The truth of this was soon displayed in the conduct of France. When the news arrived at Paris of the capture of Ticonderoga, and of the victorious march of Burgoyne toward Albany, events which seemed decisive in favor of the English, instructions had been immediately despatched to Nantes and the other ports of the kingdom that no American privateers should be suffered to enter them, except from indispensable necessity; as to repair their vessels, to obtain provisions, or to escape the perils of the sea.
The American commissioners at Paris, in their disgust and despair, had almost broken off all negotiations with the French Government; and they even endeavored to open communications with the British Ministry. But the British Government, elated with the first successes of Burgoyne, refused to listen to any overtures for accommodation. But when the news of Saratoga reached Paris the whole scene was changed. Franklin and his brother-commissioners found all their difficulties with the French Government vanish. The time seemed to have arrived for the house of Bourbon to take a full revenge for all its humiliations and losses in previous wars. In December a treaty was arranged, and formally signed in the February following, by which France acknowledged the Independent United States of America. This was, of course, tantamount to a declaration of war with England.
Spain soon followed France; and, before long, Holland took the same course. Largely aided by French fleets and troops, the Americans vigorously maintained the war against the armies which England, in spite of her European foes, continued to send across the Atlantic. But the struggle was too unequal to be maintained by Great Britain for many years; and when the treaties of 1783 restored peace to the world, the independence of the United States was reluctantly recognized by their ancient parent and recent enemy.
FIRST VICTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY
a.d. 1779
ALEXANDER SLIDELL MACKENZIE
American naval officers look back with intensest pride to Paul Jones, their earliest hero, the founder of those high traditions which have done so much to raise the navy to its present standard of efficiency. Decatur, Perry, Farragut, Dewey, these and a thousand others of their kind, have but followed the lead of Paul Jones, have learned their deepest lesson in the thrill that came to each of them in boyhood on hearing that proud defiance hurled at the ancient mistress of the seas, "I have not yet begun to fight."
Although much greater sea-battles, in point of numbers of both ships and men engaged, are recorded in history, yet this, the first naval engagement by an American vessel, is counted among the most famous of all on account of its stubbornness. The child was matched against the parent; an American vessel against a British, the latter far the stronger. The combat was mainly between the Bonhomme Richard, Jones' ship, with forty guns, many of them unserviceable, and the British ship, Serapis, of superior armament, as shown below.