with indignation. At present we may be the less revolted at it, and perhaps it may not be without utility to prepare consolation for inevitable events. Wise and happy will be that nation which shall first know how to bend to the new circumstances, and consent to see in its colonies allies and not subjects. When the total separation of America shall have healed the European nations of the jealousy of commerce, there will exist among men one great cause of war the less, and it is very difficult not to desire an event which is to accomplish this good for the human race. In our colonies we shall save many millions; and, if we acquire the liberty of commerce and navigation with all the northern continent, we shall be amply compensated. April. 1776. "The position of Spain with regard to its American possessions will be more embarrassing. Unhappily she has less facility than any other power to quit the route that she has followed for two centuries, and conform to a new order of things. Thus far she has directed her policy to maintaining the multiplied prohibitions with which she has embarrassed her commerce. She has made no preparations to substitute for empire over her American provinces a fraternal connection founded on the identity of origin, language, and manners, without the opposition of interests; to offer them liberty as a gift, instead of yielding it to force. Nothing is more worthy of the wisdom of the king of Spain and his council, than from this present time to fix their attention on the possibility of this forced separation, and on the measures to be taken to prepare for it. "It is a very delicate question to know, if we can, underhand, help the Americans to ammunition or money. There is no difficulty in shutting our eyes on their purchases in our ports; our merchants are free to sell to any who will buy of them; we do not distinguish the colonists from the English themselves; but to aid the Americans with money would excite in the English just complaints. "The idea of sending troops and squadrons into our colonies for their security against invasion must be rejected as ruinous, insufficient, and dangerous. We ought to limit ourselves to measures of caution less expensive, and less approaching to a state of hostility; to precipitate nothing unless the conduct of England shall give us reason to believe that she really thinks of attacking us. "Combining all circumstances, it may certainly be be lieved that the English ministry does not desire war, and our preparations ought to tend only to the maintenance of peace. Peace is the preference of the king of France and the king of Spain. Every plan of aggression ought to be rejected, first of all from moral reasons. To these are to be added the reasons of interest, drawn from the situation of the two powers. Spain has not in her magazines the requirements for arming ships-of-war, and cannot in time of need assemble a due number of sailors, nor count on the ability and experience of her naval officers. Her finances are not involved, but they could not suffice for years of extraordinary efforts. 1776. April. "As for us, the king knows the situation of his finances; he knows that, in spite of economies and ameliorations since the beginning of his reign, the expenditure exceeds the revenue by twenty millions; the deficit can be made good only by an increase of taxes, a partial bankruptcy, or frugality. The king from the first has rejected the method of bankruptcy, and that of an increase of taxes in time of peace; but frugality is possible, and requires nothing but a firm will. At his accession, his finances were involved, his army and navy in a state of weakness that was scarcely to have been imagined. For an unavoidable war, resources could be found; but war ought to be shunned as the greatest of misfortunes, since it would render impossible, perhaps for ever, a reform, absolutely necessary to the prosperity of the state and the solace of the people." Turgot had been one of the first to foretell and to desire the independence of the colonies, as the means of regenerating the world; his virtues made him worthy to have been the fellow laborer of Washington; but, as a minister of his country, he looked at passing events through the clear light of integrity in combination with genius. The public mind in France applied itself to improving the condition of the common people; Chastellux, in his work 1776. April. on public felicity, which was just then circulating in Paris, with the motto NEVER DESPAIR, represented as "the sole end of all government, and the universal aim of all philosophy, the greatest happiness of the greatest number;" Turgot, by his earnest purpose to restrain profligate expenditure and lighten the grievous burdens of the laboring classes, seemed called forth by Providence to prop the falling throne, and hold back the nobility from the fathomless chaos towards which they were drifting. Yet he could look nowhere for support but to the unenlightened king, who had no fixed principle, and therefore naturally inclined to distrust. Malesherbes, in utter hopelessness, resolved to retire. Maurepas, who professed, like Turgot, a preference for peace, could not conceive the greatness of his soul, and beheld in him a dangerous rival, whose activity and vigor exposed his own insignificance to public shame. The keeper of the seals, a worthless man, given up to intemperance, greedy of the public money, which without a change in the head of the treasury he could not get either by gift or by embezzlement, nursed this jealousy; and, setting himself up as the champion of the aristocracy, he prompted Maurepas to say to the king that Turgot was an enemy to religion and the royal authority, disposed to annihilate the privileges of the nobility and to overturn the state. Sartine had always supported the American policy of Vergennes, and had repeatedly laid before the king his views on the utility of the French colonies, and on the condition of India. "If the navy of France," said he, "were at this moment able to act, France never had a fairer opportunity to avenge the unceasing insults of the English. I beseech your majesty to consider that England, by its most cherished interests, its national character, its form of government, and its position, is and always will be the true, the only, and the eternal enemy of France. Sire, with England no calculation is admissible but that of her interests and her caprices; that is, of the harm that she can do us. In 1755, at a time of perfect peace, the English attacked your ships, proving that they hold nothing sacred. We have every reason to fear that, whatever may be the issue of their war with the insurgents, they will take ad vantage of their armament to fall upon your colonies or ports. Your minister would be chargeable with guilt, if he did not represent to your majesty the necessity of adopting the most efficacious measures to parry the bad faith of your natural enemies." These suggestions were received with a passive acquiescence; the king neither comprehended nor heeded Turgot's advice, which was put aside by Vergennes as speculative and irrelevant. The correspondence with Madrid continued; Grimaldi, the Genoese adventurer, who still was minister for foreign affairs, complained of England for the aid it had rendered the enemies of Spain in Morocco, in Algeria, and near the Philippine Isles, approved of sending aid clandestinely to the English colonies, and in an autograph letter, despatched without the knowledge even of the ambassadors of the two courts, promised to bear a part of the expense, provided the supplies could be sent from French ports in such a manner that the participation of the Catholic king could be disavowed. When, on the twentysixth of April, the French ministry held a conference with the Spanish ambassador, to consider the dangers that menaced the two kingdoms and the necessity of preparing for war, neither Turgot nor Malesherbes was present. Vergennes was left to pursue his own policy without obstruction; and he followed the precedent set by England during the troubles in Corsica. After a year's hesitation and resistance, the king of France, early in May, informed the king of Spain that he had resolved, under the name of a commercial house, to advance a million of French livres, about two hundred thousand dollars, towards the supply of the wants of the Americans; the Catholic king, after a few weeks' delay, assigning a false reason at his own treasury for demanding the money, and admitting no man in Spain into the secret of its destination except Grimaldi, remitted to Paris a draft for a million livres more, as his contribution. Beaumarchais, who was trusted in the American business and in eighteen months had made eight journeys to London, had been very fretful, as if the scheme 1776. May. 1776. which he had importunately urged upon the king had been censured and rejected. "I sat long in the pit," so Vergennes explained himself, "before I took a part on the stage; I have known men of all classes and of every temper of mind; in general, they all railed and found fault; and yet I have seen them in their turn commit the errors which they had so freely condemned; for an active or a passive principle, call it as you will, draws men always towards a common centre. Do not think advice rejected, because it is not eagerly adopted; all slumber is not a lethargy." The French court resolved to increase the subsidy, which was to encourage the insurgents to persevere; and, in early summer, Beaumarchais announced to Arthur Lee, at his chambers in the Temple, that he was authorized to promise the Americans assistance to the amount of two hundred thousand louis d'ors, nearly one million of dollars. |