80
nimity of feeling which drew forth the expressed admiration
of Burgoyne and his officers, had ordered all his army within his camp,
out of sight of the vanquished Britons.(1) Colonel Wilkinson, who had been
sent to the British camp, and, in company with Burgoyne, selected the place
where the troops were to lay down their arms, was the only American officer
present at the scene.(2)
The sketch here presented, of the place where the British army surrendered,
was made from one of the canal bridges at Schuylerville, looking east-northeast.
The stream of water in the fore-ground is Fish Creek, and the level ground
seen between it and the distant hills on the left is the place where the
humiliation of the Britons occurred. The tree by the fence, in the center
of the picture, designates the northwest angle of Fort Hardy, and the other
three trees on the right stand nearly on the line of the northern breast-works.
The row of small trees, apparently at the foot of the dIstant hills, marks
the course of the Hudson; and the hills that bound the view are those on
which the Americans were posted. This plain is directly in front of Schuylerville,
between that village and the Hudson. General Fellows was stationed upon
the high ground seen over the barn on the right, and the eminence on the
extreme left is the place whence the American cannon played upon the house
wherein the Baroness Reidesel and other ladies sought refuge.
As soon as the troops had laid down their arms, General Burgoyne proposed
to be introduced to General Gates. They crossed Fish Creek, and proceeded
toward headquarters, Burgoyne in front with his adjutant general, Kingston,
and his aids-de-camp, Captain Lord Petersham and Lieutenant Wilford, behind
him. Then followed Generals Phillips, Riedesel, and Hamilton, and other
officers and suites, according to rank. General Gates was informed of the
approach of Burgoyne, and with his staff met him at the head of his camp,
about a mile south of the Fish Creek, Burgoyne in a rich uniform of scarlet
and gold, and! Gates in a plain blue frock-coat. When within about a sword's
length, they reined up and halted. Colonel Wilkinson then named the gentlemen,
and General Burgoyne, raising his hat gracefully, said, "The fortune
of war, General Gates, has made me your prisoner." The victor promptly
replied, "I shall always be ready to bear testimony that it has not
1 Letter or Burgoyne to the Earl or Derby. Stedman, i.,
352. Botta, ii., 21
2 See Wilkinson.
81
been through any fault of your excellency." The other officers were
introduced in turn, and the whole party repaired to Gates's headquarters,
where a sumptuous dinner was served.(1)
After dinner the American army was drawn up in parallel lines on each
side of the road, extending nearly a mile. Between these victorious troops
the British army, with light infantry in front, and escorted by a company
of light dragoons, preceded by two mounted officers bearing the AmerIcan
flag, marched to the lively tune of Yankee Doodle. (3) Just as they passed,
the two commanding generals, who were in Gates's marquee, came out together,
and, fronting the procession, gazed upon it in silence a few moments. What
a contrast, in every particular, did the two present! Burgoyne, though possessed
of coarse features, had a large and commanding person; Gates was smaller
and far less dignified in appearance. Burgoyne was arrayed in the splendid
military trappings of his rank; Gates was clad in a plain and unassuming
dress. Burgoyne was the victim of disappointed hopes and foiled ambition,
and looked upon the scene with exceeding sorrow; Gates was buoyant with
the first flush of a great victory. Without exchanging a word, Burgoyne,
according to previous understanding, stepped back, drew his sword, and,
in the presence of the two armies, presented it to General Gates. He received
it with a courteous inclination of the head, and instantly returned it to
the vanquished general. They then retired to the marquee together, the British
army filed off and took up their line of march for Boston, and thus ended
the drama upon the heights of Saratoga.
