To the solemn preamble affirming the eternal rights of peoples to liberty as well as justice, followed an enumeration of the grievances which had forever alienated from the sovereign of Great Britain the obedience of his American subjects. "We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America assembled in general congress, invoking the Supreme Judge to witness the rectitude of our intentions, do solemnly publish and declare in the name of the good people of these colonies that the united colonies are and have a right to be free and independent states, that they are disburdened of all allegiance to the crown of Great Britain, and that every political bond between them and Great Britain is and ought to be entirely dissolved. … Full of a firm confidence in the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually devote to the maintenance of this Declaration our lives, our fortunes, and our most sacred possession, our honor."
In America the solemn Declaration of Independence did not cause a lively emotion; the lot had been cast for the Americans since the day when they had taken up arms. At the opening of Parliament on the 31st of October, King George III., while deploring the decisive act by which the rebels had broken all the bonds which attached them to the mother-country, and rejected attempts at conciliation, ended his appeal to the fidelity of the nation with these words: "A single and great advantage will flow from the frank declaration of their intentions by the rebels; we shall be henceforth united at home, and all will understand the justice and necessity of our measure. I have not, and I cannot have, in this cruel struggle, any other desire than the true interest of all my subjects. Never has a people enjoyed a good fortune more complete or a government more lenient than have the revolted provinces. Their progress in all the arts of which they are proud, give them sufficient proof of it; their number, their wealth, their strength on land and sea, which they deem sufficient to resist all the power of the mother-country, are the unexceptionable proof of it. I have no other object than to deal them the benefits of the law in the liberty which all English subjects equally enjoy, and which they have fatally exchanged for the calamities of war and the arbitrary tyranny of their chiefs."
The calamities of war indeed were weighing on the United States of America. The attempt against Canada directed by Arnold had completely failed; oftentimes during the rough campaign of 1776 Washington had believed the cause lost. He had seen himself under the necessity of abandoning positions of which he was master, in order to fall back on Philadelphia. "What would you do if Philadelphia were taken?" he was asked. "We should retreat beyond the Susquehanna River; then, if necessary, beyond the Alleghany Mountains," replied the general, without hesitation. By an unhoped-for good luck for the future destinies of America, General Howe, in spite of the reinforcements constantly arriving from Europe, allowed the war to spin out, relying on time and the rigors of the season to weary the courage of the rebel troops. He had deceived himself as to the efficacy of the national feeling, still more as to the hardihood and indomitable perseverance of the general. At the end of the campaign, Washington, suddenly assuming the offensive, had in succession beaten the royal troops at Trenton and at Princeton. This brilliant action had reinstated the affairs of Americans, and prepared the formation of a new army. On the 30th of December, 1776, Washington was invested by Congress with the full powers of a dictator. He had claimed them for a long time, with that modest and proud authority which looked simply to the patriotic end without heed of popular clamors. "If the short time left us in which to prepare and execute important measures," he had written to the President of Congress, "is employed in consulting Congress about their opportunity, so evident to all; if we wait until it has caused its decisions to reach us at a distance of a hundred and forty miles, we will lose precious time and we will fail of our end. It may be objected that I claim powers which it is dangerous to confer; but for desperate evils extreme remedies are necessary. No one, I am convinced, has ever encountered so many obstacles in his way as I."
America began to feel the need of external support in the terrible struggle she had just engaged in. Already agents had been sent to France to sound the intentions of the government in relation to the revolted colonies. M. de Vergennes leaned toward secret aid. M. Turgot advised the most strict neutrality. "Leave to the insurgents," said he, "full liberty to make their purchases in our ports, and to procure by means of commerce the supplies, even the money of which they have need. To furnish them secretly with these would be difficult of concealment, and this step would excite just complaint on the part of the English." The Minister of Foreign Affairs, under the influence of the Duke de Choiseul, had for a long time founded great hopes on the dissensions which should burst forth between England and her colonies. Faithful to tradition, the first clerk, M. de Ragneval, presented a remarkable memorandum which precluded hesitation. One million, speedily followed by other aid, was poured for the Americans into the hands of Beaumarchais, who was ardently engaged in the cause of American independence, in the service of which he had then put forth all the resources of the most fertile and busy mind. "I would never have been able to fulfill my mission here without the indefatigable, intelligent, and generous efforts of M. de Beaumarchais," wrote Silas Deane to the secret committee, whose agent he was. "The United States are more indebted to him in every respect than to any other person on this side of the ocean."
Franklin had come to join Silas Deane. Already well known in Europe, where he had fulfilled several missions, his great scientific reputation and his clever and wise devotion to his country's cause had prepared the way to a worldly success which the skillful negotiator was well able to make subserve the success of his enterprise. Soon the French government began to remit money directly to the agents of the United States. Everything tended to a recognition of their independence. In spite of the king's formal prohibition, numerous French volunteers set out to serve the cause of liberty in America. The most distinguished of all, M. de la Fayette, arrested by order of the court, had evaded the surveillance of his guards, leaving his young wife, who was on the point of her confinement, in order to embark on a ship which he had secretly purchased. He landed in America in the month of July, 1777.
England was irritated and uneasy. Lord Chatham, quite recently sick and almost dying, more implacable than ever in pursuing everywhere the influence and intervention of France, exclaimed, with the customary exaggeration of his powerful and passionate talent, "Yesterday England could yet resist the world; to-day no one is insignificant enough to show his respect for her. I borrow the words of the poet, my lords, but what his lines express is no fiction. France has insulted you: she has encouraged and sustained America; and whether America be in the right or not, the dignity of this nation demands that we repulse with disdain the officious intervention of France. The ministers and ambassadors of those whom we call rebels and enemies are received at Paris; they treat there of the reciprocal interests of France and America. Their natives are sustained there, and supplied with military resources, and our ministers allow it and do not protest. Is this sustaining the honor of a great kingdom, which formerly imposed law on the House of Bourbon?"