in his patriotic
faith and resolution, he relied upon the savage resources and the vast
wildernesses of his native country to wear out at last the patience and
courage of the English generals. At the end of the campaign, Washington,
suddenly resuming the offensive, had beaten the king's troops at Trenton
and at Princeton one after the other. This brilliant action had restored
the affairs of the Americans, and was a preparatory step to the formation
of a new army. On the 30th of December, 1776, Washington was invested by
Congress with the full powers of a dictator.

Europe, meanwhile, was following with increasing interest the
vicissitudes of a struggle which at a distance had from the first
appeared to the most experienced an unequal one. "Let us not anticipate
events, but content ourselves with learning them when they occur," said a
letter, in 1775, to M. de Guines, ambassador in London, from Louis XVI.'s
minister for foreign affairs, M. de Vergennes: "I prefer to follow, as a
quiet observer; the course of events rather than try to produce them."
He had but lately said with prophetic anxiety: "Far from seeking to
profit by the embarrassment in which England finds herself on account of
affairs in America, we should rather desire to extricate her. The spirit
of revolt, in whatever spot it breaks out, is always of dangerous
precedent; it is with moral as with physical diseases, both may become
contagious. This consideration should induce us to take care that the
spirit of independence, which is causing so terrible an explosion in
North America, have no power to communicate itself to points interesting
to us in this hemisphere."

For a moment French diplomatists had been seriously disconcerted;
remembrance of the surprise in 1755, when England had commenced
hostilities without declaring war, still troubled men's minds. Count de
Guines wrote to M. de Vergennes "Lord Rochford confided to me yesterday
that numbers of persons on both sides were perfectly convinced that the
way to put a stop to this war in America was to declare it against
France, and that he saw with pain that opinion gaining ground. I assure
you, sir, that all which is said for is very extraordinary and far from
encouraging. The partisans of this plan argue that fear of a war,
disastrous for England, which might end by putting France once more in
possession of Canada, would be the most certain bugbear for America,
where the propinquity of our religi