Improbable Patriot

by Harlow Giles Unger

  “The famous quarrel between America and England,” Beaumarchais predicted to the king,

  will soon divide the world and change the system of Europe. … While a violent crisis is approaching with great rapidity, I am obliged to warn your majesty that the preservation of our possessions in America, and the peace which your majesty appears to desire so much, depend solely upon this one proposition: we must help the Americans. I will now demonstrate it. …

  Let us look at all the hypothetical outcomes of the current crisis. … Is there a single one of them which does not instantly lead to the very war you wish to avoid? If the English triumph over the Americans, their victory would embolden them to expand their American empire by seizing the French West Indies. And if they lose the war, they would seize the French West Indies as compensation for loss of the mainland.

  “What, then, is to be done … to have peace and preserve our islands?” Beaumarchais asked rhetorically. He then answered his own question, asserting that the only way to keep France out of war and preserve her Caribbean possessions was to prevent England and America from triumphing over each other — and that meant providing the Americans with enough military and financial assistance to put them “on an equal — but not a superior — level of strength with England.”

  Believe me, Sire … economy of two or three millions now will certainly make you lose, before two years, more than three hundred. As for the danger of drawing upon us the storm of war with England which you wish to avoid, I reply that we will not incur that danger if we adopt the plan I propose of secretly assisting the Americans without compromising ourselves. … And if your majesty does not have a more clever man at hand to employ in this matter, I will undertake and answer for the execution of the arrangement without anyone being compromised, persuaded that my zeal will supply my want of talent better than the talent of another could replace my zeal.4

  Unlike Louis XV, King Louis XVI opposed war as a general principle — especially against a fellow monarch. He believed deeply that monarchs were spiritual brothers: God had placed them all on their respective thrones; they ruled by divine right. In his letters, England’s George III had addressed him as “Monsieur mon frère” and signed himself “Votre bon frère George.” The thought of conflict against a “brother monarch,” therefore, disturbed Louis XVI, and, indeed, the thought of any conflict disturbed him. He revered tranquillity — in his chambers, his palace, his gardens, his nation, and his world. Louis XVI was determined not to repeat the errors of his predecessor on the throne — his grandfather, Louis XV, who had bankrupted France with endless military adventures. Louis XVI had ascended the throne unsteadily. Led by strict handlers during his childhood, he metamorphosed into a portly, compulsively taciturn young man with a disability that impeded sexual arousal. His father — the only legitimate son of the long-lived King Louis XV — had died when Louis XVI was but ten years old and never ruled. Louis XV died ten years later, leaving a bevy of illegitimate sons, but only his twenty-year-old grandson as a legitimate heir to succeed him on the throne of France.

  In contrast to his grandfather, Louis XVI showed little appetite for society or sex after he mounted the throne — even spurning his stunningly beautiful wife Marie Antoinette. He loathed the late-night excitement of his wife’s perpetual masked balls and other garish entertainments; he wanted nothing more than the quiet of his private study. Round and ungainly, he was happiest reclining in a deep, comfortably cushioned chair, studying history books and poring over maps. For one so languid, he was surprisingly dexterous — thus his keen interest in making trinkets. Whenever Vergennes or other ministers approached the king to remind him of his divine role on the French throne to conceive princes and restore French rule over the world, Louis simply waved them off without looking up or saying a word.

  French king Louis XVI plots the reconquest of North America after approving Beaumarchais’s scheme to provide secret military aid to American rebels in their struggle for independence from Britain.

