e by his wit,
Rousseau and Raynal by their animation, and Quesnay and Turgot by their
moral maxims and systems of economy, readers of every class met with
something to their taste, and a spirit of political inquiry began
to diffuse itself through the nation at the time the dispute between
England and the then colonies of America broke out.

In the war which France afterwards engaged in, it is very well known
that the nation appeared to be before-hand with the French ministry.
Each of them had its view; but those views were directed to different
objects; the one sought liberty, and the other retaliation on England.
The French officers and soldiers who after this went to America, were
eventually placed in the school of Freedom, and learned the practice as
well as the principles of it by heart.

As it was impossible to separate the military events which took place in
America from the principles of the American Revolution, the publication
of those events in France 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