How the French Saved America
Page 32
Books are written alone but always benefit from the insights provided by early readers. Among those who assisted me with their suggestions on this book in manuscript are Larry Bader, Mark Boonshoft, Lee Dembart, David Burke, Thomas Key, Glenn Moots, Edward G. Nickerson, Constance Rosenblum, Thomas Schindler, and Jon Wilkman, and I thank them all.
At St. Martin’s Press I benefited from the enthusiasm and professionalism of editor Charles Spicer, assistant editor April Osborn, and copy editor Susan H. Llewellyn.
This book was researched and written as I recovered from near-fatal injuries, and so I must express my gratitude for particular encouragement on it to, in addition to those listed above, my longtime agent Mel Berger, his associate David Hinds, Bruce McEver, colleagues on the board of the Writers Room in New York, my neighbors who listened to my stories in the coffee shops of Salisbury, Connecticut, and Millerton, New York, and especially to my wife Harriet, sons Noah and Daniel, daughters-in-law Elizabeth and Julia, and grandchildren Leo, Giovanni, and Francesca.
—Salisbury, CT, September 2016
Notes
The page numbers for the notes that appeared in the print version of this title are not in your e-book. Please use the search function on your e-reading device to search for the relevant passages documented or discussed.
Sources cited several times in these notes are identified in abbreviated form below and fully in the bibliography, while those cited just once are fully identified in the notes but are not in the bibliography. Where sources are available both in print and on-line, I have cited the on-line version as being more readily accessible to interested readers. Most of the cited correspondence to and from founders such as Washington, Franklin, Adams, and Deane can be found at founders.archives.gov, or at franklinpapers.yale.edu or at masshist.org/publications/apde2/, and for brevity’s sake is cited below only by date.
Prologue
“Our want of powder.” Washington to Joseph Reed, Dec. 25, 1775.
“A Proclamation for Suppressing Rebellion and Sedition.” George III, Aug. 23, 1775, www.archives.gov/historical-docs/todays-doc/?dod-date=823.
“Friends … in other parts of the world.” Establishment of the Committee of Correspondence, Nov. 29, 1775.
“Toute l’Europe nous souhaite le plus.” C. W. F. Dumas to Franklin, letter lost but likely July 8, 1775, as quoted in Franklin to Dumas, Dec. 9, 1775.
“While we profess ourselves.” Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776, www.ushistory.org/paine/commonsense/.
“Elderly, lame gentleman.” John Jay, in Carl G. Karsch, “The Unlikely Spy,” www.ushistory.org/carpentershall/history/french.htm.
“We admire … the grandeur.” Vergennes to Guines, Aug. 7, 1775, Wharton, vol. 1, 333.
“Gentlemen, I shall take care of my head.” Bonvouloir, quoted by Jay, in Louise V. North, “Franklin and Jay,” johnjayhomestead.org/wp-content/uploads/Franklin-and-Jay.pdf.
Often-repeated plea. See for example Washington to Hancock, July 10–11, 1775.
Set up a chessboard. Cook, Charles, and Nancy Cook. Blueprint for a Revolution: The Spies at Carpenter’s Hall. ushistory.org/CarpentersHall/history/blueprint5.htm.
“Monsieur Bonvouloir is begged to examine.” Bonvouloir to Guines, Dec. 28, 1775, Doniol, vol. 1, 267–269, 287–292.
Knew of the chevalier’s mission. Hamon, 25.
1. “The true science of a sovereign.”
“Two bottles of the Ratifia.” Penet/Pliarne to Washington, Dec. 18, 1775.
“Tyranny, usurpation, fatal errors.” Samuel Cooper, A Discourse on the Man of Sin. (Boston: Greenleaf’s, 1774), 12, 40–41.
“A form of spiritual and intellectual ‘slavery.’” Michael S. Carter, “A ‘Traiterous Religion’: Indulgences and the Anti-Catholic Imagination in Eighteenth-Century New England,” Catholic Historical Review (Jan. 2013): vol. 99, issue 1, 52–77.
