Independence (42 page)

North had been silent throughout the debates, but he rose when Germain took his seat. The first minister concurred with his new American secretary. Offering little that was new, North even repeated word for word some points made by Germain. At four A.M., immediately after North concluded his speech, the House of Commons rejected Burke’s conciliatory terms by a two-to-one margin.
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Parliament had been in session for nearly a month, and North had divulged only his plans for increasing Britain’s armed forces in North America. Nothing had been said about palliative measures, though rumors were swirling that the government planned to send a peace commission across the sea. The talk had largely been inspired by the cryptic passage in the king’s address alluding to “persons … so commissioned” to restore the colonies to their proper allegiance. Germain had also fueled expectations of peace commissioners. In his rejoinder to Burke, Germain alluded to “the plan of sending commissioners,” adding that he hoped they would “inquire into grievances.”
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Four days after Burke’s long speech, North spoke at length and finally informed Parliament of the government’s plan. He revealed that commissioners would be sent to America to grant pardons and “enquire into … any … real grievance that would be remedied.” He offered no new conciliatory proposals. He merely reiterated the plan that Parliament had approved in February: that the colonies tax their inhabitants to raise an amount of revenue stipulated by the imperial government, in return for which Parliament would no longer levy taxes on America. North clung to the slender hope that his supposed peace offering, counterbalanced by the full might of the British army and navy, offered the best chance of avoiding total war. Coercion and the threat of subjugation alone could sunder American unity and bring at least some of the colonies to their senses.

Given his pugnacious outlook, North introduced one new policy. Hoping to ratchet up the pressure on the colonists, the prime minister introduced the American Prohibitory Bill, soon to be labeled the “Capture Bill” by its foes. North’s proposed legislation called for a naval blockade of each colony, the seizure of American goods discovered at sea, and the impressment into the Royal Navy of captured American seamen. North was confident that the measure would bring a rapid end to the colonists’ “treasonable commotions.” Not only would it frustrate the insurgents’ every hope of obtaining foreign assistance, North thought, but also the threat of austerity posed by a blockade would result in an American capitulation before June or July, when the military campaign of 1776 was likely to begin in earnest. Should that not be the case, North continued, it was the government’s intent to deal with the American rebels by coupling maximum force with severe economic coercion. When the colonists had been brought to their knees by defeat on the battlefield and privation sown by the prohibition of their trade, the so-called peace commissioners would accept the American surrender and grant pardons to at least some of the colonists.
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Burke and Fox never for a moment believed that the Americans would yield to North’s strong-arm tactics. They believed, in fact, that further duress would only fuel the colonists’ resolve to stand up against their mother country. Burke, answering North in his rich Irish brogue, retorted that the administration’s “plan of this year is to enforce the conciliatory motion of last year by military execution.” Working in tandem, Fox followed and spoke longer than his newfound ally. The Americans would see through North’s deception and understand that the ministry had no intention of negotiating. They would understand that North’s real purpose was “a declaration of perpetual war.” The American Prohibitory Bill, Fox raged, lays bare “the want of policy, the folly and madness, of the present set of ministers.”

The history of this crisis, Fox asserted, was that first Parliament imposed on the colonists “cruel and tyrannical laws.” When the Americans objected, they were answered with “another [law] more rigorous than the former.” When the colonists complained further, government sent “fleets and armies against them.” The American Prohibitory Bill would be the final step. Whereas Burke had offered a peace plan built around genuine conciliation, North offered a “wretched policy” tantamount to total war. It would not divide the Americans; it would unite them against the mother country. It would push America to declare independence. Burke concurred with Fox, and in very nearly the final word in the debate, predicted that the day would come when the “damnable doctrines of this Bill would fall heavy on this country.” Burke’s oration fell once more on stony ground. The House of Commons passed the bill by more than a four-to-one margin.
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When Congress adopted the Olive Branch Petition, John Adams had prayed that the British government would be afraid to pursue negotiations, for he feared that serious talks would bring about a peace that left the Americans with less than they could achieve by continuing the war. Franklin had never for a moment thought that North’s government would act on Congress’s petition. “It now requires great Wisdom” on the part of Britain’s leaders “to prevent a total Separation” of the colonies from the mother country, he had said back in the summer. “We shall give you one Opportunity more of recovering our Affections and retaining the Connections,” he had remarked when Penn departed to carry the petition across the sea, but Franklin had not been sanguine.
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Adams’s prayers had been answered, and Franklin’s suspicions had been borne out. Great Britain’s last chance of preventing American independence by peaceful means had come and gone, spurned by a king and ministry that saw negotiation as weakness and gambled that the Americans were too feeble, divided, and craven to effectively resist the use of force.

Very near the time in December that the American Prohibitory Bill was passed by Parliament, a young Frenchman disembarked from a vessel in the harbor of Philadelphia. Achard de Bonvouloir was a French army officer, but he was dressed as a civilian and posed as a merchant from Antwerp. He had been in Philadelphia once before, in the fall of 1774 while on a tour of American cities, and he had quietly met with some delegates to the First Congress. He may have been sent to America in 1774 as a secret agent of the French government. There was no question that he returned just before Christmas 1775 as the representative of the French foreign minister, Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes.

