French Policy And the American Alliance of 1778

to enlarge the scope of the volume to that of a general history of the one entangling alliance to which the United States has been party. I have been particularly interested in these pages in emphasizing the idea that Frances in tervention in the American Revolution was moti vated primarily by her desire to recover her lost preeminence on the Continent of Europe. Writ ers have sometimes made verbal recognition of this fact, but in the case of American writers at least, they have generally failed to appreciate its really controlling importance for the subject, and in the end have usually contrived thanks, vi PREFACE no doubt, to Professor Seeleys famous dictum to present French intervention as an episode in the British-French struggle for colonial do minion in the Western Hemisphere rather than for what it really was, an episode in the Euro pean policy of the Antien Regime. A second phase of the general subject to which I have given prominence is the embarrassment which resulted to France from the conflict of interest between her new ally, America, and her heredi tary ally, Spain, a conflict which greatly en hanced the difficulty of getting Spain into the war in the first place which subsequently forced France to make a very restrictive interpretation of certain of her engagements with the United States and which finally eventuated in the breach of their instructions by the American commissioners at the negotiations of 1782 Last ly, I have felt that it would be a service to American students to make the materials in DonioFs monumental work more available, These materials, supplemented by the other sources that I have used, will be found, I think s to furnish adequate basis for judgment with ref erence to most, if not all, of the more important questions likely to suggest themselves to an American student of the Alliance of 1778. In gathering my materials I have incurred ob ligations to several libraries, which I gladly take this opportunity to acknowledge to the Penn PREFACE vii sylvania Historical Society, the American Philo sophical Society, and the Bidgeway Branch Li braries of Philadelphia, for the use of numerous eighteenth century publications, both French and English to the University of Pennsylvania Library, for the use of its extensive collection of materials on the Mercantile System to the Har vard University Library, for the use of the Jared Sparks Manuscripts to the American Antiquar ian Society Library at Worcester, for the use of newspapers of the Revolutionary period to the Library of Congress for numerous services. I should also note a more special obligation to the staffs of the University of Michigan and the Uni versity of Pennsylvania Libraries and of the Princeton University Library, for many courtesies. My other indebtednesses are not extensive, but they are deep. I wish especially to record my grateful recognition of the aid which I received from my teachers, Professors A. C. McLaughlin and W. E... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.