“Anti-Catholic rhetoric was more.” Glenn A. Moots, “Samuel Cooper’s Old Sermons and New Enemies: Popery and Protestant Constitutionalism,” American Political Thought 5 (Summer 2016): 391–420.
Dismissed Americans as lower forms. Echeverria, Mirage; see also Shachtman.
“It is amazing that America has not yet.” Raynal, Histoire philosophique.
“An innate taste for liberty.” Gazette de France, Apr. 4, 1774, Faÿ, Revolutionary Spirit, 22.
“Under the auspices of liberty.” Chastellux, Echeverria, 35.
“It is necessary, Sire.” Turgot to Louis XVI, Aug. 24, 1774, Stephens, Turgot, 87.
“There was something said.” Pacheco, French Secret Agents.
“Acquaint himself with the greater.” Choiseul to de Kalb, Kapp, Kalb, 47.
“Value to the mother country.” Ibid., 53–55.
“More vigorous policies.” D’Aiguillon/Louis XV to George III, Brecher, 23.
“Never let people read your mind.” Hardman, 21.
Sexual ineptness. Ryan N. Fogg and Stephen A. Boorjan, “The Sexual Dysfunction of Louis XVI: A Consequence of International Politics, Anatomy, or Naïveté?” Authors Compilation Journal, Apr. 2010, Wiley Online Library.
“Obscured by inglorious idleness.” Ségur, 17.
“Louis le Sévère.” Jean-Christian Petitfils, Louis XVI (Paris: Perrin, 2005), 167.
“Resurrexit.” Hippeau, Paris et Versailles, 93.
“By a long-drawn-out process of subtle blackmail.” Price, 17.
“Sagacious and capable.” List of Le Dauphin, Soulavie, vol. 1, 282–285.
“The true science of a sovereign.” Louis XVI, introduction to Fénélon, Maximes morales et politiques tirées de Télémaque, in Crout, 367.
Vergennes’s first tour d’horizon. “Mémoire de M. de Vergennes à Louis XVI sur la situation politique de la France relativement aux différentes puissances,” Annales Nationales, K164, no. 2, 1774.
“Spirit of revolt … dangerous.” Vergennes to Guines, June 23, 1775, Lever, 302.
“Perhaps there has never been.” Louis XVI to Carlos III, Aug. 7, 1775, Dull, French Navy, 30.
2. “Arrogance and insults against which my heart revolted.”
“Persona of the prince.” Louis XVI, in Soulavie, vol. 2, 52–53.
“No Bankruptcy.” Turgot to Louis XVI, Stephens, Turgot, 87.
Matched the color of her hair … 176,000 livres. Hippeau, 110–115.
“The most mortal enemy.” Saint-Germain, Mention, Saint-Germain, xxiv.
Gulf between the blue-uniformed nobility. Blaufarb, French Army, 12–45.
“The first class instantly obtains.” Saint-Germain, Mémoires, 120–121.
“The choice of horses.” Soulavie, vol. 3, 70.
“Arrogance and insults.” Vergennes, “Mémoire sur la politique extérieure de la France depuis 1774 adressé au Roi,” 1782. Archives des Affaires Étrangères, Mémoires et Documents (hereafter cited as AAE-MD), France, 446.
“Vergennes gobe-mouches.” Lucien Taupenot, Vergennes, Un Bourguignon instigateur heureux de l’indepéndance des États-Unis (Précy-sous-Thil: Éditions de l’Armançon, 2000), 39–40.
“Girl, man, woman.” D’Éon to Beaumarchais, Jan. 7, 1776, Kates, 233.
“Army of infuriates.” Beaumarchais to Vergennes, Nov. 1775, Murphy, 233.
