Louis XVI, preparing for the war with England which Vergennes assured him was inevitable whether or not he aided the Americans, had ordered the Navy rebuilt and the Army re-equipped. His beloved wife had died, and his best friend Robert Morris had thrown him over because he had told the truth about Tom. He was a bosom friend of Alderman Lee and had accepted his appointment by the Adams-Lee bloc in Congress as envoy to the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Franklin and Deane co-operated with him by being very discreet about evading this prohibition, but the year which had begun so brilliantly in maritime operations was in the doldrums. The Sugar Act, was made to try and stop the smuggling of sugar and molasses. The American victory secured critical financial support from the French. His friend Sieur Montaudoin bought a great Dutch ship and named it, Silas Deane was invaluable. Therefore, by the time the American Revolution broke out in 1775, the young French King Louis XVI was eager to use this conflict to . No doubt the colonies hoarded local supplies for their own defense, and the merchants hoarded their stocks for higher prices. Like a good diplomat, he conveyed these urgent demands to the ministries in a most persuasive form, but he had already gauged the situation in the royal courts and expected no miracles. The American Revolution occurred during a period that some historians refer to as the "Second Hundred Years War" between France and Britain. Getting a fleet for Washington was high on Franklins agenda. 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. He waited until the Revenge was safely out of Dunkirk, and then he and the commissioners exchanged letters, purely to clear the record, about the necessity of France abiding by her treaties, which meant no more violations by American privateers. As for Dr. Dubourg, this bookish man was an incongruous visitor at Versailles by June of 1776, by which time he had received Franklins appointment as the French agent of his Committee of Secret Correspondence. Secret aid was no longer sufficient, he argued, for the British claimed that the policy of the Bourbons was to destroy England by means of the Americans, and America by means of the British. French King and Great Contributor to the American Revolution King Louis XVI was a great contributor to the American Revolution, sending supplies and troops to the colonies. was part of a larger war between Britain and France. Little Benny Bache would be put in school to learn French, and Temple Franklin would act as his grandfathers unpaid secretary. 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 1776, France was one of the great powers of Europe. In August, 1774, Sir Joseph Yorke, for years the British ambassador at The Hague, wrote his superior, the Earl of Suffolk: As the contraband trade carried on between Holland and North America is so well known in England I have not thought it necessary of late to trouble your Lordship with trifling details of ships sailing from Amsterdam for the British Colonies, laden with teas, linnens, etc., But now he had something serious to report: My informations says that the Polly , Captain Benjamin Broadhurst, bound to Nantucket has shipped on board a considerable quantity of gunpowder. Strengthen unity in the event of war with France in the west. He masked his powerful and subtle mind behind the benevolent simplicity which was also part of his nature. On May 3 Vergennes wrote his royal master that he proposed to call in Sieur Montaudoin of Nantes and entrust him with forwarding funds and arms to America. D.) It caused many French nobles and clergy to move to the newly independent United States. 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.. The foreign alliances of France have a long and complex history spanning more than a millennium. The British were methodical. He terrorized the towns on the east coast of England and Scotland. The Declaration of Independence served as a model for the French Revolution. Continental Congress established the Secret Committee of Correspondence to publicize the American cause in Europe. They were based on the Plan of 1776, drafted chiefly by Franklin, and they laid down his cherished, and essentially modern, principles of free trade and settled the wholly new problem of how a republic should conduct its relations with a kingdom. 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. Ironically, this was one of the key factors that caused the revolution in the first place. Monticello Guide Olivia Brown looks at Jefferson's reaction to this momentous event and the small but significant role he played in it. Since George III was violently against a war with the Bourbons these warnings disturbed him, but they did not change his fixed purpose to bully the colonies into obedience. 900 seconds. Lack of food. France, wretchedly poor at the bottom of its society and jaded and apprehensive at the top, was rushing towards its own revolution, and the violent emotions which would ruin the French Revolution were tripped off in wild demonstrations of welcome. His private period of turmoil and decision lay behind him, and he could think calmly of what must be done to make Jeffersons great charter a reality. However, over time divisions of opinion became apparent between federalists and anti-federalists. Native American groups had to choose the loyalist or patriot causeor somehow maintain a neutral stance during the Revolutionary War. The next day the Crown Council decided to conclude the alliance, and Vergennes rushed word to Passy that France would carry out her secret agreement of December 17 and fight at Americas side until her independence was won. During this period of watchful waiting, Franklin applied political pressure. Inequality of Rights. Dr. Bancroft was an old friend of Franklins from his London days. The royal loan was followed by an advance of a third million