necessarily connected themselves with the
principles which produced them. Many of the facts were in themselves
principles; such as the declaration of American Independence, and the
treaty of alliance between France and America, which recognised the
natural rights of man, and justified resistance to oppression.

The then Minister of France, Count Vergennes, was not the friend of
America; and it is both justice and gratitude to say, that it was the
Queen of France who gave the cause of America a fashion at the French
Court. Count Vergennes was the personal and social friend of Dr.
Franklin; and the Doctor had obtained, by his sensible gracefulness,
a sort of influence over him; but with respect to principles Count
Vergennes was a despot.

The situation of Dr. Franklin, as Minister from America to France,
should be taken into the chain of circumstances. The diplomatic
character is of itself the narrowest sphere of society that man can
act in. It forbids intercourse by the reciprocity of suspicion; and
a diplomatic is a sort of unconnected atom, continually repelling and
repelled. But this was not the case with Dr. Franklin. He was not the
diplomatic of a Court, but of Man. His character as a philosopher
had been long established, and his circle of society in France was
universal.

Count Vergennes resisted for a considerable time the publication in
France of American constitutions, translated into the French language:
but even in this he was obliged to give way to public opinion, and
a sort of propriety in admitting to appear what he had undertaken to
defend. The American constitutions were to liberty what a grammar is
to language: they define its parts of speech, and practically construct
them into syntax.

The peculiar situation of the then Marquis de la Fayette is another link
in the great chain. He served in America as an American officer under a
commission of Congress, and by the universality of his acquaintance was
in close friendship with the civil government of America, as well as
with the military line. He spoke the language of the country, entered
into the discussions on the principles of government, and was always a
welcome friend at any election.

When the war closed, a vast reinforcement to the cause of Liberty spread
itself over France, by the return of the French officers and soldiers.
A knowledge of the practice was then joined to the theory; and all
that was wanting to give it real existence was oppo