the greater part of his crews and to lead them himself to deliver

the assault upon our camp.” Bussy had, in fact, resumed the offensive,

and was preparing to make fresh sallies, when it was known at Calcutta

that the preliminaries of peace had been signed at Paris on the 9th of

February. The English immediately proposed an armistice. The

_Surveillante_ shortly afterwards brought the same news, with orders for

Suffren to return to France. India was definitively given up to the

English, who restored to the French Pondicherry, Chandernuggur, Mahe, and

Karikal, the last strips remaining of that French dominion which had for

a while been triumphant throughout the peninsula. The feebleness and the

vices of Louis XV.’s government weighed heavily upon the government of

Louis XVI. in India as well as in France, and at Paris itself.

It is to the honor of mankind and their consolation under great reverses

that political checks and the inutility of their efforts do not obscure

the glory of great men. M. de Suffren had just arrived at Paris, he was

in low spirits; M. de Castries took him to Versailles. There was a

numerous and brilliant court. On entering the guards’ hall, “Gentlemen,”

said the minister to the officers on duty, “this is M. de Suffren.”

Everybody rose, and the body-guards, forming an escort for the admiral,

accompanied him to the king’s chamber. His career was over; the last of

the great sailors of the old regimen died on the 8th of December, 1788.

Whilst Hyder Ali and M. de Suffren were still disputing India with

England, that power had just gained in Europe an important advantage in

the eyes of public opinion as well as in respect of her supremacy at sea.

For close upon three years past a Spanish army had been investing by land

the town and fortress of Gibraltar; a strong squadron was cruising out of

cannon-shot of the place, incessantly engaged in barring the passage

against the English vessels. Twice already, in 1780 by Admiral Rodney,

and in 1781 by Admiral Darby, the vigilance of the cruisers had been

eluded and reinforcements of troops, provisions, and ammunition had been

thrown into Gibraltar. In 1782 the town had been half destroyed by an

incessantly renewed bombardment, the fortifications had not been touched.

Every morning, when he awoke, Charles III. would ask anxiously, “Have we

got Gibraltar?” and when “No” was answered, “We soon shall,” the monarch

would rejoin imperturbably. The capture of Fort Philip had confirmed him

in his hopes; he considered his object gained, when the Duke of Crillon

with a corps of French troops came and joined the besiegers; the Count of

Artois, brother to the king, as well as the Duke of Bourbon, had come

with him. The camp of St. Roch was the scene of continual festivities,

sometimes interrupted by the sallies of the besieged. The fights did not

interfere with mutual good offices: in his proud distress, General Eliot

still kept up an interchange of refreshments with the French princes and

the Duke of Crillon; the Count of Artois had handed over to the English

garrison the letters and correspondence which had been captured on the

enemy’s ships, and which he had found addressed to them on his way

through Madrid.

Preparations were being made for a grand assault. A French engineer,

Chevalier d’Arcon, had invented some enormous floating batteries,

fire-proof, as he believed; a hundred and fifty pieces of cannon were to

batter the place all at once, near enough to facilitate the assault. On

the 13th of September, at 9 A. M., the Spaniards opened fire: all the

artillery in the fort replied at once; the surrounding mountains repeated

the cannonade; the whole army covered the shore awaiting with anxiety the

result of the enterprise. Already the fortifications seemed to be

beginning to totter; the batteries had been firing for five hours; all at

once the Prince of Nassau, who commanded a detachment, thought he

perceived flames mastering his heavy vessel; the fire spread rapidly; one

after another, the floating batteries found themselves disarmed. “At

seven o’clock we had lost all hope,” said an Italian officer who had

taken part in the assault; “we fired no more, and our signals of distress

remained unnoticed. The red-hot shot of the besieged rained down upon

us; the crews were threatened from every point.” Timidly and by weak

detachments, the boats of the two fleets crept up under cover of the

batteries in hopes of saving some of the poor creatures that were like to

perish; the flames which burst out on board the doomed ships served to

guide the fire of the English as surely as in broad daylight. At the

head of a small squadron of gunboats Captain Curtis barred the passage of

the salvors; the conflagration became general, only the discharges from

the fort replied to the hissing of the flames and to the Spaniard’s cries

of despair. The fire at last slackened; the English gunboats changed

their part; at the peril of their lives the brave seamen on board of them

approached the burning ships, trying to save the unfortunate crews; four

hundred men owed their preservation to those efforts. A month after this

disastrous affair, Lord Howe, favored by the accidents of wind and

weather, revictualled for the third time, and almost without any

fighting, the fortress and the town under the very eyes of the allied

fleets. Gibraltar remained impregnable.