  RÉUNION DES MUSÉES NATIONAUX

  When, therefore, Beaumarchais relayed Arthur Lee’s message, along with his own masterful “Peace or War” policy statement, Vergennes did not respond immediately — or pass La paix ou la guerre on to the king. He remained confused by the contradictory “Olive Branch” and “Arms” proclamations of the American Congress in early July. He questioned American willingness “to die rather than be enslaved,” as Congress had stated in its proclamation on the “Necessities of Taking Up Arms.”5

  Vergennes also suspected Lee of maintaining secret ties to the British government. Lee was “in constant touch with spies from the British Foreign Office,” according to Vergennes’s own agents.6 Before approaching the king with a request for aid to the Americans, Vergennes wanted to hear directly from American leaders in America whether they would welcome an alliance with France. He was well aware that many Americans retained vivid memories of the massacres of the French and Indian War. At the time, Washington had called the French “our perfidious false and cruel enemies,”7 and, like most Americans, he would certainly not welcome a French return to Canada or any other part of North America.

  Vergennes also recognized that the rebels represented a minority of Americans — probably not more than one-third. In an all-out war against Britain, there was considerable doubt whether the huge Tory population would fight for independence. Indeed, many might join the British and fight against their own countrymen to preserve British rule — and control of their properties. A third consideration was the possibility of an early, peaceful resolution of the Anglo-American dispute. A large number of influential English merchants, bankers, and even parliamentarians opposed the harsh measures Parliament had inflicted on the Americans.

  “Reflect how you are to govern a people who think they ought to be free, and think they are not,” pleaded the eloquent British parliamentarian Edmund Burke to his colleagues. “Your scheme yields no revenue; it yields nothing but discontent, disorder, disobedience; and such is the state of America, that after wading up to your eyes in blood, you could only end just where you began.”8

  The American colonies collectively represented Britain’s largest trading partner, and most men of commerce in Britain opposed measures that disturbed that relationship. Given enough time, Vergennes reasoned, the British themselves might dismiss the British government and effect a peaceful resolution of their problems in America. Premature French intervention might provoke an unnecessary war that could cost France the last vestiges of empire in the rich Caribbean sugar islands.

  And still another reason Vergennes hesitated to respond to the Lee-Beaumarchais request for aid was the weak condition of the French army. The French military was unprepared for war with Britain. He would not have been as reluctant if King Louis’s cousin, Spanish king Carlos III, had expressed some willingness to support the French effort to help the Americans. Although Spain had more to lose than France from British expansionism in the Americas, Carlos’s ministers feared that an American victory in a war of independence against England might inspire settlers in Spanish colonies to rebel and wrest control of the rich, ore-laden lands in Mexico and South America.

  To try to resolve his questions, Vergennes decided to send an English-speaking agent to America to determine how American leaders in America might respond to French aid. He chose the army’s most distinguished intelligence officer, Achard de Bonvouloir.

  Just as Bonvouloir’s ship was losing sight of the French coast, George Washington, the commander in chief of America’s Continental Army, was opening a mysterious letter from someone who identified himself only as “A Friend to America”:

  I beg leave to propose to your Excellency’s consideration, that a good Schooner … should proceed as soon as may be, to Havre de Grace [Le Havre] … with a suitable person on board (your Agent) who should immediately on his arrival there go to Paris or Versailles … with letters from your Excellency to the prime minister of France, requesting an immediate supply of ten
thousand barrels [2.2 million pounds] of powder, with one hundred tons of lead: for the payment of which the Continental Congress will make provision. Your reasons to induce the French minister to grant this supply will so strongly coincide with the national politics of France, it seems highly probable he will be glad of the opportunity of supplying or even of giving it, though in some covered way. If your agent succeeds, he can easily procure under the auspices of the French minister five or six vessels … of 100 tons each, to bring the powder and lead. … Another schooner, alike circumstanced, might be sent to Cadiz, and the business perhaps negotiated with the Spanish governor for a like quantity of powder and lead. If not, your agent might proceed to Madrid … and settle the business with the prime minister.

  “A Friend” suggested that Washington could reduce shipping costs by sending the French vessels back to France loaded with American tobacco and other valuable produce. He also offered Washington a choice of “fire-arms, flints or tinplates for making cartridge boxes,” but warned against British spies. “Should it be known to the English … the vessels will be stopped; or taken by English cruisers.”9

  Although the identity of America’s early “friend” remains a mystery, only Beaumarchais had the theatrical instincts to conceive of and time the elements of so intricate a plot so perfectly. Although an American (possibly Arthur Lee) penned the words, it almost certainly was a translation of a French original. It could, of course, have been the work of other French agents, such as Bonvouloir — or even of Foreign Minister Vergennes — but its contents presaged the very plan that Beaumarchais was preparing for implementing his “Peace or War” policy that was already in the hands of Foreign Minister Vergennes.