The whole number of prisoners surrendered was five thousand seven hundred
and ninety one, of whom two thousand four hundred and twelve were Germans
and Hessians. The force of the Americans, at the time of the surrender,
was, according to a statement which General Gates furnished to Burgoyne,
thirteen thousand two hundred and twenty-two, of which number nine thousand
and ninety-three were Continentals, or regular soldiers, and four thousand
one hundred and twenty-nine were militia. The arms and ammunition which
came into the possession of the Americans were, a fine train of brass artillery,
consisting of 2 twenty-four pounders, 4 twelve pounders, 20 sixes, 6 threes,
2 eight inch howitzers, 5 five and a half inch royal howitzers, and 3 five
and a half inch royal mortars; 4 in all forty-two
1 See Wilkinson.
2 This view is taken from the turnpike, looking south. The old road was
where the canal now is, and the place of meeting was about at the point
where the bridge is seen.
3 Thatcher, in his Military Journal (p. 19), gives the following account
of the origin of the word Yank.ee and of Yankee Doodle: "A farmer of
Cambridge, Massachusetts, named Jonathan Hastings, who lived about the year
1713, used it as a favorite cant word to express excellence, as a yankee
good horse or yankee good cider. The students of the college, hearing him
use it a great deal, adopted it, and called him Yankee Jonathan; and as
he was a rather weak man, the students, when they wished to denote a character
of that kind, would call him Yankee Jonathan. Like other cant words, it
spread, and came finally tv be applied to the New Englanders as a term of
reproach. Some suppose the term to be the Indian corruption of the word
English-Yenglees, Yangles, Yankles, and finally Yankee.
" A song, called Yankee Doodle, was written by a British sergeant at
Boston, in 1775, to ridicule the people there, when the American army, under
Washington, was encamped at Cambridge and Roxbury," See "Origin
of Yankee Doodle," page 480, of this volume.
4 Two of these, drawings of which will be found on page 700, are now in
the court of the laboratory of the West Point Military Academy, on the Hudson.
82
pieces of ordnance. There were four thousand six hundred and forty-seven
muskets, and six thousand dozens of cartridges, besides shot, carcasses,
cases, shells, &c. Among the English prisoners were six members of Parliament.(1)
Contemporary writers represent the appearance of the poor German and Hessian
troops as extremely miserable and ludicrous. They deserved commiseration,
but they received none. They came not here voluntarily to fight our people;
they were sent as slaves by their masters, who received the price of their
hire. They were caught, it is said, while congregated in their churches
and elsewhere, and forced into the service. Most of them were torn reluctantly
from their families and friends; hundreds of them deserted here before the
close of the war; and many of their descendants are now living among us.
Many had their wives with them, and these helped to make up the pitiable
procession through the country. Their advent into Cambridge, near Boston,
is thus noticed by the lady of Dr. Winthrop of that town, in a letter to
Mrs. Mercy Warren, ail early historian of our Revolution: "On Friday
we heard the Hessians were to make a procession on the same route. We thought
we should have nothing to do but view them as they passed. To be sure, the
sight was truly astonishing. I never had the least idea that the creation
produced such a sordid set of creatures in human figure-poor, dirty, emaciated
men. Great numbers of women, who seemed to be the beasts of burden, having
bushel baskets on their backs, by which they were bent double. The contents
seemed to be pots and kettles, various sorts of furniture, children peeping
through gridirons and other utensils. Some very young infants, who were
born on the road; the women barefooted,.clothed in dirty rags. Such effluvia
filled the air while; they were passing, that, had they not been smoking
all the time, I should have been apprehensive of being contaminated."(2)
The whole view of the vanquished army, as it marched through the country
from Saratoga to Boston, a distance of three hundred miles, escorted by
two or three American officers and a handful of soldiers, was a spectacle
of extraordinary interest. Generals of the first order of talent; young
gentlemen of noble and wealthy families, aspiring to military renown; legislators
of the British realm, and a vast concourse of other men; lately confident
of victory and of freedom to plunder and destroy, were led captive through
the pleasant land they had cove ed, to be gazed at with mingled joy and
scorn by those whose homes they came to make desolate. " Their march
was solemn, sullen, and silent; but they were every where treated with such
humanity, and even delicacy, that they were. overwhelmed with astonishment
and gratitude. Not one insult was offered, not an opprobrious reflection
cast ;"(3)and in all their long captivity(4) they experienced the generous
kindness of a people warring only to be free.
