twenty of his subjects, or one in four of the able-bodied men ; a proportionate conscription in 1776 would have shipped to America from England and Wales alone an army of more than four hundred thousand men. Soldiers were impressed from the plough, the workshop, the highway; no man was safe from the inferior agents of the princes, who kidnapped without scruple. Almost every family in Hesse mourned for one of its members.

In a letter to Voltaire, the landgrave, announcing his contribution of troops, expressed his zeal to learn "the difficult principles of the art of governing men, and of making them perceive that all which their ruler does is for their special good." He wrote a catechism for princes, in which Voltaire professed to find traces of a pupil of the king of Prussia. "Do not attribute his education to me," answered the great Frederic; "were he a graduate of my school, he would never have turned Catholic, and would never have sold his subjects to the English as they drive cattle to the shambles. He a preceptor of sovereigns! The sordid passion for gain is the only motive of his vile procedure."

From avarice he sold the flesh of his own people while they were yet alive, depriving many of existence and himself of honor. In the land of free cities and free thought, an empire which spoke the language of Luther, where Kant by profound analysis was compelling skepticism itself to bear witness to the eternal law of duty, where Lessing inculcated faith in an ever-improving education of the race, where the heart of the best palpitated with hope for the American cause-the landgrave forced his state to act against that liberty which was the child of the German forests, and the moral life of the Germanic nation. And did judgment slumber? Were the eyes of the Most High turned elsewhere? Or, in the abyss of the divine counsels, were there in preparation for a land so divided and so full of tyrants a regeneration and union after the example of America?

CHAPTER XXIII.

AMERICA SEEKS FOREIGN AID.

1775-1776.

FRANCE and the thirteen American colonies were attracted toward each other, and it is not easy to decide which of them made the first overture. "Chatham as the conciliator of America, that is the man to fear," wrote the Count De Guines* from London, in June 1775.

Vergennes, with wonderful powers of penetration, analyzed the character of the British ministers and their acts, and as a courtier contrasted the seeming anarchy of England with the happiness of the French in "living peacefully under a good and virtuous king." The British secretary of state desired to draw from the French ambassador at London a written denial of Lee's assertion that the Americans had a certainty of receiving support from France and Spain; but "the king of France would not suffer himself to be used as an instrument to bend the resistance of the Americans." "The principles of moderation and of justice which constantly animate the councils of the king ought," said Vergennes, "to reassure his Britannic majesty against disquiet as to our views. Far from wishing to take advantage of the embarrassments in which England is involved by American affairs, we would rather seek to give our aid in disengaging her from them. The spirit of revolt, wherever it breaks out, is always a troublesome example. Moral maladies become contagious; so that we ought to be on our guard that the spirit of independence, so terrible in North America, may not be communicated to points which interest us in both hemispheres.

* Letter of De Guines to Vergennes, 16 June 1775. MS.

"We have seen with pain the forming of the crisis, from the presentiment that it may have wider effects than nature itself can cause to be foreseen. We do not hide from ourselves the waywardnesses which enthusiasm could encourage and upon which fanaticism could operate." *

On the twenty-eighth of July 1775, Rochford, the secretary of state, conversing with De Guines, the French ambassador, remarked that "many persons of both parties were thoroughly persuaded that the way to terminate the war in America was to declare war against France." De Guines encouraged the communicativeness of the secretary, who declared it to be the English opinion that England now, as before the last peace, was a match for Spain and France united; that, in the event of a war with those powers, America, through fear of the recovery of Canada by France, would give up her contest and side with England. Rochford repeated these remarks to the Spanish envoy. Vergennes was unable to imagine how sensible people could regard a war with France as a harbor of refuge. "The English cabinet is greatly mistaken," said he, "if it thinks we regret Canada; they may themselves repent having made its acquisition." Just as he felt the need of exact information on the state of opinion in America, accident offered a most trusty agent in Bonvouloir, a French gentleman of good judgment and impenetrable secrecy. Driven from St. Domingo by the climate, he had returned by way of Philadelphia, New York, Providence, and the neighborhood of Boston; and he reported that in America every man was turned soldier, that all the world crowded to the camp of liberty. The proposition to send him back to America was submitted by De Guines from London through Vergennes to the king, who consented. Here is the beginning of the intervention of Louis XVI. in the American revolution. Neither his principles nor his sentiments inclined him to aid rebellion; but the danger of an attack from the English was held before his eyes, and, on the seventh of August, Vergennes could reply to De Guines: "The king very much approves the mission of Bonvouloir. His instructions should be verbal, and confined to the two most essential objects: the one, * Vergennes to De Guines, Versailles, 23 June 1775. MS.

