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AN EMBASSY TO FRANCE.

347 mittee of Congress, as an agent to negotiate loans, obtain munitions of war, and such other aid as France, Spain, Holland, and the Prince of Orange, or their subjects, might be disposed to render to the insurgent Colonies. All these governments hated and feared England as the over-shadowing military, commercial, and Protestant power of Europe; and they would willingly have seen any blow levelled against that power, whose arrogance had wounded their pride, whose armies circumscribed their dominion, and whose invincible navy threatened to sweep their commerce from all the seas. It was chiefly on this account, that the sympathies of these powers were readily extended to the insurgents of the West, and they were disposed to encourage the Revolution, so far as they could without involving themselves in a war with. their common foe, before they were prepared for the struggle. But open recognition of the American agent was considered premature, although his mission was attended with some success. Fifteen thousand muskets, which had been laid aside as almost useless,' were secretly furnished from the French arsenals; some money was advanced, and abundant encouragement extended for further assistance. But Deane, although a graduate of Yale College, and a member of the Congress of 1774, was distinguished by no considerable ability beyond some commercial experience, and a certain doubtful adroitness in negotiation. He was not a man to move cabinets, or win personal popularity. But it was considered well to retain him in the service, since two of the foremost statesmen of the country had been designated for the embassy. Jefferson had already retired from Congress to aid his native State in shaping her institutions to the new condition of affairs, and declined leaving, and Arthur Lee's name was substituted, partly because he was a Virginian and a brother of Richard Henry Lee, and partly because he was a gentleman of refinement, and a writer of some force and polish, although he seems to have been entirely lacking in magnanimity of character. In fact, it would have been altogether a discreditable commission, had not Franklin been at the head of it; and as long as that is so,' said our friends at home and abroad, no matter who is in the middle, or at the tail.' 'Thus,' remarks Bancroft, the United States were to be represented in France to its people, and to the older house of Bourbons, by a treacherous merchant, by a barrister, who, otherwise a patriot, was consumed by malignant envy, and by Franklin, the greatest diplomatist of his country.' The embassy meant Franklin, who represented in his manner, dress, and essential dignity of character, the venerable impersonation of the republics of antiquity. He wore a plain Quaker dress; his plain American tanned calf-skin shoes were tied with leathern strings. His prestige as a great discoverer in science, and the homage paid to him by learned men whose society he most fre

Paris April 1, 1778, and on his return, being required to give an account of his proceedings, on the floor of Congress, evaded a complete disclosure on the ground that his papers were in Europe. He then attacked Congress and his fellow-commissioners in a public manifesto, but did not succeed in removing suspicion of himself of having misapplied the public money. He afterwards published, in 1784, an address to the citi

zens of the United States on the same subject, and, returning to Europe, died in great poverty.-Appletou's Cyclopedia, 1874.

Of the French arms obtained from the arsenals, Lafayette, in his Memoirs,' says: 'Silas Deane despatched privately to America some old arms which were of little use, and some young officers who did but little good.'—Vol. i., p. 7.

348

FIRST INTERVIEW WITH VERGENNES.

quented, soon made him an object of such adulation in Paris, that the young beaux imitated his dress, and studied the sobriety and dignity of his manner. It early became evident that he would sway the thoughts, and perhaps the policy of the most splendid court in Europe. Had there not been such complete symmetry, refinement, and unaffected majesty of demeanor in all he said, appeared to be, and actually was, the French of Louis Sixteenth's time would have paid him no such homage.

The literary and diplomatic circles had watched the American struggle thus far with intense interest. The essential portions of the new Constitutions had been translated and widely read. Their air of manly independence; the supremacy of state over the dictates of the church; the establishment of liberty of worship, and liberty of conscience; above all, the spectacle of a young nation, in the far-off wilds of a new world, establishing a republic in defiance of the mightiest Power in Europe, filled the young men of France with rapture. Already the new Republic had begun to shape the destinies of the Old World.