1 Gordon, ii., 267.
2 Women of the Revolution, i., 97. 3 Mercy Warren, ii., 40.
3 Although Congress ratified the generous terms entered into by Gates with
Burgoyne in the convention at Saratoga, circumstances made them suspicious
that the terms would not be strictly complied with. They feared that the
Britons would break their parole, and Burgoyne was required to furnish a
complete roll of his army, the name and rank of every officer, and the name,
former place of abode, occupation, age, and size of every non-commissioned
officer and private soldier. Burgoyne murmured and hesitated. General Howe,
at the same time, was very illiberal in the exchange of prisoners, and exhibited
considerable duplicity. Congress became alarmed, and resolved not to allow
the army of Burgoyne to leave our shores until a formal ratification of
the convention should be made by the British government. Burgoyne alone
was allowed to go home on parole, and the other officers, with the army,
were marched into the interior of Virginia, to await the future action of
the two governments. The British ministry charged Congress with positive
perfidy, and Congress justified their acts by charging the ministers with
meditated perfidy. That this suspicion was well founded is proved by subsequent
events. In the autumn of 1778, Isaac Ogden, a prominent loyalist of New
Jersey, and then a refugee in New York, thus wrote to Joseph Galloway, an
American Tory in London, respecting an expedition of four thousand British
troops which Sir Henry Clinton sent up the Hudson a week previous: "Another
object of this expedition was to open the country for many of Burgoyne's
troops that had escaped the vigilance of their guard, to come in. About
forty of these have got safe in. If this expedition had been a week sooner,
greater part of Burgoyne's troops probably would have arrived here, as a
disposition of rising on their guard strongly prevailed, and all they wanted
to effect it was some support near at hand."
83
The surrender of Burgoyne was an event of infinite importance to the struggling
republicans. Hitherto the preponderance of success had been on the side
of the English, and only a few partial victories had been won by the Americans.
The defeat on Long Island had eclipsed the glory of the siege of Boston;
the capture of Fort Washington and its garrison had overmatched the brilliant
defense of Charleston; the defeat at Brandywine had balanced the victory
at Trenton; White Plains and Princeton were in fair juxtaposition in the
account current; and at the very time when the hostile armies at the north
were fighting for the mastery, Washington was suffering defeats in Pennsylvania,
and Forts Clinton, Montgomery, and Constitution were passing into the hands
of the royal forces. Congress had lied from Philadelphia to York, and its
sittings were in the midst of loyalists, ready to attack or betray. Its
treasury was nearly exhausted; its credit utterly so. Its bills to the amount
of forty millions of dollars were scattered over the country. Its frequent
issues were inadequate to the demands of the commissariat, and distrust
was rapidly depreciating their value in the public mind. Loyalists rejoiced;
the middlemen were in a dilemma; the patriots trembled. Thick clouds of
doubt and dismay were gathering in every part of the political horizon,
and the acclamations which had followed the Declaration of Independence.
the year before, died away like mere whispers upon the wind.
All eyes were turned anxiously to the army of the north, and upon that
strong arm of Congress, wielded, for the time, by Gates, the hopes of the
patriots leaned. How eagerly they listened to every breath of rumor from
Saratoga! How enraptured were they when the cry of victory fell upon their
ears! All over the land a shout of triumph went up, and from the furrows,
and workshops, and marts of commerce; from the pulpit, from provincial halls
of legislation, from partisan camps, and from the shattered ranks of the
chief at White Marsh, it was echoed and re-echoed. Toryism, which had begun
to lift high its head, retreated behind the defense of inaction; the bills
of Congress rose twenty per cent. in value; capital came forth from its
hiding-places; the militia readily obeyed the summons to the camp, and the
great patriot heart of America beat strongly with pulsations of hope. Amid
the joy of the moment, Gates was apotheosized in the hearts of his countrymen,
mid they
The engraving exhibits a view of both sides of the medal,
drawn the size of the original. On one side is a bust of General Gates,
with the Latin inscription, "HORATIO GATES DUCl STRENUO COMITIA AMERICANA;"
The American Congress, to Heratio Gates, the valiant leader. On the other
side, Of reverse, Burgoyne is represented in the attitude of delivering
up his sword and in the background, on either side or them, are seen the
two armies of England and America, the former laying down their arms. At
the top is the Latin inscription, "SALUS REGIONUM SEPTENTRIONAL ,"
literal English, Safety of the northern region or department. Below is the
inscription, "HOSTE AD SARATOGAM IN DEDITION, ACCEPT O DIE xvii. OCT.