Following his initial visit, Bonvouloir had hurried to London, where he met with comte de Guines, France’s ambassador to Great Britain, and reported on the rebellion that was simmering in the American colonies. While he thought hostilities were likely, Bonvouloir did not know whether the colonists possessed the resources to adequately wage war. After listening intently, Guines wrote to Vergennes to urge that the young soldier be sent back to Philadelphia to take “a good look at them [the colonists] politically and militarily.”
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Vergennes had been France’s foreign minister for only a few months, but like his predecessors, he had kept a watchful eye on Anglo-American relations. Since the Stamp Act troubles, France had sent a string of secret agents to America, and all had reported hearing talk of independence by many colonists. Prudently, France opted not to try to foment a rebellion, but just the same, it had devoted its energies to rebuilding its navy—which Great Britain had decimated in the Seven Years’ War—and to solidifying its alliance with Spain, both necessary precursors to any conflict with Britain. In the meantime, it watched and waited.

Vergennes, who was fifty-five in 1775, was large, handsome, polished, and charming but suitably grave, thoughtful, and renowned for his industry. The foreign minister knew that an Anglo-American war would present France with both opportunities and dangers. It could produce a realignment of the European balance of power in France’s interest. It might additionally open to the French a lucrative transatlantic trade that otherwise would remain closed so long as the American colonies remained part of the British Empire. On the other hand, a misstep could be ruinous for France. The most obvious miscalculation would be to openly support the American rebellion, only to learn that the colonists lacked either the means to fight capably or the will to persevere in the face of adversity. Above all else, Vergennes wished to avoid a situation in which France would find itself alone at war with Great Britain. That, almost certainly, would result in a worse defeat than France had suffered in the Seven Years’ War. So it was also vitally important for Vergennes to learn whether the Americans would really wage war for independence, as a reconciliation with their mother country offered no benefits to France.
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By late summer 1775, Vergennes had discovered much through his careful observation of Anglo-American relations. He knew that the colonists had fought valiantly and effectively along Battle Road and atop Bunker Hill, Congress had authorized an invasion of Canada, and George III on August 23 had declared the colonists to be in rebellion. News of the king’s action convinced Vergennes that reconciliation between the Americans and British was unlikely. But he needed more information before acting decisively. He wanted to know whether the Continental army could stand up to British regulars. He also wished to learn what France could do to assist America’s war effort. For six months Vergennes had sat on Guines’ recommendation that Bonvouloir be sent back to Philadelphia. Late in August the foreign minister made his decision. Bonvouloir was to return to America to report on the military situation. He was also to assure Congress that France had no aspirations to repossess Canada, to divulge that France admired the American quest for liberty, and to intimate that American merchant vessels would be welcome in French ports.
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Vergennes had decided to do what he could to move the Continental Congress toward a declaration of independence.

Bonvouloir sailed from London late in the summer and reached Philadelphia about a week before Christmas. Through the contacts he had made a year earlier, Bonvouloir likely was routed to John Hancock, the president of Congress, who in turn must have arranged a meeting between the French agent and the members of the Committee of Secret Correspondence. The committee was new, having been created three weeks earlier, when Congress sanctioned trade in the Caribbean with foreign nations. At that time, Samuel Chase had proposed sending an agent to France to discuss trade possibilities, a motion seconded by John Adams. Most saw such a move as too radical, or at least premature, and opted instead for the creation of the Committee of Secret Correspondence, a five-member panel that was charged with establishing communication with America’s friends in both the mother country and Europe. Though most members of the committee were confirmed reconciliationists, every member hoped to open commerce with foreign nations. Trade was essential for waging a war. In addition, for Dickinson, Jay, and Thomas Johnson, foreign trade might be the ploy that would force North’s ministry to the negotiating table. For Franklin and Benjamin Harrison, trade with France was a crucial precursor to an alliance.
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In the first days of its life, the committee wrote to Arthur Lee in London and to Charles-Guillaume-Frédéric Dumas at The Hague. Lee, the thirty-five-year-old brother of Richard Henry Lee, had lived in London since 1768 and not only was deeply enmeshed in English politics but also had close ties with many opposition figures. Dumas, a man of letters who had long corresponded with Franklin, knew nearly every envoy at The Hague, a hub of European diplomacy. The committee directed Lee to act with “great Circumspection and impenetrable Secrecy” in forging links with America’s friends in the mother country. It set Dumas on a different course. Franklin, in a letter signed by Dickinson and Jay, confided that during 1776 America expected to be “threatened from England with a very powerful force.” Consequently, Congress found “it necessary to ask aid of some foreign power.… [W]e wish to know whether any … from principles of humanity, is disposed magnanimously to step in for the relief of an oppressed people.” Or, the letter continued, if the Americans “declare ourselves an independent people,” would any European nation “be willing to enter into an alliance with us for the benefit of our commerce.” At this same moment Franklin also wrote privately to the heir apparent to the Spanish throne, thanking him for the gift of a book. Franklin went on to make it sound as if independence was inevitable and that the United States and Spain would share mutual concerns. America, Franklin wrote, was “a rising state” destined “soon to act a part of some Importance on the stage of human affairs.” It will be “a powerful Dominion … whose interest it will be to form a close and firm alliance with Spain” against the predatory nations of Europe who will look covetously on North and South America and the Caribbean.
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Serendipitously, Bonvouloir arrived in Philadelphia just days, perhaps only hours, after these letters were written. He met with the committee three times. Each session was held at night in Carpenters’ Hall. The Committee of Secret Correspondence wanted no one outside Congress to know that talks were under way with a French agent. It is also likely that the committee did not want every member of Congress to know of the discussions. Bonvouloir drank in what the committee told him. His report to Guines, which eventually reached Vergennes in March 1776, was exceedingly optimistic. “Everyone here is a soldier,” he exclaimed. At least fifty thousand men had volunteered to serve without pay. Those who were in the Continental army were “well clothed, well paid, and well commanded.” The Canadian invasion was proceeding smoothly, and Quebec was expected to fall shortly. The Americans needed arms, munitions, and military engineers but nothing else.
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