how did the french alliance contribute to the american revolution

By early 1775 the British embassy in France estimated that war supplies worth 32,000,000 livres (about $6,000,000) had been shipped from that kingdom to the colonies. He was the mutant of a new species. American colonists hoped for possible French aid in their struggle against British forces. On January 6 Wentworth was closeted for two hours with Franklin and Deane, having stipulated that Arthur Lee was to be excluded. A week later she was halfway out of the harbor when a British sloop and cutter were sighted. It turned out that the French warships had been sent with orders to protect not only the islands of Louis XVI, but also any American vessels in the area. He had a large family and expensive tastes, and needed and loved money. In 1758 Britain found a new strategy. The French Revolution was a momentous historical event that set enduring patterns for modern revolutionary movements and for much of modern politics in general. He radiated reassurance like one of his own stoves; the warmth and charm of his personality masked his Merlin powers. Tobacco and rice, strictly reserved to England, were now rushed across the Atlantic to Amsterdam or Lorient and exchanged for cannon, powder, teas, and other goods which Americans could not do without. France's Debt Problems. American morale was so low that only the immediate entrance of France into the war could put heart into the country. His emotional balance was precarious. He supported his private investment in the American future by using his fleet of a dozen ships for Caribbean trade on the return voyage to France, and this sugar trade brought him profits to invest in more goods for America. The Committee of Secret Correspondence, under Franklin, engaged agents abroad to explore the possibilities of foreign alliances. His friend Sieur Montaudoin bought a great Dutch ship and named it Benjamin Franklin . Contemporaries experienced the French Revolution as a set of interlocking changes or stages that seemed driven by some kind of mechanism or impetus. The American Revolution had a multifaceted effect in France, extending the national debt, contributing . The great powers seemed less inclined than ever to begin their war. First, they provided the colonists with many of the supplies they needed and with a great deal of money. George III, faced with plain warnings from Bancroft and Wentworth that a French alliance was pending, would not believe them. His friend Sieur Montaudoin bought a great Dutch ship and named it, Silas Deane was invaluable. Vergennes decided that honor was preferable to peace, faced down an ultimatum from England, and got the two Navy ships safely to sea, where they would have to take their chances with the British warships waiting for them. French forces under Rochambeau landed at Rhode Island in 1780, which they fortified before linking up with Washington in 1781. took place in France and India. Deane arranged to meet Wentworth at dinner a day or so later, and Franklin took care to tell the minister what was afoot. The trouble with Silas Deane was tragically simple: he was never quite sure who he was. Plainly neither side wanted to start hostilities, and they had perfected a system for avoiding a rupture. Vergennes sent an agent, Achard de Bonvouloir, to Philadelphia to sound out Franklin about the prospects of a separation from England and a successful war. Timeline of the Revolution - American Revolution (U.S. National Park The fact is that Congress had little authority over the coloniesit managed to adopt the Army, but the Continental Navy was a bitter joke. It encouraged the French to adopt the government system of popular sovereignty. Continental Congress established the Secret Committee of Correspondence to publicize the American cause in Europe. The only source for salt during the war was the Turks Islands beds at the tail of the Bahama chain, long a Bermudian monopoly. Spain had ceased her royal aids to America. Gardoqui proposed a sensible solution: he and the retiring foreign minister, Grimaldi, would arrange a secret rendezvous just across the border, and Lee would not enter Spain at all. Like the first conflict of that name, it was a period of intermittent warfare and political and economic rivalry between the two powers. He wrote Lord North that the agent has shewn great zeal and dispatch in the business he had so handsomely undertaken and ably accomplished.. France recalls its ambassadors to the US and Australia over new - CNN answer choices. The Stamp Act riots were noisy on the land, but the seas were quiet and busy. With British warships on the prowl the voyage was dangerous, but Franklin had brought his grandsons along. Which French foreign minister and supporter of American independence convinced the French king to form an alliance with the Patriots? He burned some and sent others to America, the West Indies, or whatever theater of war seemed to need their cargoes most. For diplomatic reasons, he always pretended a vast ignorance of Hortalez & Companya feat like hiding an elephant in a hat. Finally the almost moribund Board of Trade and Plantations was given the assignmentwhich doubtless proved profitableof