MI CCLXXVII;" English, Enemy at Saratoga surrendered October 17th,
1777.
94
generously overlooked the indignity offered by him to the commander-in-chief
when he refused, in the haughty pride of his heart in that hour of victory,
to report, as in duty bound, his success to the national council through
him. Congress, too, overjoyed at the result, forgot its own dignity, and
allowed Colonel Wilkinson,(1) the messenger of the glad tidings, to stand
upon their floor and proclaim, "The whole British army have laid down
their arms at Saratoga; our own, full of vigor and courage, expect your
orders; it is for your wisdom to decide where the country may still have
need of their services." Congress voted thanks to General Gates and
his army, and decreed that he should be presented with a medal of gold,
to be struck expressly in commemoration of so glorious a victory.
This victory was also of infinite importance to the republicans on account
of its effects beyond the Atlantic. The highest hopes of the British nation,
and the most sanguine expectations of the king and his ministers, rested
on the success of this campaign. It had been a favorite object with the
administration, and the people were confidently assured that, with the undoubted
success of Burgoyne, the turbulent spirit of rebellion would be quelled,
and the insurgents would be forced to return to their allegiance.
Parliament was in session when the intelligence of Burgoyne's defeat reached
England; (December 3, 1777.) and when the mournful tidings were communicated
to that body, it instantly aroused all the fire of opposing parties.(2)The
opposition opened anew their eloquent batteries upon the ministers. For
several days misfortune had been suspected. The last arrival from America
brought tidings of gloom. The Earl of Chatham, with far-reaching comprehension,
and thorough knowledge of American affairs, had denounced the mode of warfare
and the material used against the Americans. He refused to vote for the
laudatory address to the king. Leaning upon his crutch, he poured forth
his vigorous denunciations against the course of the ministers like a mountain
torrent. " This, my lords," he said, "is a perilous and tremendous
moment! It is no time for adulation. The smoothness of flattery can not
now avail-can not save us in this rugged and awful crisis. It is now necessary
to instruct the throne in the language of truth. . . . . . . . . You can
not. I venture to say it, you can not conquer America. What is your present
situation there? We do not know the worst, but we know that in three campaigns
we have suffered much and gained nothing, and perhaps at this moment the
northern army (Burgoyne's) may be a total loss. . . . . . . . . You may
swell every expense, and every effort, still more extravagantly; pile and
accumulate every assistance you can buy or borrow; traffic and barter with
every little pitiful German prince that sells and sends his subjects to
the shambles of a foreIgn power; your efforts are forever vain and impotent;
doubly so from this mercenary aid on which you rely, for it irritates to
an incurable resentment the minds of your enemies. To overrun with the mercenary
sons of rapine and plunder, devoting them and their possessions to the rapacity
of hireling cruelty! If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while
a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms-never,
never, never !"(3)
The Earl of Coventry, Earl Temple Chatham's brother-in-law, and the Duke
of Richmond, all spoke in coincidence with Chatham. Lord Suffolk, one of
the Secretaries of State, undertook the defense of ministers for the employment
of Indians, and concluded by saying, " It is perfectly justifiable
to use all the means that God and nature have put into our hands."
This sentiment brought Chatham upon the floor. "That God and nature
put
1 James Wilkinson was born in Maryland about 1757, and,
by education, was prepared for the practice of medicine. He repaired to
Cambridge as a volunteer In 1775. He was captain of a company in a regiment
that went to Canada in 1776. He was appointed deputy adjutant general by
Gates, and, after the surrender of Burgoyne, Congress made him a brigadier
general by brevet. At the conclusion of the war he settled in Kentucky,
but entered the army in 1806, and had the command on the Mississippi. He
commanded on the northern frontier during our last war with Great Britain.
