tening to his assistance--on October 6,
1777, he and his army surrendered to the American commander, General
Gates.

The effect of Burgoyne's surrender was great in America; to those whose
hopes had been dashed by the disaster of Long Island, the surrender of
New York and Washington's enforced retreat it brought not only a revival
of hope but a definite confidence in ultimate success. But that effect
was even greater in Europe. Its immediate fruit was Lord North's famous
"olive branch" of 1778; the decision of the British Government to accept
defeat on the original issue of the war, and to agree to a surrender of
the claim to tax the colonists on condition of their return to their
allegiance. Such a proposition made three years earlier would certainly
have produced immediate peace. Perhaps it might have produced peace even
as it was--though it is unlikely, for the declaration had filled men's
souls with a new hunger for pure democracy--if the Americans had
occupied the same isolated position which was theirs when the war began.
But it was not in London alone that Saratoga had produced its effect.
While it decided the wavering councils of the British Ministry in favour
of concessions, it also decided the wavering councils of the French
Crown in favour of intervention.

As early as 1776 a mission had been sent to Versailles to solicit on
behalf of the colonists the aid of France. Its principal member was
Benjamin Franklin, the one revolutionary leader of the first rank who
came from the Northern colonies. He had all the shrewdness and humour of
the Yankee with an enlarged intelligence and a wide knowledge of men
which made him an almost ideal negotiator in such a cause. Yet for some
time his mission hung fire. France had not forgotten her expulsion from
the North American continent twenty years before. She could not but
desire the success of the colonists and the weakening or dismemberment
of the British Empire. Moreover, French public opinion--and its power
under the Monarchy, though insufficient, was far greater than is now
generally understood--full of the new ideals which were to produce the
Revolution, was warmly in sympathy with the rebellion. But, on the other
hand, an open breach with England involved serious risks. France was
only just recovering from the effects of a great war in which she had on
the whole been worsted, and very decidedly worsted, in the colonial
field. The revolt of the English colonies might