to make to you a faithful report of events and of the prevailing disposition of the public mind; the other, to secure the Americans against jealousy of us. Canada is for them

the object of distrust: they must be made to understand that we do not think of it at all; and that, far from envying them the liberty and independence which they labor to secure, we admire the nobleness and the grandeur of their efforts, have no interest to injure them, and shall with pleasure see happy circumstances place them at liberty to frequent our ports; the facilities that they will find there for their commerce will soon prove to them our esteem." With these instructions, Bonvouloir repaired to the Low Countries, and found at Antwerp an opportunity of embarking for the colonies.

Beaumarchais, who was in England as an emissary from Louis XVI., encouraged the notion that England might seek to revive the ancient sympathies of her colonies by entering on a war with France. Having seen Arthur Lee, and having received accurate accounts of the state of America from persons newly arrived, he left London abruptly for Paris, and through Sartine presented to the king a secret memorial in favor of taking part with the insurgents. "The Americans," said he, are full of the enthusiasm of liberty, and resolve to suffer everything rather than yield; such a people must be invincible; all men of sense are convinced that the English colonies are lost for the mother country, and I share their opinion." On the twenty-first of September the subject was discussed in the council of the king. The next day Sartine put a new commission into the hands of Beaumarchais, who returned to England.

Yet the means of pacifying America were so obvious that Vergennes was hardly able to conceive how the English ministers could miss them. The folly imputed to them was so sure to involve the loss of their colonies that he called in question the accounts which he had received. The ambassador in England replied: "You say what you think ought to be done; but the king of England is the most obstinate prince alive, and his ministers, from fear of compromising their places, will never adopt the policy necessary in a great crisis."

A motion in Congress, by Chase of Maryland, to send en

voys to France with conditional instructions did not prevail; but, on the twenty-ninth of November, Harrison, Franklin, Johnson, Dickinson, and Jay were appointed a secret “committee for the sole purpose of corresponding with friends in Great Britain, Ireland, and other parts of the world," and funds were set aside "for the payment of such agents as they might send on this service."

Simultaneously, Dumas, a Swiss by birth, residing in Holland, the liberal editor of Vattel's work on international law, had written to Franklin, his personal friend, that "all Europe wished the Americans the best success in the maintenance of their liberty;" on the twelfth of December the congressional committee of secret correspondence authorized Arthur Lee, who was then in London, to ascertain the disposition of foreign powers, and Dumas, at the Hague, was charged with a similar

commission.

Just then Bonvouloir, the discreet emissary of Vergennes, arrived in Philadelphia; and, through Francis Daymon, a Frenchman, the trusty librarian of the Library Company in that city, was introduced to Franklin and the other members of the secret committee, with whom he held several conferences by night. "Will France aid us? and at what price?" were the questions put to him. "France," answered he, "is well disposed to you; if she should give you aid, as she may, it will be on just and equitable conditions. Make your proposals, and I will present them." "Will it be prudent for us to send over a plenipotentiary?" asked the committee. "That," replied he, "would be precipitate and even hazardous, for what passes in France is known in London; but, if you will give me anything in charge, I may receive answers well suited to guide your conduct, although I can guarantee nothing except that your confidence will not be betrayed." From repeated interviews, Bonvouloir obtained such just information that his report to the French minister, though confusedly written, is in substance exact. He explained that "the Americans hesitated about a declaration of independence and an appeal to France; that the British king had not as yet done them evil enough; that they still waited to have more of their towns destroyed and more of their houses burned before they would completely