A t the age of 56 he married a young lady of 26. He died of diarrhea, in
Mexico, December 28th, 1825, aged 68 years.
2 Pitkin, i., 399.
3 Parliamentary Debates.
85
into our hands!" he reiterated, with bitter scorn. "I know not
what idea that lord may entertain of God and nature, but I know that such
abominable principles are equally abhorrent to religion and humanity. What!
attribute the sacred sanction of God and nature to the massacres of the
Indian scalping-knife, to the cannibal and savage, torturing, murdering.
roasting, and eating-literally, my lords, eating-the mangled victims of
his barbarous battles. . . . . . . . . These abominable principles, and
this most abominable avowal of them, demand most decisive indignation. I
call upon that right reverend bench (pointing to the bishops), those holy
ministers of the Gospel and pious pastors of the Church-I conjure them to
join in the holy work, and to vindicate the religion of their God."
In the Lower House, Burke, Fox, and Barre were equally severe upon the
ministers: and on the 3d of December, when the news of Burgoyne's defeat
reached London, the latter arose in his place in the Commons, and, with
a severe and solemn countenance, asked Lord George Germain, the Secretary
of War, what news he had received by his last expresses from Quebec, and
to say, upon his word of honor, what had become of Burgoyne and his brave
army. The haughty secretary was irritated by the cool irony of the question,
but he was obliged to unbend and to confess that the unhappy intelligence
had reached him, but added it was not yet authenticated.(1)
Lord
North, the premier, with his usual adroitness, admitted that misfortune
had befallen the British arms, but denied that any blame could be imputed
to ministers themselves, and proposed an adjournment of (December, 1777.)
Parliament on the 11th (which was carried) until the 20 of January.(2) It
was (1778.) a clever trick of the premier to escape the castigations which
he knew the opposition would inflict while the nation was smarting under
the goadings of mortified pride. The victory over Burgoyne, unassisted as
our troops were by foreign aid, placed the prowess of the United States
in the most favorable light upon the continent. Our urgent solicitations
for aid, hitherto but little noticed except by France, were now listened
to with respect, and the American commissioners at Paris. Dr. Franklin,
Silas Deane, (3) and Arthur Lee,(4) occupied a commanding position among
the diplomatists of Europe, France, Spain, the States General of Holland,
the Prince of Orange, and even Catharine of Russia and Pope Clement XIV.
(Ganganelli), all
1 History of the Reign of George III., i., 326.
2 Pitkin, i., 391. Annual Register: 1178, p. 14.
3 Silas Deane was a native of Groton, Connecticut. He graduated at Yale
College, 1158, and was a member of the first Congress, 1174. He was sent
to France Early in 1776, as political and commercial agent for the United
Colonies, and in the autumn of that year was associated with Franklin and
Lee as commissioner. He seems to have been unfit, in a great degree, for
the station he held, and his defective judgment and extravagant promises
greatly embarrassed Congress. He was recalled at the close of 1117. and
John Adams appointed in his place. He published a defense of his character
in 1118, and charged Thomas Paine and others connected with public affairs
with using their official influence for purposes of private gain. This was
the charge made against himself, and he never fully wiped out all suspicion.
He went to England toward the close of 1184, and died in extreme poverty
at Deal, 1789.
4 Dr. Lee was born in Virginia in 1140-a brother to the celebrated Richard
Henry Lee. He was educated at Edinburgh, and, on returning to America, practiced
medicine at Williamsburgh about five years. He went to London in 1166, and
studied law in the Temple. He kept his brother and other patriots of the
Revolution fully informed of all political matters of importance abroad,
and particularly the movements of the British ministry. He wrote a great
deal, and stood high as an essayist and political pamphleteer. He was colonial
agent for Virginia in 1115. In 1116 he was associated with Franklin and
Deane, as minister at the court of Versailles. He and John Adams were recalled
in 1119. On returning to the United States; he was appointed to offices
of trust. He died of pleurisy, December 14th, 1182, aged nearly 42.
