sition in Philadelphia. It was known that the British
fleet had declined. With the best of it in America, France was the more
likely to win successes in Europe. The Bourbon king of France could,
too, draw into the war the Bourbon king of Spain, and Spain had good
ships. The defects of France and Spain on the sea were not in ships but
in men. The invasion of England was not improbable and then less than
a score of years might give France both avenging justice for her recent
humiliation and safety for her future. Britain should lose America,
she should lose India, she should pay in a hundred ways for her past
triumphs, for the arrogance of Pitt, who had declared that he would so
reduce France that she should never again rise. The future should belong
not to Britain but to France. Thus it was that fervent patriotism argued
after the defeat of Burgoyne. Frederick the Great told his ambassador
at Paris to urge upon France that she had now a chance to strike England
which might never again come. France need not, he said, fear his enmity,
for he was as likely to help England as the devil to help a Christian.
Whatever doubts Vergennes may have entertained about an open alliance
with America were now swept away. The treaty of friendship with
America was signed on February 6, 1778. On the 13th of March the French
ambassador in London told the British Government, with studied
insolence of tone, that the United States were by their own declaration
independent. Only a few weeks earlier the British ministry had said that
there was no prospect of any foreign intervention to help the Americans
and now in the most galling manner France told George III the one thing
to which he would not listen, that a great part of his sovereignty was
gone. Each country withdrew its ambassador and war quickly followed.

France had not tried to make a hard bargain with the Americans.
She demanded nothing for herself and agreed not even to ask for the
restoration of Canada. She required only that America should never
restore the King's sovereignty in order to secure peace. Certain
sections of opinion in America were suspicious of France. Was she not
the old enemy who had so long harassed the frontiers of New England and
New York? If George III was a despot what of Louis XVI, who had not
even an elected Parliament to restrain him? Washington himself was
distrustful of France and months after the alliance had been concluded
he uttered the warning that hatred