war by not having
America,"[120]--no inconsiderable loss to a sea power, particularly if
carried over to the ranks of the enemy.

The course of warfare on the sea gave rise, as always, to grievances
of neutrals against the English for the seizures of their ships in the
American trade. Such provocation, however, was not necessary to
excite the enmity and the hopes of France in the harassed state of the
British government. The hour of reckoning, of vengeance, at which the
policy of Choiseul had aimed, seemed now at hand. The question was
early entertained at Paris what attitude should be assumed, what
advantage drawn from the revolt of the colonies. It was decided that
the latter should receive all possible support short of an actual
break with England; and to this end a Frenchman named Beaumarchais was
furnished with money to establish a business house which should supply
the colonists with warlike stores. France gave a million francs, to
which Spain added an equal sum, and Beaumarchais was allowed to buy
from government arsenals. Meanwhile agents were received from the
United States, and French officers passed into its service with little
real hindrance from their government. Beaumarchais' house was started
in 1776; in December of that year Benjamin Franklin landed in France,
and in May, 1777, Lafayette came to America. Meanwhile the
preparations for war, especially for a sea war, were pushed on; the
navy was steadily increased, and arrangements were made for
threatening an invasion from the Channel, while the real scene of the
war was to be in the colonies. There France was in the position of a
man who has little to lose. Already despoiled of Canada, she had every
reason to believe that a renewal of war, with Europe neutral and the
Americans friends instead of enemies, would not rob her of her
islands. Recognizing that the Americans, who less than twenty years
before had insisted upon the conquest of Canada, would not consent to
her regaining it, she expressly stipulated that she would have no such
hopes, but exacted that in the coming war she should retain any
English West Indian possessions which she could seize. Spain was
differently situated. Hating England, wanting to regain Gibraltar,
Minorca, and Jamaica,--no mere jewels in her crown, but
foundation-stones of her sea power,--she nevertheless saw that the
successful rebellion of the English colonists against the hitherto
unrivalled sea power of the mother-countr