footed "and otherwise naked" (Sparks' Washington, vol. v, p. 197-203), while many were in the hospitals and farm houses wanting clothes and shoes (ibid.). So desperate was the situation that General Huntington preferred fighting to starving, his brigade being out of provisions, while General Varnum, quoting the saying of Solomon that "hunger will break through a stone wall," added, "three days successively we have been destitute of bread; two days we have been entirely without meat. must be supplied or they cannot be commanded." (Ibid., p. 193).

The men

This condition of his severely-tried army Washington represented to Congress eloquently and repeatedly; practically that body did nothing to remedy the evil, but on the other hand suggested the propriety of attacking Philadelphia, while an expedition of 1,000 men was, against Washington's judgment, detached for an invasion of Canada; an expedition abundantly supplied with commanders in the persons of three major-generals, but unfortunately lacking in such necessary military details as food, clothing, and transportation (Bancroft, vol. IX, chap. 27). The financial condition of the country was in harmony with the physical condition of the army, and the issue of eight and one-half millions of paper money caused an enormous depreciation in the value of the currency, increased the feeling of financial insecurity, and necessarily impaired the credit of the Government. The army was small, insufficiently fed, paid, and clad; before them was a strong, rich, and prosperous enemy; the Government was weak, the currency suspected, while disaffection, discontent, and jealousy were prevalent among the highest officers.

Such was the close of the year 1777 at home. Hardy, determined, patriotic, self-sacrificing as the sturdy revolutionists were, probably some way would have been found out of these apparently overwhelming misfortunes; how, no one at that time could possibly foresee. Relief was, however, after weary waiting, to come from a quarter where it had long been expected with hope constantly deferred.

Franklin had early established indirect and secret relations with the court of France through his friend Dumas, a Swiss man of letters residing chiefly in Holland, who was a devoted adherent of the American cause, and who early advised an alliance with France and Spain, it being to their interest that the United States should be independent of England, "whose enormous maritime power [filled] them with apprehensions." In 1776 Silas Deane was sent out as a political agent, and he soon opened secret and informal relations with the French department of foreign affairs. He could not succeed in obtaining from France any open action, but his purchase of munitions of war and supplies, and his many other acts in direct violation of strict neutrality were permitted, winked at, and encouraged. He was told that it was for the interest of both countries "to have the most free and uninterrupted intercourse," but that, the understanding with Britain being good, there could not be recognition of the shipping of military supplies and stores.

Practically in this condition did matters remain after the arrival of the commissioners, Franklin and Lee, although they also constantly pressed the argument contained in the instructions to Deane, namely:-France is the country it is fittest for us to obtain and cultivate; the commercial advantages Britain has enjoyed with the colonies have greatly contributed to her wealth and importance; a great part of that commerce will fall to

France, especially, and (here is the key of the negotiation) if she favors us now, for our trade is rapidly increasing, our population is rapidly increasing, we are waxing strong and rich, with a great future before us, why not step in now, even at the cost of war with England, a war which under any circumstances you momentarily expect.

French popular sentiment was with us, but to the popular clamor, delicately excited by the astute diplomacy of Franklin and his colleagues, was opposed the clear and calm judgment of the King's advisers, men who conceived it their duty to obtain for their master every advantage possible from the struggling colonies at the least possible expense and risk. Supplies and stores were furnished but the assistance was not acknowledged; munitions of war found their way across the Atlantic while the fact was denied to England, and, although some of these very supplies came from the arsenals of the Government, that fact even was denied to our own representatives who had forwarded them, and who, as matter of course, knew as much of the transaction as the minister who permitted and disavowed it. Day after day without tiring did Dumas, Deane, Franklin, and Lee press for open action on the part of France. Steadily did they receive promises and secret aid but always were they postponed as to the great step which should produce France openly to the world as the ally of the colonies and the avowed enemy of England. Before the eyes of Count Vergennes was successfully dangled the bait of a practically exclusive share in American commerce, but still he hoped to secure this advantage without an open rupture with England.

