and long experience
had placed at his command, Franklin had already, encumbered as he was
with unwise colleagues, procured much secret assistance. And it was
probably the intention of the French Government not to depart from this
policy; but after the surrender of Burgoyne, French agents in London
assured Vergennes that the colonies were on the point of making peace
with England, and of joining her, as the price of independence, in an
attack upon the French West Indies. Since war seemed inevitable, it was
manifestly better to have the assistance of America than her opposition.
Vergennes therefore signified to Franklin his willingness to negotiate a
treaty without delay; and there was signed under date of February 6,
1778, at Versailles, a defensive and offensive alliance between the
United States of America,--recently founded upon the revolutionary
principle of popular sovereignty, and His Most Christian Majesty, Louis
XVI, by Grace of God King of France and Navarre.[2]

In spite of the resource and tenacity of Washington and the convenient
inactivity of Howe, it is difficult to see how the Revolution could have
succeeded without the assistance which now came from France. Contrary to
expectation, French troops and even the French navy were of little
direct aid until the battle of Yorktown. But French gold financed the
war. In the winter of 1778, when Washington's heroic remnant of barefoot
soldiers lay starving at Valley Forge while Pennsylvania farmers sold
provisions to the British and Loyalists who were comfortable and merry
at Philadelphia, the Continental Congress was already a discredited and
half bankrupt Government. Confiscated Loyalist property was sold for the
benefit of the new State Governments; and Congress, unable to collect
its requisitions, was forced to rely upon ever-increasing issues of
paper money. In this very year $63,000,000 were added to the $38,000,000
already in circulation, and in 1779 the printers turned out $143,000,000
more. Laws fixing prices were without effect, and the value of paper
fell to 33 cents on the dollar in 1777, to 12 cents in 1779, and to 2
cents in 1780. When a pound of tea sold for $100, when Thomas Paine
bought woolen stockings at $300 a pair and Jefferson brandy at $125 a
quart, General Gates could with $500,000 of paper get a hundred yards of
fence built in which to guard British prisoners, but arms and munitions
of war were forthcoming only so long as drafts on Franklin