issuing permits to merchants wishing to export warlike stores. He made for the English Channel, where he took four small merchantmen, which he sent to Lorient under prize masters. To formalize the colonial complaints against Parliament. But Beaumarchais had already outlined his plan for Hortalez & Company in a memoir to the King, and he persuaded Vergennes that this was the perfect device for concealing the Bourbon conspiracy against Britain. And Spanish concurrence in the alliance must be won. Late in October, 1776, Benjamin Franklin sailed for France to direct the foreign sector of the extraordinary war into which his young country had been plunged. They were the victims of their friends in Congress, who believed in promiscuous diplomacy as a device for distributing patronage. Deane, Carmichael, and Jonathan Williams were on the watch for daring and trustworthy captains for Admiral Franklins strategic naval force. The port records were similarly camouflaged. There was nothing to do but restore the packet and the brig to England and order the arrest of Conyngham and his crew. But he was too late. Franklin remembered the bitter crisis of the summer when Louis XVI had agreed to armed intervention and then had capitulated to his uncle. This well-connected young man had been sent direct from Congress to buy two ships to serve as packets for the mission. The French Revolution (1789-1799) - SparkNotes He had high connections at the court, which did not at all disapprove his heavy shipments of arms to American merchants, and later he was appointed ambassador to the United States. In this desperate situation a few individuals took over as heads of non-existent departments. Part 2 focuses on the French land and naval forces that assisted the U.S. in combating the British military. In November 1789, Richard Price . Despite having little experience in commanding large, conventional military forces, his leadership presence and fortitude held the American military together long enough to secure victory at Yorktown and independence for his new nation in 1781. By the summer of 1777 Arthur Lee openly accused Deane and Beaumarchais of appropriating 200,000 which he said the Bourbons had intended as a free gift to America. At Passy Bancroft was a loved and trusted figure, and Vergennes so admired him that after the war he sent Bancroft on a highly confidential mission to Ireland. It is true that these countries, and to some extent Spain, had for some time been shipping out contraband for America, mostly through their Caribbean islands. After the Seven Years' War, Britain found itself in about twice as much debt . That formality over, Vergennes was ready for his great move. They were sure that the men who were shouldering the executive functions of a nonexistent Administration were in the wrong: Washington, Franklin, Morris, Deane, John Jay, and their hardheaded allies. Affairs at Nantes became more and more tangled, and William Lee did nothing to straighten them out. First these navies quarreled head-on, in the English Channel and then in the entirety of the Atlantic Ocean, in a war of escorts. Vergennes may never have realized what had happened during that fateful year of 1777. American Reaction to the French Revolution - ThoughtCo For the first time since Britain was a maritime power, Deane wrote Morris, the River Thames and others of its ports were crowded with French and other ships taking in freight, in order to avoid the risk of having property captured.. Much of the maddening delay in dispatching the ships was caused by Vergennes. He had spent years in Surinam and was an expert on tropical plants; he had written a natural history of Guiana and perfected new vegetable dyes for cloth. Early in 1774 Franklin had written from London to a friend at home that he wished Americans might know what we are and what we have. After much private groping and anguish he had discovered what he was: not a colonial American, but that new man, an American. Williams, now 27, had been trained in the Caribbean trade; he spoke French and was capable of dealing with accounts, which always baffled his granduncle. This was interesting; evidently the expected overture from England was at hand. Between 1775 and 1825, revolutions across the Americas and Europe changed the maps and governments of the Atlantic world. That was its only point; Vergennes would soon learn of this long interview with the British representative, and he might be worried if Franklin neglected to tell him anything about it. Vergennes would promise to investigate the matter, which meant that Stormont had lost a point. By 1763, France had suffered a crushing defeat in the Seven Years' War (more commonly called the "French and Indian War" in the U.S.), losing all its claims to mainland Canada and the Louisiana Territory. The sacred British mails were rushed down to Passy, and then the storm broke at Versailles. When hostilities first erupted, the crown did . Lord North had instructed him to explore the possibility of a truce on terms short of independence, and William Eden had given him an unsigned letter to show Franklin and Deane (the British too avoided Arthur Lee) which declared that England was ready to make great