by the Farmers General of the French Revenue, who administered the government monopoly of tobacco and hoped for large shipments from Congress. It was a long time before this contract with the Farmers General could be satisfied, since few ships could now run the British blockade of the American seaboard. America, Franklin retorted, is ready to fight fifty years to win it.. Deanes griefs were personal. With a fur cap on his unwigged gray head, Franklin took up his studies of the Gulf Stream where he had dropped them on his voyage home from England. This required certain arrangements in the ports of France. This theft was not discovered until the pouch was opened in America and proved to contain nothing but the blank paper substituted by Hynson. As such is their miserable policy, it is our business to force on a war for which purpose I see nothing so likely as fitting our privateers from the ports and islands of France. During the American Revolution, the American colonies faced the significant challenge of conducting international diplomacy and seeking the international support it needed to fight against the British. 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. The conversation continued with this sort of exchange, and Franklin kept it going for two hours. He was to evoke this nightmare more than once, but it never lost its effect. According to Doniol, Franklin dealt through Sieur Montaudoin of Nantes, a great shipping merchant, and the savant Dr. Jacques Barbeu-Dubourg. Nobody could find the prizes, which had been sold. This cat and mouse game was only part of the new turn in French policy. In this first interview the minister was lifted out of his discouragement by Franklins solid faith in the American destiny, and by his understanding of the whole European complex which made him able to suggest the right move at the right time rather than chimerical impossibilities. In mortal terror of discovery, Bancroft was always called Edwards or some other cover name in the secret files, and even in private conferences with Wentworth and Lord Stormont. After the scheme had been put into effect they explained the mechanism to their committee: For though the fitting out [of an American vessel in a French port] may be covered and concealed by various pretenses, so at least to be winked at by the Government here yet the bringing in of prizes by a vessel so fitted out is so notorious an act, and so contrary to treaties, that if suffered must cause an immediate war.. Lord Stormont, the British ambassador, had been sputtering at Vergennes for two years about the shipping of contraband from French ports, and now he raised such a storm that the minister had to forbid the sailing of one Hortalez vessel after the other. With great fanfare Lee proposed to make Prussia a second France. A sensible man would have liquidated Hortalez & Company at once. America needed French aid of every sort: ships, supplies, loans, to begin with. This was amazing enough; France had broken through the limits of her ostensible neutrality and was allowing Martinique to become a base of war against Britain. The estimate means little, for the British were slow in discovering the tremendous scope of the activities abetted by Vergennes. Bancroft belonged to the American patriot group in London and wrote able papers defending the cause of the thirteen colonies. It encouraged the French to adopt the government system of popular sovereignty. (The third captain of that cruise was staying behind to take out one of the new American frigates built at Nantes.) The Secret Committee, dominated by the capable merchant Robert Morris, methodized the smuggling of war supplies from Europe, which had been going on for years. 2. Franklins experiment had been a complete success in the laboratory sense; the sea raids had brought England and France to the verge of war. But once these two great steps in the right direction were made, it was easy to push through resolutions for negotiating foreign alliances. This move had been made after Franklin left Philadelphia, and the bad news would not reach Paris for months. The Doctor, instead of staying with the Montaudoins, allowed himself to be captured by people he disliked. Beaumarchais wrote masterly letters to Louis XVI, arguing that with timely secret help from France the Americans would win their war and clip Britains wings. Before he left Philadelphia Franklin had written with Morris certain instructions for Captain Wickes: he was to cruise against the British in their home waters, and bring his prizes into a French port. Revolutionaries were inspired by the ideals of the Enlightenment including individual freedom. The French and Indian War was the North American conflict that was part of a larger imperial conflict between Great Britain and France known as the Seven Years' War. It meant only the familiar rite of changing the property on paper. France aided the colonists by providing military armaments and loans. took place in France and India. It had only an overworked legislature trying to perform administrative functions. However, Izard and Arthur Lee let no day pass without earnest efforts, and on January 2, 1781, a move was made in Congress for Franklins recall. Robert Morris had arranged Toms appointment under the delusion that the youth had reformed during a long stay abroad and was to be trusted with the public business. At the same time he yearned to be a statesman like Franklin. Besides, five British warships blockaded the harbor. Vergennes sensed that the benign old Doctor was ready to fence with naked steel, that he perfectly realized France was playing the old game of power rivalry, and that he would co-operate in the gameup to a pointto keep France as an ally. Franklin labored incessantly to get prisoners exchanged in the time-honored way, with only partial success. The Doctor was adept at working through trusted friends, and his friends were legion.