“Famous quarrel between America and England.” Beaumarchais to Louis XVI, Feb. 29, 1776, Morton and Spinelli, 34.
“Pact with the Insurgents.” Vergennes, “Considerations.” Mar. 12, 1776, Doniol, vol. 1, 273–78. Translation in Giunta, Documents, 18–24.
3. “The want of experience to move upon a larger scale.”
Less than thirty rounds. Washington to John Augustine Washington, Mar. 31, 1776.
1.5 million pounds. Neil C. York, “Clandestine Aid and the American Revolutionary War Effort, a Reexamination,” Military Affairs (Feb. 1, 1979): vol. 43, no. 1, 28.
“I can hardly express.” Washington to Congress, July 10–11, 1775.
“Who am I to blame.” Washington to Richard Gridley, Apr. 28, 1776.
> “His wants are common to us all.” Washington to Hancock, June 17, 1776.
Books that he brought from his home. Amanda C. Isaac, Take Note! George Washington the Reader (Mount Vernon, VA: 2013), 14.
“Must be subdued or relinquished.” Burgoyne to Lord Germain, Aug. 1775, Mackesy, 72–73.
“The most distinguished birth.” Saint-Germain, “Ordonnance du roi,” Mar. 25, 1776, Blaufarb, 31.
“L’instrument de leur gloire est celui du supplice.” Mention, 120.
“Persuaded that the surest way,” pamphlet by Monsieur in Soulavie, vol. 3, 107–108.
“I am grieved.” Louis XVI to Turgot, in Stephens, Turgot, 133.
“Nothing can hinder the course.” Turgot memorandum, Apr. 6, 1776, translated in Wharton, vol. 1, 339.
Réflexions. Rayneval/Vergennes, n.d., Doniol, vol. 1, 278–286 (contemporaneous with other spring 1777 critiques); translation in Giunta, Documents, 24–29.
“Our peace with England is nothing.” Vergennes to Aranda, May 3, 1776, Doniol, vol. 1, 376.
“Defend the principle of liberty of the seas.” Petitfils, 374.
“Well instructed in the Military Art.” Barbeu-Dubourg to Franklin, Mar. 24, 1776.
“Treachery and Ingratitude.” Washington to Baron de Calbiac, July 23, 1776.
“You cannot conceive.” Washington to Hancock, Feb. 11, 1777.
“Foreign powers could not be expected.” Adams, Autobiography, part 1, sheet 22.
“It is probable that the Court of France.” Committee of Secret Correspondence: Instructions to Silas Deane, Mar. 3, 1776, Giunta, Documents, 5–7.
Sign a “partition treaty.” Hutson, “The Partition Treaty.”
“Do not the tyrants of Europe think.” Pennsylvania Evening Post, Apr. 16, 1776, in ibid., 891.
“Therefore resolved that it be recommended.” Congressional Resolution, May 15, 1776, Stevens, no. 572.
“Swift sailing well escorted vessels.” The Committee of Secret Correspondence Instruction to William Bingham, June 3, 1776, Giunta, Documents, 7–8.
“Free and Independent States.” Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776, www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html.
“Mary Johnston.” Arthur Lee to Beaumarchais, 1776, Morton and Spinelli, 44.
File off the fleurs-de-lis. Dubourg to Vergennes, June 19, 1776, Stevens, no. 570.
“Very pleased that my country.” Dubourg to Franklin, July 5, 1776.
“Their Lordships will perceive.” Young to Philip Stephens, Aug. 10, 1776, in Clark, NDAR, vol. 6, 142–143.
4. “Dukes, marqueses, comtes and chevaliers without number.”
Vergennes, who did not want the British to know. Bancroft, “A Narrative,” Aug. 14, 1776, Stevens, no. 890.
Commercial pact with America. See for example Deane to Vergennes, Aug. 15, 1776, AAE-CP États-Unis (hereafter cited as É-U), vols. 1–2, 1774–1778.