The first Interview of the Commissioners with the Chief Minister of State. —It was on the morning of the 28th of December that Vergennes read their commission, and the Plan which Congress had proposed for the Treaty of Alliance with France. The minister alluded in the most cordial terms to the enthusiasm of the French people for the American cause, and assured the commissioners of the good-will of the king and his cabinet-of protection, of kindness, of confidence, and respect. But he impressed upon them the absolute necessity of extreme caution and reticence on both sides. It was not necessary for the minister to say that Louis and his people had inherited souvenirs of lost possessions on both sides of the Atlantic; nor how deeply French pride had been wounded by the arrogance, assumption, and growing supremacy of Great Britain. Nor need he disclaim any unfriendly re

collections that might have grown out of the Seven Years' War which drove the Lilies from the then fairest portions of America; for, as I have already had occasion to remark, they looked upon that war as one between the King of England and the King of France, and not between France and the American Colonies. But the hour had not yet come for the final conflict between those two Powers, which all the statesmen of Europe now saw to be in evitable. The government of Louis would do all it could without provok ing an open rupture with England. Prizes taken under the American flag would be allowed to enter French ports. The manner in which France could show her friendship by some substantial acts, was to be left open for consideration. The minister requested Franklin-with whom alone the business was transacted-to prepare for his use a paper on the condition of the Colonies, from which he might gain as complete a comprehension of the whole case as possible. He desired that the utmost secrecy should be observed, that their interviews should be without the intervention of any third party, only nothing should be withheld from the Spanish Am

WHAT AMERICA ASKED OF LOUIS.

349

bassador, since his government and France were in perfect accord, and, for the present, no step would be taken without the concurrence of both.

Although no such great results sprang from our friendly relations with Spain as compared with France, yet the spirit of modern progress had recently developed itself in the Peninsula, and the progressive statesmen and advanced minds of Europe looked forward to a resurrection of Spain from what had, for the better part of a century, appeared to indicate a hopeless decadence." In Count de Aranda, Charles the Third had a fearless servant, not only as an ambassador at the Court of Louis, but a trusted counsellor in the Cabinet at Madrid. His advice had prevailed in the expulsion of the Jesuits from Spain; and his energy had suppressed the riots which followed at Madrid. But repeated interviews with Aranda secured little more than the pledge that the American privateers, with their prizes, should have the same security in Spanish ports, as had been guaranteed to them by France.

What the Commissioners requested from the King.-Vergennes had already been furnished with Franklin's paper, and, in the interview on the 5th of January, a request was presented in writing, that the Americans should be furnished with eight line-of-battle ships, twenty or thirty thousand muskets, and brass cannon, with munitions for the whole. The request was sustained by arguments, addressed both to Versailles and Madrid: "The interests of the three nations are the same; the opportunity for securing a commerce, which in time will be immense, now presents itself; if neglected, it may never return; delay may be attended with fatal consequences.' This petition received the most careful consideration; and on the 13th of the month, Gerard met the commissioners for a night interview, at a private house in Paris, and read to them the king's answer. 'Neither ships nor convoys could be furnished without compromising the French government. Time and events must be waited for, and provision made to profit by them. The United Provinces 'as our colonies were called-' may be assured that neither France nor Spain will make them any overture that can in the least contravene their essential interests; that they both, wholly free from every wish for conquests, always have singly in view to make it impossible for the common enemy to injure the United Powers. The commercial facilities afforded in the ports of France and Spain, and the tacit diversion of the two Powers-whose expensive armaments obliged England to divide her efforts-manifest the interest of the two crowns in the success of the Americans. The king will not incommode them in deriving resources from the commerce of his kingdom, confident that they will conform to the rules prescribed by the precise and rigorous meaning of existing treaties, of which the two monarchs are exact observers. Unable to enter into the details of their supplies, he will mark to them his benevo lence and good-will, by destining for them secret succors which will assure and extend their credit and their purchases.'

Good Faith of the King.-One hundred thousand dollars were paid quar

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350

EMBARKATION OF LAFAYETTE.

terly to the banker of the embassy, the first instalment being instantly provided for. As soon as it could be prudently done, three vessels laden with military stores were made ready for sea by Deane and Beaumarchais, between whom, under the guise of a commercial partnership, the business was transacted. One of them was taken by the British cruisers, but the other two arrived with their treasures before the summer campaign of 1777 was opened. The commissioners had also been allowed to enter into a contract to furnish the agents of the French government with fifty-six thousand hogsheads of tobacco, on which they received an advance of one million francs.

Unavailing Complaints of the British Minister. It is needless to state that Lord Stormont knew everything that was going on. But as long as he could not reveal the sources of his information, and there had been no open infraction of the law of nations, he was obliged to content himself with such vexatious but impotent complaints, and perplexing demands for disclaimers and denials, as diplomacy could devise, to embarrass an enemy with whom his government was not prepared to go to war. The cabinet of London was, however, thrown into a frenzy of anger and chagrin at the kindness known to have been extended to the American embassy, and the enthusiasm manifested throughout France for the American cause; and well-founded alarm at its growing strength all over the continent of Europe.'