In this condition did matters rest until the news arrived of Burgoyne's defeat. This news which reached France early in December, 1777, "apparently occasioned as much general joy as if it had been a victory of their own troops over their own enemies." (The Commissioners to Committee on Foreign Affairs, Paris, December 18, 1777). The negotiations instantly took so long a stride forward that before the 18th of December it was decided to conclude a treaty of amity and commerce, the King becoming fixed in his determination to acknowledge and support the independence of the colonies by every means in his power. Nothing could be more generous and liberal than the whole tone and manner of the French negotiation from this time. Once decided and committed as to the policy of openly supporting the colonies, there were no half-spirited measures, no halting at petty details, no discussion of unimportant trifles, but a generous and open support; nevertheless, it was not until Gates's victory at Saratoga had seemed to turn the tide of events, and while still in ignorance of the want and suffering at Valley Forge, that this action so vital to the future of the American Republic was taken. The war for independence was with the assistance of France prosecuted to a successful issue, and at Yorktown the surrender of Cornwallis was made to the combined armies of Washington and Rochambeau under the guns of the fleet of De Grasse.

This brief view of the situation, rehearsing, as it does, details of most familiar history, is only of importance as it relates to what may be called sentimental points made in the argument. The treaties of 1778 were made in obedience to a popular demand in France; they were made for a consideration then deemed valuable by France, and at a moment which then seemed opportune to France; but they came to us when the tide was

apparently turning against us and the aid they promised was generously given us.

The 30th day of November, 1782, provisional articles of peace acknowledging the thirteen former colonies "to be free and independent" were signed at Paris by the representatives of the United States and Great Britain; the 20th of January, 1783, a cessation of hostilities was declared, and the 3d of September, 1783, the definitive treaty of peace was concluded. France had thus given the major portion of the consideration offered by her for the contract of 1778, and the United States were free sovereign and independent, as she had stipulated they should be.

The treaties of 1778 were two in number, that of "alliance," the one of most immediate, and, in fact, at the time, of absolutely vital importance to the United States; and that of "amity and commerce." "While separate instruments, they were concluded upon the same day, were the result of the same negotiation, signed by the same plenipotentiaries, and are, in diplomatic effect, one instrument. The treaty of alliance, after referring to its companion, the treaty of commerce, states that the two powers "have thought it necessary to take into consideration the means of strengthening the engagements therein made," and of "rendering them useful to the safety and tranquillity of the two parties; particularly in case Great Britain, in resentment of that connection, * * * should break the peace with France, either by direct hostilities or by hindering her commerce and navigation in a manner contrary to the rights of nations and the peace subsisting between the two crowns;" and the two powers resolving in such case to join against the common enemy determined upon the treaty, which provided that if war should break out between France and Great Britain during the war for American independence, each party should aid the other, according to the exigencies, as good and faithful allies; that the essential end of the alliance, called a "defensive" alliance, was the "liberty, sovereignty, and independence, absolute and unlimited, of the United States."

Provision was also made for a possible conquest of Canada, Bermuda, and the islands in the Gulf of Mexico, and each party was forbidden to conclude a truce or peace with Great Britain without the consent of the other. It was further agreed that neither should lay down arms until the independence of the United States was assured by treaties terminating the war. No claim was to be made by one against the other for compensation, whatever the result, and then came the guarantee, out of which afterwards arose so serious complications, national and international, which not only drove our country, weak and exhausted from seven years' strife, to the verge of war, but also stirred up at home a bitter political contest, carried even into the intimacy of a President's Cabinet.

These stipulations are contained in the eleventh and twelfth articles, whereby each party guaranteed "forever against all other powers”—first, the United States to France: all the possessions of France in America as well as those it might acquire by any future treaty of peace; second, France to the United States: "their liberty, sovereignty, and independence absolute and unlimited," together with their possessions and their additions or conquests made from Great Britain during the war. Such, in substance, was the treaty of alliance; it has never been contended so far.

as known to us that France did not fulfill the requirements which this instrument imposed upon her during our contest with Great Britain.

The provisions of the other agreement, the treaty of commerce, of importance in this case (alluding to them briefly) required protection of merchantmen; required ships of war or privateers, of the one party to do no injury to the other; and provided especial, purely exceptional, and exclusive privileges by each party to the other as to ships of war and privateers bringing prizes into port.

The treaty of alliance was not one-sided, for it imposed upon the United States a possible duty and burden in the fulfillment of the guarantee of French possessions in America "forever" against all other powers. This issue was presented without delay. The French revolution began; in 1793 the King was beheaded, when France was instantly brought face to face with the powers of Europe, and her possessions in America were soon wrested from her.

HISTORY OF THE SPOLIATIONS.

