certain whether, if the colonies should be forced to form themselves into an independent state, France would probably acknowledge them as such and enter into a treaty or alliance with them for commerce or defence, or both, and if so on what conditions. These instructions were signed by Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Harrison, John Dickinson, Robert Morris, and John Jay.

Deane's mission was by no means fruitless; but, after the Declaration of Independence, measures of a more formal kind were taken. On September 17, 1776, Congress took into consideration the subject of treaties with foreign nations, and adopted a plan of a treaty of commerce to be proposed to the King of France. Comprehensive in scope and far-reaching in its aims, this remarkable state paper stands as a monument to the broad and sagacious views of the men who framed it and gave it their sanction. Many of its provisions have found their way, often in identical terms, into the subsequent treaties of the United States; while, in its proposals for the abolition of discriminating duties that favored the native in matters of commerce and navigation, it levelled a blow at the exclusive system then prevailing, and anticipated by forty years the first successful effort to incorporate into a treaty the principle of equality and freedom on which those proposals were based. On the other hand, as if with prophetic instinct, care was taken that the

expansion of the United States in the western hemisphere should not be hampered. The new government, in turning to France for aid, did not labor under misconceptions. It little detracts from our obligations to France, for support afforded us in the hour of peril and need, to say that that support was not and could not have been given by the French monarchy out of sympathy with the principles announced by the American revolutionists. No matter what incipient tendencies may have existed among the French people, there could be on the part of the French government no such sentiment. In one point, however, the French government and the French people were in feeling completely united, and that was the determination if possible to undo the results of the Seven Years' War, as embodied in the peace of Paris of 1763. Under that peace France had given to Great Britain both Canada and the Island of Cape Breton, and had practically withdrawn her flag from the Western Hemisphere. To retrieve these losses was the passionate desire of every patriotic Frenchman; and it was believed by the better informed among our statesmen that France would overlook the act of revolt and embrace the opportunity to deal a blow at her victorious rival. Nevertheless, in the plan of a treaty to be proposed to France it was expressly declared that the Most Christian King should never invade nor attempt to possess himself of any of the coun

tries on the continent of North America, either to the north or to the south of the United States, nor of any islands lying near that continent, except such as he might take from Great Britain in the West Indies. With this exception, the sole and perpetual possession of the countries and islands belonging to the British crown was reserved to the United States.

When this plan was adopted, Franklin, Deane, and Jefferson were chosen as commissioners to lay it before the French government; but Jefferson declined the post, and Arthur Lee, who was already in Europe, was appointed in his stead. On December 4, 1776, Franklin, weak from the effects of a tedious voyage, touched the coast of Brittany. He had just reached the Psalmist's first limit of age, and was no stranger to suffering; but, serene in the faith that sustained him in trials yet to come, he entered upon that career which was to add to his earlier renown and shed upon his borrowed years the lustre of great achievements. As soon as his health was sufficiently re-established, he hastened to Paris, where he met his colleagues in the mission; and on December 23 they jointly addressed to the Count Vergennes, then Minister of Foreign Affairs of France, the first formal diplomatic communication made on behalf of the United States to a foreign power.

The plan of a commercial treaty which the commissioners were instructed to submit proved to be unacceptable to France; nor was this strange. The

French government, while maintaining a show of neutrality, had indeed opened its treasury and its military stores to the Americans, under the guise of commercial dealings carried on through the dramatist, Beaumarchais, in the supposititious name of a Spanish firm. Nevertheless, France was still in a state of peace, her commerce unvexed by war, while America was invaded by a hostile army and her independence was yet to be established. She was free at any moment to become reconciled to England, and such a reconciliation was not deemed improbable either in England or in France. Even in America there were not wanting those who expected it. But the course of events swept the two countries rapidly along. The American commissioners, soon after they met in France, were authorized to abandon the purely commercial basis of negotiation and to propose both to France and to Spain a political connection-to the former, in return for her aid, the conquest of the West Indies; and to the latter, the subjugation of Portugal. These new instructions disclosed on the part of the United States a conviction of the necessity of foreign aid of a more direct and extensive kind than could possibly be rendered within the limits of neutrality. While the French government was still hesitating, there came the news of the surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga. The report reached France early in December, 1777. The signal success of the American arms was the

and

We lay leave to acquaint your Excellency, that we are appointed and fully impowered by the Congress of the United States of America to propose and negotiate a Treaty of Amity Commerce betwren France and the faid States _ The just and generous Treatment their Trading Theps have received by a face dussion into the Corts of this Kingdom, with other founder rations of Respect, has induced the foxgress to make this Offer first to France We