Each country withdrew its
ambassador and war quickly followed.
France had not tried to make a hard bargain with the Americans.
She demanded nothing for herself and agreed not even to ask for
the restoration of Canada. She required only that America should
never restore the King's sovereignty in order to secure peace.
Certain sections of opinion in America were suspicious of France.
Was she not the old enemy who had so long harassed the frontiers
of New England and New York? If George III was a despot what of
Louis XVI, who had not even an elected Parliament to restrain
him? Washington himself was distrustful of France and months
after the alliance had been concluded he uttered the warning that
hatred of England must not lead to over-confidence in France. "No
nation," he said, "is to be trusted farther than it is bound by
its interests." France, he thought, must desire to recover
Canada, so recently lost. He did not wish to see a great military
power on the northern frontier of the United States. This would
be to confirm the jeer of the Loyalists that the alliance was a
case of the wooden horse in Troy; the old enemy would come back
in the guise of a friend and would then prove to be master and
bring the colonies under a servitude compared with which the
British supremacy would seem indeed mild.
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