England was in the vanguard of the war, and concluded twenty-three treaties with her allies, in which they agreed to starve out the common enemy. To this end was it stipulated that all the ports should be shut against France; that no provisions should be permitted to be exported to France, and that these measures should be continued and others employed for the purpose of injuring French commerce and to bring that nation to just conditions of peace. (Treaty between Great Britain and Prussia, July 14, 1793.) The animus of the alliance is further shown in the instruction of the Czar, who directed his admiral, in fulfillment of stipulations with Great Britain, to prevent the French from receiving supplies, and to that end to seize all French vessels and to send back to their own ports all neutral vessels bound to France, stating that while these measures were not "strictly conformable to the natural laws of war" they were justifiable when employed against "those arrant villains, who have overturned all duties observed towards God, the laws, and the Government; who have even gone so far as to take the life of their own sovereign."

All Europe, except Sweden and Norway, was now arrayed against the new Republic in a bitterness of warfare scarcely with parallel, and which openly descended to an attempt to starve the French people into submission through an attack upon neutral commerce; a course admittedly unjustified by the laws of war. Naturally France looked to the United States for aid, relying upon the pledge of the treaty of 1778, and the assistance rendered us in our scarcely-concluded struggle by her fleet, armies and treasury.

The commercial relations between France and the United States were already most unsatisfactory. Exceptional favors granted the United States in 1787 and 1788 (1 Foreign Relations, pp. 113-116) had been withdrawn and the equality upon which French and British vessels were put in our ports had excited jealousy. "No exceptional advantages had come to France from the war of the revolution, and American commerce had reverted to its old British channels." (Treaties and Conventions, &c., Bancroft Davis, p. 985.)

Jefferson, who had been transferred from the legation in Paris to

the office of Secretary of State, endeavored to secure the conclusion of a new commercial treaty, but unsuccessfully, and in April, 1792, we find him instructing Mr. Morris that "it will be impossible to defer longer than the next session of Congress some counter regulations for the protection of our navigation and commerce. I must entreat you therefore to avail yourself of every occasion of friendly remonstrance on this subject. If they wish an equal and cordial treaty with us we are ready to enter into it." (3 Jefferson's Works, p. 356.) In June he again writes that " we cannot consent to the late innovations without taking measures to do justice to our own navigation" (ibid., p. 449), and after the imprisonment of the King he informed Morris that some matters, such as reforming the unfriendly restrictions on our commerce and navigation," might be transacted even by the revolutionary government, as a government de facto (ibid., p. 489). The new French minister, M. Genet, started for the United States in the spring of 1793 armed with three hundred blank Commissions "to distribute to such as [would] fit out cruisers in our ports to prey on the British commerce." (1 Foreign Relations, p. 354.) Finally, the condition of affairs caused by the war led to the President's proclamation of neutrality, from which, curiously, and by way of compromise, the word "neutrality was omitted. (3 Jefferson's Works, 591.)

Genet arrived in the United States the 8th of April, and on the 22d of that month the proclamation was issued declaring that "the duty and interest of the United States require that they should with sincerity and good faith adopt and pursue a conduct friendly and impartial towards the belligerent powers."

Already at Charleston, where he landed, Genet had commissioned privateers and sent them to sea, asserting this action to be authorized by the treaty of 1778, and informing the Secretary of State of his wish that the Federal Government "should observe, as far as in their power, the public engagements contracted by both nations; and that by this generous and prudent conduct they will give at least to the world the example of a true neutrality which does not consist in the cowardly abandonment of their friends in the moment when danger menaces them, but in adhering strictly, if they can do no better, to the obligations they have contracted with them." (Foreign Relations, vol. 1, p. 151.)

In September following Genet asked for fire-arms and cannon to protect the French possessions guaranteed by the United States, but he was answered by the Secretary of War with what he terms "an ironical careless" that "the principles established by the President in his proclamation did not permit him to lend us so much as a pistol."" (19th Cong., 1st sess., Senate Doc. 102, p. 219.)

ness

The French law of May 15, 1791, which "inhibited Americans from introducing, selling, and arming their vessels," in France, and " from enjoying all the advantages allowed to those built in the ship-yards of the Republic," was suspended by the national convention the 19th day of February, 1793, when extensive privileges were granted our commerce (ibid., p. 35), but in less than three months (9th May, 1793), seventeen days after the date of the President's proclamation, but before news of its contents could have been received, the national convention issued a decree ordering the arrest of any neutral vessels laden with provisions bound to an enemy's port. That this was an open and palpable violation of