past century. The next question was
the selection of the points of attack--of the principal _objectives_
upon which the main effort of the assailants should be steadily
directed, and of the secondary objectives by which the defence should
be distracted and its strength dissipated.

One of the wisest French statesmen of that day, Turgot, held that it
was to the interest of France that the colonies should not achieve
their independence. If subdued by exhaustion, their strength was lost
to England; if reduced by a military tenure of controlling points, but
not exhausted, the necessity of constant repression would be a
continual weakness to the mother-country. Though this opinion did not
prevail in the councils of the French government, which wished the
ultimate independence of America, it contained elements of truth which
effectually moulded the policy of the war. If benefit to the United
States, by effecting their deliverance, were the principal object, the
continent became the natural scene, and its decisive military points
the chief objectives, of operations; but as the first object of France
was not to benefit America, but to injure England, sound military
judgment dictated that the continental strife, so far from being
helped to a conclusion, should be kept in vigorous life. It was a
diversion ready made to the hand of France and exhausting to Great
Britain, requiring only so much support as would sustain a resistance
to which the insurgents were bound by the most desperate alternatives.
The territory of the thirteen colonies therefore should not be the
principal objective of France; much less that of Spain.

The commercial value of the English West Indies made them tempting
objects to the French, who adapted themselves with peculiar readiness
to the social conditions of that region, in which their colonial
possessions were already extensive. Besides the two finest of the
Lesser Antilles, Guadeloupe and Martinique, which she still retains,
France then held Sta. Lucia and the western half of Hayti. She might
well hope by successful war to add most of the English Antilles, and
thus to round off a truly imperial tropical dependency; while, though
debarred from Jamaica by the susceptibilities of Spain, it might be
possible to win back that magnificent island for an allied and weaker
nation. But however desirable as possessions, and therefore as
objects, the smaller Antilles might be, their military tenure depended
too