  Disguised as an ordinary French business man, Bonvouloir reached Philadelphia just before Christmas 1775 with an introduction to a prominent French intellectual who took him to meet members of the Congressional Committee of Secret Correspondence, which acted as a liaison between each of the state committees of secret correspondence organizing the war efforts in their jurisdictions. The members of the Congressional Committee — Benjamin Franklin, John Dickinson, Benjamin Harrison, John Jay, and Thomas Johnson10 — had all tried without success to determine whether England’s ancient European enemies — especially France, Spain, or Holland — might provide military aid to the rebellious colonies. In addition to basic military supplies — arms, ammunition, tents, and the like — the Americans needed artillery officers capable of calculating cannon-fire trajectories and engineers to plan construction and destruction of fortifications.

  Bonvouloir followed his instructions from Vergennes to the letter, reiterating his feigned status as a private businessman but adding his assurances that French sentiment favored the Americans. Although he could promise no French government military aid, he declared that France was “well-disposed” toward the Americans and saw no obstacles to American merchants buying arms and other supplies from French merchants in exchange for produce — tobacco, rice, and the like. As a personal service to the committee, he agreed to try to find retired French army engineers who might be willing to come to America.

  After his meeting, Bonvouloir wrote a long, pleasant letter about his travels to his friend the French ambassador in London. Between the lines was a detailed report in invisible ink — milk — for relay to Vergennes. Bonvouloir said America had more than enough troops to wage successful war against England but lacked arms and ammunition. “Every one here is a soldier,” he declared. “The troops are well clothed, well paid and well led. They have about 50,000 paid troops and an even larger number of volunteers who refuse any pay. You may judge for yourself how men of this caliber will fight. The members of the committee all said that they have sworn to fight to the end for their freedom and that the enemy will have to chop them to bits before they will surrender.”11

  Bonvouloir went on to give Vergennes a thorough technical evaluation of the American situation. He lauded the skills of American marksmen, American mastery of unconventional warfare in the wilderness, and George Washington’s inspiring leadership. But they had many disadvantages — the lack of a navy, for one. Moreover, the rank-and-file troops were farmers, fishermen, carpenters, and craftsmen who lacked training, discipline, ammunition, clothing, food, and other basic supplies such as tents and blankets — and Congress had no money to fill those needs. Moreover, Americans were far from united in support of the war: at least one-third remained loyal to Britain.

  British forces, on the other hand, were well equipped, well trained, and well disciplined, and they had enough financial resources to hire foreign mercenaries and continue the war indefinitely. The powerful British navy controlled the coastline and offshore waters and would have no trouble transporting troops to America and supporting them with offshore fire-power. The British would, however, face certain disadvantages: their troops were unfamiliar with American terrain, and their leaders were arrogant. British officers tended to underestimate the strength, skills, and will of American fighters, and they were often unwilling to abandon traditional linear warfare to adapt to frontier conditions. British soldiers were overdressed and carried too much equipment for fighting in American forests, where every tree, bush, and boulder could hide an American marksman, on his knees or belly, rifle at the ready. In addition, the distance of supply lines to navy ships on the coast would put the British army at a disadvantage if fighting spread inland.

