The French told the Americans that they were expecting
too much from the alliance, and the cautious Washington expressed
fear that help from outside would relax effort at home. Both were
right. By the autumn the British had been reinforced and the
French fleet had gone to the West Indies. Truly the mountain in
labor of the French alliance seemed to have brought forth only a
ridiculous mouse. None the less was it to prove, in the end, the
decisive factor in the struggle.
The alliance with France altered the whole character of the war,
which ceased now to be merely a war in North America. France soon
gained an ally in Europe. Bourbon Spain had no thought of helping
the colonies in rebellion against their king, and she viewed
their ambitions to extend westward with jealous concern, since
she desired for herself both sides of the Mississippi. Spain,
however, had a grievance against Britain, for Britain would not
yield Gibraltar, that rocky fragment of Spain commanding the
entrance to the Mediterranean which Britain had wrested from her
as she had wrested also Minorca and Florida. So, in April, 1779,
Spain joined France in war on Great Britain. France agreed not
only to furnish an army for the invasion of England but never to
make peace until Britain had handed back Gibraltar.
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