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CHAP. for arming ships of war, and cannot in time of need assemble a due number of sailors, nor count on the 1776. ability and experience of her naval officers. Her Apr. finances are not involved, but they could not suffice for years of extraordinary efforts.

"As for us, the king knows the situation of his finances; he knows that in spite of economies and ameliorations already made since the beginning of his reign, the expenditure exceeds the receipts by twenty millions; the deficit can be made good only by an increase of taxes, a partial bankruptcy, or frugality. The king from the first has rejected the method of bankruptcy, and that of an increase of taxes in time of peace; but frugality is possible, and requires nothing but a firm will. While the king found his finances involved, he found his army and navy in a state of weakness that was scarcely to have been imagined. For a necessary war, resources could be found; but war ought to be shunned as the greatest of misfortunes, since it would render impossible, perhaps for ever, a reform, absolutely necessary to the prosperity of the state and the solace of the people."

Turgot had been one of the first to foretell and to desire the independence of the colonies, as the means of regenerating the world; his virtues made him worthy to have been the fellow laborer of Washington; but as a minister of France, with the superior sagacity of integrity in its combination with genius, he looked at passing events through the clear light, free from refraction or distortion.

The public mind in France applied itself to improving the condition of the common people; Chastellux, in his work on public felicity, which was just

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then circulating in Paris, with the motto NEVER CHAP DESPAIR, represented as "the unique end of all government and the universal aim of all philosophy, the 1776. Apr. greatest happiness of the greatest number;" Turgot, by his earnest purpose to restrain profligate expenditure and lighten the grievous burdens of the laboring classes, seemed called forth by Providence to prop the falling throne, and hold back the nobility from the fathomless chaos towards which they were drifting. Yet he could look nowhere for support but to the king, who was unenlightened, with no fixed principle, and, therefore, naturally inclined to distrust. Malesherbes, in despair, resolved to retire. Maurepas, who professed, like Turgot, a preference for peace, could not conceive the greatness of his soul, and beheld in him a dangerous rival, whose activity and vigor exposed his own insignificance to public shame. The keeper of the seals, a worthless man, given up to intemperance, greedy of the public money, which without a change in the head of the treasury he could not get either by gift or by embezzlement, nursed this jealousy; and setting himself up as the champion of the aristocracy, he prompted Maurepas to say to the king, that Turgot was an enemy to religion and the royal authority, disposed to annihilate the privileges of the nobility, and to overturn the state.

Sartine had always supported the American policy of Vergennes, and had repeatedly laid before the king his views on the importance and utility of the French colonies, and on the condition of India. "If the navy of France," said he, "were at this moment able to act, France never had a fairer opportunity to avenge the unceasing insults of the English. I beseech your ma

CHAP. jesty to consider that England, by its most cherished LXI. interests, its national character, its form of gov1776. ernment, and its position, is and always will be the Apr. true, the unique, and the eternal enemy of France.

Sire, with England no calculation is admissible but that of her interests and her caprices; that is, of the harm that she can do us. In 1755, at a time of perfect peace, the English attacked your ships, proving that they hold nothing sacred. We have every reason to fear, that whatever may be the issue of their war with the insurgents, they will take advantage of their armament to fall upon your colonies or ports. Your minister would be chargeable with guilt, if he did not represent to your majesty the necessity of adopting the most efficacious measures to parry the bad faith of your natural enemies."

These suggestions were received with a passive acquiescence; the king neither comprehended nor heeded Turgot's advice, which was put aside by Vergennes as speculative and irrelevant. The correspondence with Madrid continued; Grimaldi, the Genoese adventurer, who still was minister for foreign affairs, complained of England for the aid it had rendered the enemies of Spain in Morocco, in Algeria, and near the Philippine Isles, approved of sending aid clandestinely to the English colonies, and in an autograph letter, despatched without the knowledge even of the ambassadors of the two courts, promised to bear a part of the expense, provided the supplies could be sent from French ports in such a manner that the participation of the Catholic king could be disavowed. When, on Friday, the twenty sixth of April, the French ministry held a conference with the

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Spanish ambassador, to consider the dangers that me- CHAP. naced the two kingdoms and the necessity of preparing for war, neither Turgot nor Malesherbes was Apr. present. Vergennes was left to pursue his own policy without obstruction, and he followed the precedent set by England during the troubles in Corsica. After a May. year's hesitation and resistance, the king of France, early in May, informed the king of Spain that he had resolved, under the name of a commercial house, to advance a million of French livres, about two hundred thousand dollars, towards the supply of the wants of the Americans; the Catholic king, after a few weeks' delay, using the utmost art to conceal his act, assigning a false reason at his own treasury for demanding the money, and admitting no man in Spain into the secret of its destination except Grimaldi, remitted to Paris a draft for a million more, as his contribution. Beaumarchais, who was trusted in the American business and in eighteen months had made eight voyages to London, had been very fretful, as if the scheme which he had importunately urged upon the king had been censured and rejected. "I sat long in the pit," so Vergennes defended himself, "before I took a part on the stage; I have known men of all classes and of every temper of mind; in general, they all railed and found fault; and yet I have seen them in their turn commit the errors which they had so freely condemned; for an active or a passive principle, call it as you will, draws men always towards a common centre. Do not think advice rejected, because it is not eagerly adopted; all slumber is not a lethargy." The French court resolved to increase its

CHAP. subsidy, which was to encourage the insurgents to LXI. persevere; and in early summer, Beaumarchais an

1776. nounced to Arthur Lee, at his chambers in the Temple, that he was authorized to promise the Americans assistance to the amount of two hundred thousand louis d'ors, nearly one million of dollars.