Britain should
lose America, she should lose India, she should pay in a hundred
ways for her past triumphs, for the arrogance of Pitt, who had
declared that he would so reduce France that she should never
again rise. The future should belong not to Britain but to
France. Thus it was that fervent patriotism argued after the
defeat of Burgoyne. Frederick the Great told his ambassador at
Paris to urge upon France that she had now a chance to strike
England which might never again come. France need not, he said,
fear his enmity, for he was as likely to help England as the
devil to help a Christian. Whatever doubts Vergennes may have
entertained about an open alliance with America were now swept
away. The treaty of friendship with America was signed on
February 6, 1778. On the 13th of March the French ambassador in
London told the British Government, with studied insolence of
tone, that the United States were by their own declaration
independent. Only a few weeks earlier the British ministry had
said that there was no prospect of any foreign intervention to
help the Americans and now in the most galling manner France told
George III the one thing to which he would not listen, that a
great part of his sovereignty was gone.
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