“The incontestable, hereditary enemy.” Vergennes, Aug. 31, 1776, ibid.
“If we are forced to make war.” Louis XVI to Vergennes, Oct. 18, 1776, Hardman, 94.
“A levee of officers.” Deane to Jay, Dec. 2, 1776, Idzerda, vol. 1, 13–14.
“Considering the importance of having.” Deane to Congress, Sept. 11, 1776, in George I. Clark, Silas Deane: A Connecticut Leader in the American Revolution (New York: G. Putnam’s Sons, 1913), 76. The original letter, seen by Clark, was later destroyed in a fire and no copies have been found.
“A Rousseau Republican.” Du Bouchet, Journal d’un émigré, n.p.
“That if the war between England.” De Kalb to Dr. Frederick Phile, Dec. 26, 1775, Zucker, 85.
“A military and political leader,” De Kalb to Deane, Nov. 11, 1776, Kapp, 95; fuller version, Dec. 17, 1776, Stevens, no. 604, and Doniol, vol. 2, 65–69. The British knew of the de Broglie command project by January 25, 1777.
“An extreme ardor for gloire.” Du Bouchet, Journal.
“It became impossible not to indulge.” Ségur, 127–130.
“His high birth, his Alliances.” Lafayette agreement with Deane, Idzerda, vol. 1, 17.
“I think the game will be pretty.” Washington to Lund Washington, Dec. 10–17, 1776.
“These are the times that try men’s souls.” Paine, “The American Crisis,” no. 1, www.ushistory.org/paine/crisis/c-01.htm.
“If France Desires to Preclude.” Committee of Secret Correspondence to the American Commissioners, Dec. 21–23, 1776.
“I have not yet taken any Publick.” Franklin to Hancock, Dec. 8, 1776.
“Is a subtle artful Man.” Stormont, NDAR, vol. 7, 587.
“Without intelligence, without Orders.” Deane to Jay, Dec. 3, 1776.
“We beg leave to acquaint.” American Commissioners to Vergennes, Dec.23, 1776, Giunta, Documents, 30.
5. “The arrival of these great succours raised the spirit of the Rebels.”
“Found her so much Lumbered.” Wickes to the American Commissioners (Franklin), Jan. 11, 1777, Franklin Papers.
“Well-dispos’d towards us.” Franklin to Committee of Secret Correspondence, Jan. 4, 1777.
“We may possibly.” American Commissioners to Vergennes, Jan. 5, 1777.
“France and Spain, in allowing.” Louis XVI: Answer to the American Commissioners, Jan. 13, 1777, Giunta, Documents, 32.
“Let Old England see how they like.” Committee of Secret Correspondence to Wickes, Oct. 24, 1776, NDAR, vol. 6, 1400–1403.
“Nothing Certainly can be more Contrary.” Stormont to Weymouth, Feb. 22, 1777, NDAR, vol. 7, 589.
Bancroft never considered himself a traitor. Schaeper, Edward Bancroft, 56–64; Bancroft’s first report on Deane, Aug. 16, 1776, in Stevens, no. 890.
Written a treatise on the game. Franklin, “The Morals of Chess.”
His time in Edinburgh. Michael Atiyah, “Benjamin Franklin and the Edinburgh Enlightenment.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 150, no. 4 (Dec. 2006): 591–606.
“Nothing could be more striking.” Ségur, 101.
Pledged an “immortal hatred.” Chaumont to Stormont, Schaeper, Chaumont, 64.
“The military consistence.” Duportail, in Le Pottier, 43.
“Construction of fortifications proper.” Janis Langins, Conserving the Enlightenment: French Military Engineering from Vauban to the Revolution (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2004), 155, 215.
“It is certain that if my going to America,” Duportail to Franklin, Kite, 14.
“Unaccountable folly.” Stormont to Weymouth, Apr. 2, 1777, Stevens, no.1504.