concessionsshort of independence. Milestones: 1776-1783 - Office of the Historian But before this blackout settled down Congress managed to get dispatches through, which in effect begged Franklin to manage his side of the desperate crisis as he saw fit. They were in the best possible hands; Captain Lambert Wickes was one of the few masters seasoned in the merchant fleet who had joined the Continental Navy. A number of ill-advised financial maneuvers in the late 1700s worsened the financial situation of the already cash-strapped French government. Lying close to British, Danish, French, and Spanish islands, Statia, as she was known to her friends, had for generations offered European goods at bargain rates, and arms to any enemy of Britain. He had come to the point where he must drop his perilous but always enjoyable collaboration with Franklin and play for France alone. The Role of France in the American Revolutionary War - ThoughtCo After France entered on February 6th, 1778 in the American Revolutionary War, the British naval force - master of the seas - and French fleet confronted each other from the beginning. In 1776, France was one of the great powers of Europe. The romantic era of secret aid was finished; there would be no more subsidies and loans from Versailles, and his company was already in financial straits. There was no mention of payment. It was a delusion that cost him and the country dear and brought no profit to Tom Morris. His new cutter, the Revenge , had been bought by William Hodge of Philadelphia, who had also obtained Conynghams first ship. However, Franklin was a wizard at intrigue, and many secrets lie with him in the Christ Church burying ground. The fact that he was a genius, and a genius of such multiple gifts that he might easily inspire alarm or jealousy in others, had early taught him the art of using screens and disguises. It was run, personally and in great detail, by George III himself, who spent hours reading the reports of agents scattered over America, the West Indies, and Europe. No peace would be made except by the general consent. He made this gesture impressive by sending two sloops of war to Dunkirk to take the captain and his men and deliver them to the local jail. Franklin knew that Vergennes, who for years had befriended America, would scuttle her the instant she ceased to serve his purpose. Arguably the key French contribution to the war came during the Yorktown campaign. Through English friends Franklin raised funds to give the prisoners warm clothes and blankets, food, a chance to bathe and wash their clothes, and spending money for small comforts. Both men were in Franklins confidence, and they worked closely with Vergennes. During 1775, in London on a royal errand, he was in close touch with the American patriots. Deane was in and out of the Passy house, keeping his hotel quarters for business and the entertaining of transient sea captains and a horde of friends. But Bancroft was in the most strategic position of any informer, and his conduct at Passy was mysterious. Compare And Contrast The American Revolution And French Revolution. It is the House of Crommelin at Amsterdam which is chiefly concerned in this trade with the Colonies, tho some others have their share., In later reports Sir Joseph drew such an alarming picture of Dutch gunrunning, especially to the Caribbean, that the British sent a Navy sloop and cutter to spend the winter at Texel Island near Amsterdam. Meanwhile, Grard warned, the negotiations must be kept secret. He was also making them a gift of 375,000 livres. With economic law as a lever he got Congress to open trade with the whole world, Great Britain excepted, three months before independence was ratified. France in the American Revolution | American Battlefield Trust Bancroft had sped to London, mainly to make a killing on the stock market, but he would not fail to bring George III the bad news. Hundreds of privateers were at their work of economic attrition, wearing down Britains strength by blows against her merchant shipping. Yet Franklin had a high opinion of the human race and lofty hopes for his particular segment of it. From May, 1777, to May, 1778, Congress would receive no direct word from its mission in Paris. The small matter was to be Conynghams capture of another British packet, this time the one plying to Holland. The providence which was evidently favoring the American cause got the rest of the fleet safely to the mainland except the Seine , which the British captured after she had unloaded part of her cargo on Martinique. But he had met Deane, and wrote him asking for a rendezvous, hinting that he had come to promote peace. Later Congress backed up this pledge and authorized all tenders necessary to get Bourbon help. Since Wentworth often slipped across to Paris, much of Bancrofts information could be delivered verbally, but he made a weekly report in writing. He had made Saratoga possible. Because the future could somehow work in him he had become the sort of man coming generations would repeat. All that was needed was to add up the amount of money the mission had received, and then tell the Adams-Lee bloc in Congress that Franklin and Deane had stolen it. In order to make