  As Bonvouloir was meeting with members of the American Congress, Beaumarchais reappeared at Versailles — somewhat incensed that Vergennes had failed to reply to his last messages from London. Vergennes had not only refused to see Arthur Lee at Versailles, he had also failed to transmit the “Peace or War” policy statement that Beaumarchais had prepared for the king. More intent than before on providing French aid to the Americans, Beaumarchais penned another letter addressed “To the King alone — very important.” In it, he scolded the king for his reluctance to turn on England, “that natural enemy, that jealous rival of your success, that people always systematically unjust to you”:

  When have the usurpations and outrages of this people ever had any limit but that of its strength? Has [England] not always waged war against you without declaring it? Did it not begin the last one, in a time of peace? Did it not humble you by forcing you to destroy your finest seaport [Dunkerque]? Has it not recently subjected your merchant vessels to inspection on the northern seas? — a humiliation which would have made Louis XIV rather eat his hands than not atone for it?12

  Under any monarch other than the withdrawn and self-absorbed Louis XVI, Beaumarchais’s blunt language would have sent him to the torture chamber before being drawn and quartered. But Beaumarchais had known Louis as a boy in the salons of his aunts, the four daughters of Louis XV. He was a gentle man who had long enjoyed the playwright’s songs and plays and genuinely admired Beaumarchais’s wit. Although Vergennes agreed with Beaumarchais’s thinking, he found the language so offensive that he withheld it from the king.

  A few days thereafter, Bonvouloir’s first report arrived, along with news that seemed to confirm Beaumarchais’s assessment: A force of about 1,000 Americans under Brigadier General Richard Montgomery had captured Montreal, while Benedict Arnold had reached the St. Lawrence River with a force of more than 600 volunteers and was about to lay siege to Quebec. In the South, 900 Virginia and North Carolina militiamen defeated a loyalist army recruited by the Earl of Dunmore, the British governor of Virginia. Before fleeing to the safety of British ships offshore, Dunmore avenged his defeat by burning the port city of Norfolk and leaving it useless to either the British or Americans. Nonetheless, the Americans had put the British to flight and freed Virginia from British control. The largest, richest, and most heavily populated of the thirteen British colonies, Virginia had joined Massachusetts in declaring its independence from Britain.

  Buoyed by Bonvouloir’s report, Vergennes prepared a long and detailed policy statement for King Louis XVI that summarized all the findings of his agents �
�� Bonvouloir, Beaumarchais, and others. Entitled Reflexions, Vergennes’s historic paper reflected the conclusions of Beaumarchais’s “Peace or War” — that the goal of colonial rebels was “no longer a redress of grievances, but a determined effort to cut their ties to England.” He warned that if no one aided the rebels, Britain would probably defeat them and “retain the mercantile benefits of her American trade.”

  England will thus be able to prevent the American colonies from dealing with other nations, while accumulating all the benefits of exclusive trade with those colonies. It is to prevent England from gaining this double advantage that makes it imperative for France to intervene in the current dispute. … England is France’s natural enemy. … her cherished, long-standing goal is, if not the destruction of France, at least our emasculation, humiliation and ruin. For centuries, that has been England’s primary motive for the many wars she has waged against us.13

  Vergennes’s momentous statement proposed indirect intervention in the American Revolution as a relatively low-cost opportunity to exact revenge against England for the humiliation of the Seven Years’ War and to restore French hegemony on the North American continent without firing a shot. “The power of England will diminish,” he assured the king, “and ours will increase accordingly; English commerce will suffer an irreparable loss while ours will increase accordingly; it is very probable that … we may be able to recover part of the possessions that the English seized from us in America, such as … Canada.”14

  Although George Washington had no way of knowing it, a nobleman and king in France’s Palais de Versailles — and a scheming French playwright lurking in a palace antechamber — were about to decide the fate of the American Revolution and whether Washington himself would survive as the heroic father of his country or die a traitor on a London gibbet. To strengthen his argument to the king, Vergennes placed the critical Beaumarchais “Peace or War” document in the king’s hands. Vergennes told the king that Beaumarchais would implement the aid program by drawing from stockpiles of surplus French arms from the Seven Years’ War and sell them to independent trading firms that would carry them to America and trade them for tobacco, cotton, lumber, and whale oil that would normally flow to Britain. “This exchange of traffic,” Vergennes explained, “could be made without the government appearing involved in any way.”15