The courts were filled with conjectures, and in England the story was current that Dr. Franklin was a fugitive for his own personal safety. Burke said, “I never will believe that he is going to conclude a long life, which has brightened every hour it has continued, with so foul and dishonorable a flight.”
On the Continent it was concluded that he was in Europe on a most important mission. To the French he spoke frankly, saying that twenty successful campaigns could not subdue the Americans, that their decision for independence was irrevocable and that they would be forever independent states.
On the morning of December 28, Franklin, with the other commissioners—Silas Deane, of Connecticut, and Arthur Lee, of Virginia—waited upon Vergennes, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, when he presented the plan as suggested by the Continental Congress for a treaty, by which it was hoped the states might obtain their independence.
The Commissioners were instructed to press for an immediate declaration of the French Government in favor of the Americans. Knowing the desire of the French to widen the breach and cause a dismemberment of the British Empire, the Commissioners were to intimate that a reunion of the Colonies with Great Britain might be the consequence of delay.
Vergennes spoke of the attachment of the French nation to the American cause and requested a paper from Dr. Franklin upon the condition of America and that in the future intercourse with the sage might be in secret, without the intervention of a third person. Personal friendship between these two distinguished men became strong and abiding.
The French Minister told Franklin that as Spain and France were in perfect accord, he might communicate freely with the Spanish Minister, the Count de Aranda.
With him Franklin, Deane and Lee held secret but barren interviews, for Spain was quite indifferent. Aranda would only promise the freedom of Spanish ports to American vessels.
As for France, she was at that time unwilling to incur the risk of war with Great Britain, but when the defeat and surrender of Burgoyne was made known at Versailles late in 1777, and assured thereby that the American Colonies could help themselves, the French Court was ready to listen to Franklin. To him was chiefly due the successful negotiation of the treaty of alliance which meant so much to the American cause at that critical period in the War for Independence.
The presence of an agent of the British Ministry in Paris, on social terms with the American Commissioners, hastened the negotiations, and February, 1778, two treaties were secretly signed at Paris by the American Commissioners and the Count de Vergennes on the part of France. One was a commercial agreement, the other an alliance contingent on the breaking out of hostilities between France and Great Britain.
It was stipulated in the treaty of alliance that peace should not be made until the mercantile and political independence of the United States should be secured.