86
of whom feared and hated England because of her increasing potency in arms,
commerce, diplomacy, and the Protestant faith, thought kindly of us and
spoke kindly to us. We were loved because England was hated; we were respected
because we could injure England by dividing her realm and impairing her
growing strength beyond the seas. There was a perfect reciprocity of service;
and when peace was ordained by treaty, and our independence was established,
the balance-sheet showed nothing against us, so far as the governments of
continental Europe were concerned.
In the autumn of 1776, Franklin and Lee were appointed, jointly with Deane.
(November.) resident commissioners at the court of amity and commerce with
with the French king. They opened negotiations early in December with the
Count De Vergennes, the premier of Louis XVI. He was distinguished for sound
wisdom, extensive political knowledge, remarkable sagacity, and true greatness
of mind. He foresaw that generous dealings with the insurgent colonists
at the outset would be the surest means of perpetuating the rebellion until
a total separation from the parent state would be accomplished-an event
eagerly coveted by the French government. France hated England cordially,
and feared her power. She had no special love for the Anglo-American colonies,
but she was ready to aid them in reducing, by disunion, the puissance of
the British empire. To widen the breach was the chief aim of Vergennes.
A haughty reserve, he knew, would discourage the Americans, while an open
reception, or even countenance, of their. deputies might alarm the rulers
of Great Britain, and dispose them to a compromise with the colonies, or
bring on an immediate rupture between France and England. A middle line
was, therefore, pursued by him. (1)
While the French government was thus vacillating during the first three
quarters of 1777, secret aid was given to the republicans, and great quantities
of arms and ammunition were sent to this country, by an agent of the French
government, toward the close of the year, ostensibly through the channel
of commercial operations.(2) But when the capture of
1 Ramsay, ii., 62, 63.
2 In the summer of 1776, Arthur Lee, agent of the Secret Committee of Congress,
made an arrangement by which the French king provided money and arms secretly
for the Americans. An agent named Beaumarehais was sent to London to confer
with Lee, and it was arranged that two hundred thousand Louis d'ors, in
arms, ammunition, and specie, should be sent to the Americans, but in a
manner to make it appear as a commercial transaction. Mr. Lee assumed the
name of Mary Johnson, and Beaumarchais that of Roderique, Hortales, &
Co. Lee, fearing discovery if he should send a written notice to Congress
or the arrangement, communicated the fact verbally through Captain Thomas
Story, who had been upon the continent in the service of the Secret Committee.
Yet, after all the arrangements were made, there was hesitation, and it
was not until the autumn of 1777 that the articles were sent to the Americans.
They were shipped on board Le Henreux, in the fictitious name of Hortales,
by the way of Cape Francois, and arrived at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on
the 1st of November of that year. The brave and efficient Baron Steuben
was a passenger in that ship.
This arrangement, under the disguise of a mercantile operation, subsequently
produced a great deal of trouble, a more minute account of which is given
in the Supplement to this work.
Beaumarchais was one of the most active business men of his time, and became
quite distinguished in the literary and political world by his "Marriage
of Figaro," and his connection with the French Revolution in 1793.
Borne, in one of his charming Letters from Paris, after describing
his visit to the house where Beaumarchais had lived, where "they now
sell kitchen salt," thus speaks of him: "By his bold and fortunate
commercial undertakings, he had become one or the richest men in France.
In the war of American liberty, he furnished, through an understanding with
the French government, supplies of arms to the insurgents. As in all such
undertakings, there were captures, shipwrecks, payments deferred or refused,
yet Beaumarchais, by his dexterity, succeeded in extricating himself with
personal advantage from all these difficulties.
" Yet this same Beaumarchais showed himself, in the (French) revolution,
as inexperienced as a child and as timid as a German closet. scholar. He
contracted to furnish weapons to the revolutionary government, and not only
lost his money, but was near losing his head into the bargain. Formerly
he had to deal with the ministers of an absolute monarchy. The doors of
great men's cabinets open and close softly and easily to him who knows how
to oil the locks and hinges. Afterward Beaumarchais had to do with honest,
in other words with dangerous people; he had not learned to make the distinction,
and accordingly he was ruined." He died in 1799, in his 70th year,
and his death, his friends suppose, was voluntary.