“On the whole … this affair.” Lafayette to Carmichael, Apr. 19, 1777, Idzerda, vol. 1, 50.
“Much superior to any that I have.” Heath to Washington, Apr. 26, 1777.
“The arrival of these great succours.” Stormont to Weymouth, July 9, 1777, Van Alstyne, 128.
“Altho no one will dispute.” Washington to R. H. Lee, May 17, 1777.
“The strongest obligations rest upon us.” R. H. Lee to Washington, May 22, 1777.
6. “France has done too much, unless she intends to do more.”
“The glory of conquering kings.” Vergennes to Louis XVI, Apr. 12, 1777, Crout, 383.
“Irrevocably loose the most favourable.” “Memoir to induce France to declare openly for America,” spring 1777, in Stevens, no. 149 (underscored in original).
“And continue said war for the Total.” American Commissioners to Aranda, Apr. 7, 1777, Chávez, 62.
“Feeling ourselves assisted.” American Commissioners to Committee for Foreign Affairs, May 25, 1777. Dull, Diplomat. 16.
“Surrender to the Congress,” Conyngham, McGrath, Fast Ship, 135.
“The Capture … is a complete Refutation.” London Public Advertiser, June 5, 1777, NDAR, vol. 9, 604.
“It is extremely mortifying to proud Britain.” Franklin. NDAR, vol. 8, 810–811.
London Chronicle … St. James Chronicle. Lutnick, 150.
“As the Self Love.” Bing
ham to Congress, June 29, 1779, Alberts, 454–463.
Four British West Indies trading companies. O’Shaughnessy, Empire Divided, 158.
“That part of cargo.” Bingham to Congress, Alberts, 458.
“Either to abandon America.” Vergennes, “Mémoire communiqué au roi le 23 juillet 1777 et approuvé le même jour par Sa Majesté,” Doniol, vol. 2, 460–469.
“Will have the effect.” Vergennes to Louis XVI and council, Aug. 23, 1777, Stevens, no. 706.
“Carrying consideration as far.” Vergennes to Noailles, Sept. 6, 1777, Stevens, no. 1679.
“You have compromised my reputation.” Du Bouchet.
“As to the situation.” Coudray to Pennsylvania Supreme Executive Council, July 1777, Walker, Engineers of Independence, 148–153.
“Was unmasked, and it was proven.” Idzerda, vol. 1, 79.
“I would not wish Monsr. Portail.” Washington to Gates, July 29, 1777.
“Though I ardently desired.” De Kalb, Kapp, 115.
“The friendship with which he has honored.” De Kalb to Pierre de Saint-Paul, Nov. 7, 1777, Idzerda, vol. 1, 145–146ff.
“Has endeavoured to throw contempt.” Stirling to Washington, Aug. 1777.
Resistance to panic. Michael C. Harris, Brandywine, A Military History. El Dorado Hills, CA: Savas Beatie, 2014, 392–404.
“Never saw so close and severe a fire.” Conway to Sullivan, Patrick H. Hannum, “New Light on Battle Casualties: The Ninth Pennsylvania at Brandywine,” Journal of the American Revolution (Oct. 20, 2015).
“Take care of him as if he were my son.” Lafayette, Unger, 46. While this line is in Lafayette’s Mémoires, it is not in his Oct. 1, 1777, letter to his wife, in which he reports other instances of Washington’s early closeness.
“Soupçons of presumption, vanity, and egoism.” Magnin, Mottin de la Balme, 270.
“Self-disciplined, intelligent, fair to their superiors.” Durand Echeverria and Orville T. Murphy, “The American Revolutionary Army, A French Estimate in 1777: Part II—Personnel,” Military Affairs 27, no. 4 (Winter 1963–64): 156.
“The fact that the soldiers.” Ibid., 155.
“The most amiable, kind-hearted and upright.” De Kalb to de Broglie, Sept. 24–Oct. 1777, Kapp, 129.