XXXIII June. CHAP. of more than three hundred thousand men. England had courted an alliance with that power, as a coun1775. terpoise to the Bourbons; had assented to the partition of Poland; had invited and even urged a former Czar to exercise a controlling influence over the politics of Germany; by recent demonstrations and good offices, had advanced the success of the Russian arms against the Ottoman Porte. The empress was a woman of rare ability; ambitious of conquest; equally ambitious of glory. Her army, so Potemkin boasted, might alone spare troops enough to trample the Americans under foot. To the Russian empress, the king resolved to make a wholesale application; and to the extent of his wants, to buy at the highest rate battalions of Russian serfs, just emancipated by their military service; Cossack rangers; Sclavonian infantry; light troops from fifty semi-barbarous nationalities, to crush the life of freedom in America. The thought of appearing as the grand arbitress of the world, with paramount influence in both hemispheres, was to dazzle the imagination of Catherine; and lavish largesses were to purchase the approval of her favorites. This plan was not suddenly conceived; at New York, in the early part of the previous winter, it had been held up in terror to the Americans. Success in the negotiation was believed to be certain. But the contracting for Russian troops, their march to convenient harbors in the north, and their transport from the Baltic to America, would require many months; the king was impatient of delay. A hope still lingered that the Highlanders and others in the interior of North Carolina, might be induced XXXIII to rise, and be formed into a battalion. Against CHAP. Virginia, whose people were thought to exceed all 1775. bounds in their madness, it was intended to employ June. a separate squadron, and a small detachment of regular troops. Three thousand stand of arms, with two hundred rounds of powder and ball for each musket, together with four pieces of light artillery, were instantly shipped for the use of Dunmore; and as white men could not be found in sufficient numbers to use them, the king rested his confidence of success in checking the rebellion on the ability of his governor to arm Indians and negroes enough to make up the deficiency. This plan of operations bears the special impress of George the Third. At the north, the king called to mind that he might "rely upon the attachment of his faithful allies, the Six Nations of Indians," and he turned to them for immediate assistance. To insure the fulfilment of his wishes, the order to engage them was sent directly in his name to the unscrupulous Indian agent, Guy Johnson, whose functions were made independent of Carleton. "Lose no time," it was said; "induce them to take up the hatchet against his majesty's rebellious subjects in America. It is a service of very great importance; fail not to exert every effort that may tend to accomplish it; use the utmost diligence and activity." It was also the opinion at court, that "the next word from Boston would be that of some lively action, for General Gage would wish to make sure of his revenge." The sympathy for America which prevailed more and more in England, reached the king's own brother, VOL. VII. 30 XXXIII July. CHAP, the weak but amiable duke of Gloucester. In July he crossed the channel, with the view to inspect the citadels along the eastern frontier of France. When he left Dover, nothing had been heard from America later than the retreat of the British from Concord, and the surprise of Ticonderoga. Metz, the strongest place on the east of France, was a particular object of his journey; and as his tour was made with the sanction of Louis the Sixteenth, he was received there by the Count de Broglie as the guest of the king. Among the visitors on the occasion, came a young man not yet eighteen, whom de Broglie loved with parental tenderness, Gilbert Motier de la Fayette. His father had fallen in his twenty-fifth year, in the battle of Minden, leaving his only child less than two years old. The boyish dreams of the orphan had been of glory and of liberty; at the college in Paris, at the academy of Versailles, no studies charmed him like tales of republics; rich by vast inheritances, and married at sixteen, he was haunted by a passion to rove the world as an adventurer in quest of fame, and the opportunity to strike a blow for freedom. A guest at the banquet in honor of the duke of Gloucester, he listened with avidity to an authentic version of the uprising of the New England husbandmen. The reality of life had now brought before him something more wonderful than the brightest of his visions; the youthful nation insurgent against oppression and fighting for the right to govern themselves, took possession of his imagination. He inquired; he grew warm with enthusiasm; and before he left the table, the men of Lexington and Concord had won for America a volunteer in Lafayette. XXXIII July. In Paris, wits, philosophers, and coffee-house poli- CHAP. ticians, were all to a man warm Americans, considering them as a brave people, struggling for natural 1775. rights, and endeavoring to rescue those rights from wanton violence. Their favorite mode of reasoning was, that as the Americans had no representatives in parliament, they could owe no obedience to British laws. This argument they turned in all its different shapes, and fashioned into general theories. The field of Lexington, followed by the taking of Ticonderoga, fixed the attention of the government of France. From the busy correspondence between Vergennes and the French embassy at London, it appeared, that the British ministry were under a delusion in persuading themselves that the Americans would soon tire; that the system of an exclusively maritime war was illusory, since America could so well provide for her wants within herself. Franklin was known to be more zealous than ever, and perfectly acquainted with the resources of Great Britain; and at Versailles he enjoyed the reputation of being endowed by Heaven with qualities that made him the most fit to create a free nation, and to become the most celebrated among men. The sagacity of Vergennes traced the relation of the American revolution to the history of the world. "The spirit of revolt," said he, "wherever it breaks out, is always a troublesome example. Moral maladies, as well as those of the physical system, can become contagious. We must be on our guard, that the independence which produces so terrible an explosion in North America, may not communicate itself to points that interest us in the hemispheres. XXXIII July. CHAP. We long ago made up our own mind to the results which are now observed; we saw with regret that 1775. the crisis was drawing near; we have a presentiment that it may be followed by more extensive consequences. We do not disguise from ourselves the aberrations which enthusiasm can encourage, and which fanaticism can effectuate." The subject, therefore, grew in magnitude and interest for the king and his cabinet. The contingent danger of a sudden attack on the French possessions in the West Indies, required precaution; and Louis the Sixteenth thought it advisable at once to send an emissary to America, to watch the progress of the revolution. This could best be done from England; and the embassy at London, as early as the tenth of July, began the necessary preliminary in10. quiries. "All England," such was the substance of its numerous reports to Vergennes, "is in a position, from which she never can extricate herself. Either all rules are false, or the Americans will never again consent to become her subjects." July. So judged the statesmen of France, on hearing of the retreat from Concord, and the seizure of Ticonderoga. |