Peace was at hand, however: all the belligerents were tired of the

strife; the Marquis of Rockingham was dead; his ministry, after being

broken up, had re-formed with less lustre under the leadership of Lord

Shelburne. William Pitt, Lord Chatham’s second son, at that time

twenty-two years of age, had a seat in the cabinet. Already negotiations

for a general peace had begun at Paris; but Washington, who eagerly

desired the end of the war, did not yet feel any confidence. “The old

infatuation, the political duplicity and perfidy of England, render me, I

confess, very suspicious, very doubtful,” he wrote; “and her position

seems to me to be perfectly summed up in the laconic saying of Dr.

Franklin ‘They are incapable of continuing the war and too proud to make

peace.’ The pacific overtures made to the different belligerent nations

have probably no other design than to detach some one of them from the

coalition. At any rate, whatever be the enemy’s intentions, our

watchfulness and our efforts, so far from languishing, should become more

vigorous than ever. Too much trust and confidence would ruin

everything.”

America was the first to make peace, without however detaching herself

officially from the coalition which had been formed to maintain her

quarrel and from which she had derived so many advantages. On the 30th

of November, 1782, in disregard of the treaties but lately concluded

between France and the revolted colonies, the American negotiators signed

with stealthy precipitation the preliminary articles of a special peace,

“thus abandoning France to the dangers of being isolated in negotiations

or in arms.” The votes of Congress, as well as the attitude of

Washington, did not justify this disloyal and ungrateful eagerness.

“The articles of the treaty between Great Britain and America,” wrote the

general to Chevalier de La Luzerne, French minister at Philadelphia, “are

so far from conclusive as regards a general pacification, that we must

preserve a hostile attitude and remain ready for any contingency, for war

as well as peace.”

On the 5th of December, at the opening of Parliament, George III.

announced in the speech from the throne that he had offered to recognize

the independence of the American colonies. “In thus admitting their

separation from the crown of this kingdom, I have sacrificed all my

desires to the wishes and opinion of my people,” said the king.

“I humbly pray Almighty God, that Great Britain may not feel the evils

which may flow from so important a dismemberment of its empire, and that

America may be a stranger to the calamities which have before now proved

to the mother-country that monarchy is inseparable from the benefits of

constitutional liberty. Religion, language, interests, affections may

still form a bond of union between the two countries, and I will spare no

pains or attention to promote it.” “I was the last man in England to

consent to the Independence of America,” said the king to John Adams, who

was the first to represent the new republic at the Court of St. James; “I

will be the last in the world to sanction any violation of it.” Honest

and sincere in his concessions as he had been in his persistent

obstinacy, the king supported his ministers against the violent attacks

made upon them in Parliament. The preliminaries of general peace had

been signed at Paris on the 20th of January, 1783.

To the exchange of conquests between France and England was added the

cession to France of the island of Tobago and of the Senegal River with

its dependencies. The territory of Pondicherry and Karikal received some

augmentation. For the first time for more than a hundred years the

English renounced the humiliating conditions so often demanded on the

subject of the harbor of Dunkerque. Spain saw herself confirmed in her

conquest of the Floridas and of the island of Minorca. Holland recovered

all her possessions, except Negapatam.

Peace was made, a glorious and a sweet one for the United States, which,

according to Washington’s expression, “saw opening before them a career

that might lead them to become a great people, equally happy and

respected.” Despite all the mistakes of the people and the defects every

day more apparent in the form of its government, this noble and healthy

ambition has always been present to the minds of the American nation as

the ultimate aim of their hopes and their endeavors. More than eighty

years after the war of independence, the indomitable energy of the

fathers reappeared in the children, worthy of being called a great people

even when the agonies of a civil war without example denied to them the

happiness which had a while ago been hoped for by the glorious founder of

their liberties as well as of their Constitution.

France came out exhausted from the struggle, but relieved in her own eyes

as well as those of Europe from the humiliation inflicted upon her by the

disastrous Seven Years’ War and by the treaty of 1763. She saw

triumphant the cause she had upheld and her enemies sorrow-stricken at

the dismemberment they had suffered. It was a triumph for her arms and

for the generous impulse which had prompted her to support a legitimate

but for a long while doubtful enterprise. A fresh element, however, had

come to add itself to the germs of disturbance, already so fruitful,

which were hatching within her. She had promoted the foundation of a

Republic based upon principles of absolute right; the government had

given way to the ardent sympathy of the nation for a people emancipated

from a long yoke by its deliberate will and its indomitable energy.

France felt her heart still palpitating from the efforts she had

witnessed and shared on behalf of American freedom; the unreflecting

hopes of a blind emulation were already agitating many a mind. “In all

states,” said Washington, “there are inflammable materials which a single

spark may kindle.” In 1783, on the morrow of the American war, the

inflammable materials everywhere accumulated in France were already

providing means for that immense conflagration in the midst of which the

country well-nigh perished.