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Embarkation of Lafayette.-Simultaneously with these friendly acts on the part of the government of the king, Lafayette was maturing his preparations with the secrecy he was compelled to observe, for his expedition to Americaa movement to which history has attached an importance which has seldom attended the act of a private individual, and which was to color our fortunes with tintings more brilliant perhaps, than have ever been drawn by the sober pen of history, or the wizard hand of romance. In his Personal Memoirs,' with whose charming details the world is so familiar, we learn how long and how persistently Lafayette worked to carry out his design, and how fruitless were the endeavors of his friends and relations, who were among the noblest and most powerful in France, to repress his unconquerable enthusiasm for the cause of American liberty, or to defeat the ingenious devices he was compelled to resort to in order to accomplish his purpose.

1 It is somewhat amusing, in reading the diplomatic correspondence and conversations between the English and French ministers at the time, to think how closely England, more than eighty years afterwards copied from France the subterfuges and evasions with which she attempted to shirk the responsibility of fitting out the Alabama and other piratical craft, which she equipped or allowed to sail from her ports, to prey upon the commerce and lives of the citizens of the United States. Until a declaration of war between France and England, the former never recognized the Americans as a belligerent power, but merely threw upon England the burden of maintaining her own municipal laws. When England required France to close the harbors against American privateers, the French minister professed to admit them only in distress, requiring them to leave forthwith. Bancroft well says: England insisted that no arms cr munitions of war should be exported to America, or t: ports to which Americans could conve

niently repair for a supply. Vergennes rather ac knowledged the rightfulness of the demand, representing the Americans and their friends as escaping his vigilance. England was uneasy at the presence of the American commissioners in Paris; Vergennes compared the house of a minister to a church which any one might enter, but with no certainty that his prayers would be heard. England claimed the right of search. Vergennes admitted it in the utmost latitude in the neighborhood of any part of the British dominions; but demurred to its exercise in mid-ocean. England did not scruple to seize and confiscate American property wherever found; France held that on the high seas American property laden in French ships was inviolably safe. England delayed its declaration of war from motives of convenience; France knew that it was im minent and inevitable, and prepared for it with the utmost vigilance.'

SPRAGUE'S WELCOME TO LAFAYETTE.

351

Descended from one of the noblest families of France; the sole living male representative of the proudest lineage; a member of the most brilliant court in Europe; rich beyond the dream of dependence; married at the age of sixteen to one of the noblest and most accomplished daughters of another ancient house; carrying his heart with his alliance to the altar; but fired like a young paladin by the spirit of heroism, and panting with an ambition to distinguish himself in the struggle of a new nation for its freedom, he turned his back upon the blandishments of the great, the brilliant future which awaited him, and above all, the bewitching endearments of his home, and pressing to his heart the fond bosom which held the hope of his name and his house-to pass over the sea and place himself by the side of the deliverer of a nation! I know not if its parallel can be found in human history. Nor, although it may be an apparent departure from even the slender thread of historic narrative which I wish to maintain, still I cannot resist the temptation to cast one glance into the future, when half a century had gone by, and the young republic that first entranced him, had grown into power and glory, rose to greet him with its undying love. On the Fourth of July, 1825, the venerable Lafayette, on his last visit to America, was one of the fascinated listeners to the following magical words of Sprague, the poet-orator of the occasion, and of the country. The historic situation of the dark days we are now dwelling on, is portrayed with such matchless power and beauty, that it is far more worthy of a place in this text, than anything I could utter, or borrow from other men.

Sprague's Greeting to Lafayette in 1825.-'While we bring our offerings for the mighty of our own land, shall we not remember the chivalrous spirits of other shores, who shared with them the hour of weakness and woe? Pile to the clouds the majestic columns of glory; let the lips of those who can speak well, hallow each spot where the bones of your Bold repose; but for get not those who with your Bold went out to battle.

'Among the men of noble daring, there was One, a young and gallant stranger, who left the blushing vine-hills of his delightful France. The people whom he came to succor were not his people; he knew them only in the wicked story of their wrongs. He was no mercenary adventurer, striving for the spoil of the vanquished; the palace acknowledged him for its lord, and the valley yielded him its increase. He was no nameless man, staking life for reputation; he ranked among nobles, and looked unawed upon kings. He was no friendless outcast, seeking for a grave to hide a broken heart; he was girdled by the companions of his childhood; his kinsmen were about him; his wife was before him!

'Yet from all these he turned away. Like a lofty tree, that shakes down its green glories to battle with the winter storm, he flung aside the trappings of place and pride, to crusade for freedom, in freedom's holy land. He came -but not in the day of successful rebellion; not when the new risen sun of independence had burst the cloud of time, and careered to its place in the

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