the war effective he reminded Vergennes of things Vergennes could do for the Bourbon cause: release the Hortalez ships, foster the American trade, and lend Congress money. A young girl began having strange fits. Arthur Lee, who would have ruined the secret project if he had been in Paris to interfere with it, was busy elsewhere. France had 26 battleships ready, and by spring Spain would have thirty. How did the three estates contribute to the revolutionary mood in He was free for a time to be the scientist, finding in nature a fidelity to laws beyond the reach of human meddling. On July 14 a mob stormed the Bastille prison in Paris looking for arms to protect itself from the king's forces. She was starting out as a beggar at the court of Versailles, and she would have to keep on begging until the war was over. A new nation had emerged, and in time each individual would realize his new identity. He wrote home that in the fighting there had been good order and readiness equal to anything of the kind in the best ships of the kings fleet.. The first diplomatic exchange between the United States and a foreign power was highly personal: Franklin and Vergennes sizing each other up. The colonies needed these things . But Deane was not interested; he showed great American pride, Wentworth wrote Eden. The Doctor was adept at working through trusted friends, and his friends were legion. France did not wait for the announcement of July Fourth. France and the American Revolution. Explain the purpose of a colonial stamp tax, how it would be implemented and which people or groups it would affect. Vergennes had answered, Nous ne d sirons pas la guerre, mais nous ne la craignons pas. In sending on this encouraging word to Congress, Franklin added his own hopes about the Franco-British war: When all are ready for it, a small matter may suddenly bring it on.. The destinations given were usually French ports on the Channel, and the ostensible purpose was the sudden enormous need for arms in the French slave trade. In March the Doctor was given a charming house at Passy on the grounds of the Htel Valentinois, which belonged to the merchant prince Donatien le Rey de Chaumont. It could not supply Washington gunpowder in 1775 nor cope with the enlarging task of war procurement. Vergennes himself could not have stated the Bourbon feelings about Britain more accurately. Franklin enjoyed the brief engagements. The choice of Washington as commander in chief of the military forces of all the colonies followed immediately upon the first fighting, though it was by no means inevitable and was the product of partly artificial forces. Conyngham shook them off and began the most spectacular cruise of the war. Somehow the wild Irishman, repeating the maneuver of the sound and sober Wickes, created an infinitely greater reaction. The Declaration of Independence served as a model for the French Revolution. The Bahamas, too, acted as allies. A smuggling mechanism had long since been perfected, to the general salvation. And the French people, cheering in the streets and squares, were as proud of Saratoga, he wrote home, as if it had been a Victory of their own Troops over their own Enemies.. It happened that Americas greatest Spanish friend, the merchant Don Diego Gardoqui of Bilbao, was in Madrid at the moment, and he was called into consultation. But he had not reckoned on the reversal of Spanish policy. Vergennes, on that December day of jubilation, did some cooler thinking of his own and rightly guessed that the British would try to effect a conciliation with the Americans before they won any more campaigns. But the harm had been done. By September, 1775, the crusader was back in Versailles, and with Vergennes intensified the campaign to draw the King into their dangerous project of largescale aid to the colonies. The greatest suppressed scandal of the war was the British trade with the enemy on Statia. During the struggle for American independence, France provided the money, troops, armament, military leadership, and naval support that tipped the balance of military power and paved the way for the Continental Army's ultimate victory. The American Revolution and the French Alliance - Navy As a weapon of war the British secret service was remarkably effective. Stormont subsided; England needed time too. However, the Grand Duke was not receiving Mr. Izard or any American, so he remained in Paris near William Lee, who had been similarly repulsed by two courts: Vienna and Berlin. Franklin and Deane were at the top of that long list. Arthur Lees secretary, Major John Thornton, was not only British but British secret service. Two revolutions, both taking place in the 18th Century, both world-changing. Shipping was at a premium; in the last year the price of vessels had tripled. father of philippine opera; carver high school columbus, ga football roster; robert cabal cause of death; . These three phases reveal an orderly progression in Franklins mind. Ironically, this was one of the key factors that caused the revolution in the first place. France aided the colonists by providing military armaments and loans. It caused many French nobles and clergy to move to the newly independent United States. (One