The intervention of France brought a cruel embarrassment to the
Whig patriot in England. He could rejoice and mourn with American
patriots because he believed that their cause was his own. It was
as much the interest of Norfolk as of Massachusetts that the new
despotism of a king, who ruled through a corrupt Parliament,
should be destroyed. It was, however, another matter when France
took a share in the fight. France fought less for freedom than
for revenge, and the Englishman who, like Coke of Norfolk, could
daily toast Washington as the greatest of men could not link that
name with Louis XVI or with his minister Vergennes. The currents
of the past are too swift and intricate to be measured exactly by
the observer who stands on the shore of the present, but it is
arguable that the Whigs might soon have brought about peace in
England had it not been for the intervention of France. No
serious person any longer thought that taxation could be enforced
upon America or that the colonies should be anything but free in
regulating their own affairs. George III himself said that he who
declared the taxing of America to be worth what it cost was "more
fit for Bedlam than a seat in the Senate." The one concession
Britain was not yet prepared to make was Independence.
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