87
Burgoyne and his army (intelligence of which arrived at Paris by express
on the 4th of December) reached Versailles, and the ultimate success of
the Americans was hardly problematical, Louis cast off all disguise, and
informed the American commissioners, through M. Gerard, one of his Secretaries
of State, that the treaty of alliance and commerce, already negotiated,
would be ratified, and" that it was decided to acknowledge the independence
of the United States." He wrote to his uncle, Charles IV. of Spain,
urging his co-operation; for, according to the family compact of the Bourbons,
made in 1761, the King of Spain was to be consulted before such a treaty
could be ratified.(1) Charles refused to cooperate, but Louis persevered,
and in February, 1778, he acknowledged the independence of the United States,
and entered into treaties of alliance and (February 6.) commerce with them
on a footing of perfect equality and reciprocity. War against England was
to be made a common cause, and it was agreed that neither contracting party
should conclude truce or peace with Great Britain without the formal consent
of the other first obtained; and it was mutually covenanted not to lay down
their arms until the independence or the United States should be formally
or tacitly assured by the treaty or trea.ties that should terminate the
war.(2) Thus allied, by treaty, with the ancient and powerful French nation,
the Americans felt certain of success.
1 This letter of Louis was brought to light during the Revolution
of 1793. It is a curious document, and illustrates the consummate duplicity
practiced by that monarch and his ministers. Disclosing, as it does, the
policy which governed the action of the French court, and the reasons which
induced the king to accede to the wishes of the Americans, its insertion
here will doubtless bc acceptable to the reader. It was dated January 8th,
1778.
"The sincere desire," said Louis, "which I feel of maintaining
the true harmony and unity of our system of alliance, which must always
have an imposing character for our enemies, induces me to state to your
majesty my way of thinking on the present condition of affairs. England,
our common and inveterate enemy, has been engaged for three years in a war
with her American colonies. We had agreed not to intermeddle with it, and,
viewing both sides as English, we made our trade free to the one that found
most advantage in commercial intercourse. In this manner America provided
herself with arms and ammunition, of which she was destitute; I do not speak
of the succors of money and other kinds which we have given her, the whole
ostensibly on the score of trade. England has taken umbrage at these succors,
and has not concealed from us that she will be revenged sooner or later.
She has already, indeed, seized several or our merchant vessels, and refused
restitution. We have lost no t.ime on our part. We have fortified our most
exposed colonies, and placed our fleets upon a respectable footing, which
has continued to aggravate the ill humor of England.
"Such was the posture of affairs in November last. The destruction
of the army of Burgoyne and the straitened condition of Howe have lately
changed the face of things. America is triumphant and England cast down;
but the latter has still a great, unbroken maritime force, and the hope
of forming a beneficial alliance with the colonies, the impossibility of
their being subdued by arms being now demonstrated. All the English parties
agree on this point. Lord North has himself announced in full Parliament
a plan of pacification for the first session, and all sides are assiduously
employed upon it. Thus it is the same to us whether this minister or any
other be in power. From different motives they join against us, and do not
forget our bad offices. They will fall upon us in as great strength as if
the war had not existed. This being understood, and our grievances against
England notorious, I have thought, after taking the advice or my council,
and particularly that of M. D'Ossune, and having consulted upon the propositions
which the insurgents make, to treat with them, to prevent their reunion
with the mother country. I lay before your majesty my views of the subject.
I have ordered a memorial to be submitted to you, in which they arc presented
in more detail. I desire eagerly that they should meet your approbation.
Knowing the weight of your probity, your majesty will-not doubt the lively
and sincere friendship with which I am yours," &c. Quoted by Pitkin
(i., 399) from Histoire, &c., de la Diplomatique Francaise, vol. vii.
2 Sparks's Life of Franklin, 430, 433.