factor, the actual fighting on land, would make up the bulk of future histories. Congress had little to do with Americas maritime war, which was a tremendous undertaking. The American people had shown their power. This kept him out of personal debates and increased his potential. Independence Lost: Lives on the Edge of the American Revolution. France and Great Britain were cutthroat enemies. Franklin had already urged that France and Spain conclude treaties of amity and commerce with the United States, and his letter went farther, offering these powers a firm guarantee of their present possessions in the West Indies, plus any new islands they conquered in a war growing out of their aid to the United States. A.) Franklin and Deane now wrote the committee urging action in every sea where British carried on commerce. George III now realized that the purpose behind the Wickes and Conyngham raids was to stir him up against France, which only increased his fury. American victory over the British in the Battle of Saratoga convinced the French that the Americans were committed to independence and worthy partners to a formal alliance. It did contribute to the huge French debt that was the root cause of the French Revolution by accepting Military and economic assisstance from France during the American Revolution. Thus he was the perfect performer in maritime histrionics that Franklin needed for his plan of implicating France in a conspicuous insult to England. Since the previous summer he had had the invaluable help of an unpaid deputy, William Carmichael. England registered the expected sense of outrage; the whole country seethed with the news. France is one of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO) top five troop contributors. Americans, for instance, were forbidden to trade directly with foreign countries or with the foreign islands of the Caribbean, except in a few commodities which could be sold under cumbersome and expensive restrictions. As Americas sole diplomat Franklin had done all that one man could do to influence the ministries of Europe. As the French Revolution was inspired by the American Revolution, it is easy to determine that the two must have similarities. In 1782, Benjamin Franklin rejected informal peace overtures from Great Britain for a settlement that would provide the thirteen states with some measure of autonomy within the British Empire. One traditional characteristic of the French diplomacy of alliances has been the "Alliance de revers" (i.e. Hodge was not released until the last of the fishing fleet was safely home in France. For the rest of the war she ran salt to the mainland, refused to privateer against the Americans, and built for them her superb sloops. He raided in the North Sea and the Baltic; he sailed around England and then around Ireland, everywhere taking prizes. Accordingly, the Doctor held his peace. Nor had Vergennes, who was extremely cool in his calculations. But he was quite happy to spend the year of 1777 in the humbler role of itinerant trouble shooter in the French ports. Lack of food. The chief results of the mission were the snuffing out of Prussia as a potential ally, and the theft of Lees papers by a professional burglar hired by the British ambassador. America could fight only her own sort of war on the seas, and this had started before Lexington and would continue long after Yorktown. All this was excruciating, since Lee had trumpeted in letters home that he had the ministry and Hortalez in his pocket. He went back to London in a fury. It curtailed foreign trade at the moment when the country, which produced almost nothing useful in war, most needed to increase imports. But if she should declare war on France, we conceive that by the united force of France, Spain, and America, she will lose all her possessions in the West Indies, much the greatest part of that commerce which has rendered her so opulent, and be reduced to that state of weakness and humiliation which she has, by her perfidy, her insolence, and her cruelty both in the east and the west, so justly merited.. He had put up for a long time with colonial violations of the trading laws, but when the Boston Tea Party made him look ridiculous, George III precipitated the war. He had never outgrown some early drive to make the blacksmiths son a great gentleman. On the last day of the year the bad news arrived from Spain: Charles III was unwilling to enter an alliance with America. Bancroft was still the mission confidant at Passy; certain Americans who sat at Deanes dinner table reported on ship movements to the British secret service, and Captain Joseph Hynson, who happened to be Lambert Wickess stepbrother, stole an entire pouch of dispatches intended for Congress, which contained all the secret correspondence between the mission and the French ministry for the last eight months. Therefore, by the time the American Revolution broke out in 1775, the young French King Louis XVI was eager to use this conflict to . The result of this conflict would not only determine the fate of the thirteen North American colonies, but also alter the balance of colonial power throughout the world.

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