CHAPTER IV.

AMERICA AND CONTINENTAL EUROPE.

1783.

THE governments of continental Europe vied with each other in welcoming the new republic to its place among the powers of the world. In May 1782, as soon as it was known at Stockholm that the negotiations for peace were begun, the adventurous king of Sweden sent messages of his desire, through Franklin above all others, to enter into a treaty with the United States. Franklin promptly accepted the invitation. The ambassador of Gustavus at Paris remarked: "I hope it will be remembered that Sweden was the first power in Europe which, without being solicited, offered its friendship to the United States."* Exactly five months before the definitive peace between the United States and Great Britain was signed, the treaty with Sweden was concluded. Each party was put on the footing of the most favored nations. Free ships were to make passengers free as well as goods. Liberty of commerce was to extend to all kinds of merchandise. The number of contraband articles was carefully limited. In case of a maritime war in which both the contracting parties should remain neutral, their ships of war were to protect and assist each other's vessels. The treaty was ratified and proclaimed in the United States before the definitive treaty with Great Britain had arrived.t

The successful termination of the war aroused in Prussia hope for the new birth of Europe, that, by the teachings of America, despotism might be struck down, and the caste of + Journals of Congress, iv., 241.

* Franklin's Works, ix., 342.

hereditary nobility give place to republican equality. These aspirations were suffered to be printed at Berlin.*

The great Frederick had, late in 1782, declared to the British minister at his court, half in earnest and half cajoling, that "he was persuaded the American union could not long subsist under its present form. The great extent of country would alone be a sufficient obstacle, since a republican government had never been known to exist for any length of time where the territory was not limited and concentred. It would not be more absurd to propose the establishment of a democracy to govern the whole country from Brest to Riga. No. inference could be drawn from the states of Venice, Holland, and Switzerland, of which the situation and circumstances were perfectly different from those of the colonies."+ He did not know the power of the representative system, nor could he foresee that by the wise use of it the fourth of his successors would evoke the German state from the eclipse of centuries, to shine with replenished light as the empire of a people. For the moment he kept close watch of the progress of the convention with Sweden, and, so soon as it was signed, directed his minister in France to make overtures to Franklin, which were most gladly received. +

Full seven months before the peace a member of the government at Brussels intimated to William Lee, a former commissioner of congress at the court of Vienna, that Joseph II., who at that time harbored the hope of restoring to Belgian commerce its rights by opening the Scheldt and so preparing the way for a direct trade with America, was disposed to enter into a treaty with the United States.# Soon after the preliminaries of peace between France and Great Britain had been signed, the emperor let it be insinuated to Franklin that he would be well received at Vienna as the minister of a sovereign power. In the following year an agent was sent from Bel

* Die Freiheit Amerika's. Ode vom Herrn Pr. J. E. H. Berlinische Monatsschrift, April 1783, 386. See J. Scherr's Kultur und Sittengeschichte, 508, 619. + Sir John Stepney to secretary of state, 22 October 1782. MS.

Goltz to Frederick, 3 March, 28 April, 30 June 1783. MSS.

* William Lee to secretary of foreign affairs, 31 March 1782, Diplomatic Correspondence, ii., 360.

Letter to Franklin from Vienna, 8 April 1783, Franklin's Works, ix., 501.

gium to the United States. The Belgians produced in unsurpassed excellence manufactures which America needed; but they were not enterprising enough to establish houses in America, or to grant its merchants the extended credits which were offered in England.* The subject gained less and less attention, for the emperor was compelled, in violation of natural rights, to suffer the Scheldt to be closed.

On the twenty-second of February 1783, Rosencrone, minister of foreign affairs in Denmark, communicated to Franklin "the satisfaction with which the king's ministry had learned the glorious issue of the war for the United States of America," and their desire to form connections of friendship and commerce. "To overtures for a treaty like that between congress and the states general," he added, "we should eagerly and frankly reply." But a question of indemnity for violations of neutrality by Denmark during the war impeded the negotiation.

Before the end of March the burgomaster and senate of the imperial free city of Hamburg, seeing "European powers courting in rivalry the friendship of" the new state, and impressed with "the illustrious event" of the acknowledged independence of America as "the wonder of that age and of remotest ages to come," deputed one of their citizens to bear to congress their letter, offering free trade between the two republics.

In midsummer, 1783, Portugal made overtures to treat with Franklin, but did not persist in them.

Russia was at that time too much engrossed by affairs in the East to take thought for opening new channels of commerce with the West; and the United States, recalling their minister, declined to make advances. But the two nations, without any mutual stipulations, had rendered each other the most precious services. Catherine had scornfully refused to lend troops to George III., rejected his entreaties for an alliance, and by the armed neutrality insulated his kingdom; the United States, by giving full employment to the maritime powers, had made for the empress the opportunity of annexing to her dominions the plains of Kuban and the Crimea.

*Correspondence of the Austrian agent, Baron de Beelen Bertholff. MS.

Of the chief commercial nations of Europe, Holland entertained for America the most friendly sentiments, invited her trade, and readily granted to her congress all the credit which it had any right to expect.

The independence of the United States gave umbrage to the Spanish court. Galvez, the minister of the colonies, was fiercely and persistently hostile to the extent of the United States in the South-west. Florida Blanca himself wished for amicable rectifications of the boundary; but, on the remonstrances of Lafayette, he, in the presence of the ambassador of France, pledged his word of honor to accept the boundary as laid down in the Anglo-American treaty, and authorized Lafayette to bind him with congress to that pledge. The Spanish statesmen feared the loss of their own colonies, and the success of the American revolution excited new and never-ceasing alarm. They could have wished that North America might disappear from the face of the earth; but they tried to reconcile themselves to living in good harmony with the United States. The Mississippi was the great source of anxiety.

Spain thought it not for her interest that the American states should consolidate their union. She had dreaded the neighborhood of English colonies to her own; she dreaded still more to border all the way from the Atlantic to the fountains of the Mississippi on a republic whose colossal growth was distinctly foreseen. Besides this, the suppression of a rebellion in South America had just cost more than a hundred thousand lives; and the difficulty of governing distant and boundless regions was so great that Aranda, the far-sighted statesman who had signed the treaty of peace, in his official dispatches to Florida Blanca, set forth the opinion that Portugal would be worth more to Spain than all the American main-land. Of the islands he never depreciated the value; but he clearly perceived how precarious was the hold of Spain on her continental possessions; and he left on record the advice, which he may never have had an opportunity to offer personally to his king, that Spain should transform all the vice-royalties in America into secundo-genitures, retaining in direct dependence only Cuba and Porto Rico.*

* Ferro del Rio, iii., 460, 407, note. Muriel, vi, 45-54. Revista Española de

Even Vergennes, while he believed that the attachment of America to the alliance would be safest if the confederation could keep itself alive, held it best for France that the United States should fail to attain the political consistency of which he saw that they were susceptible; and he remained a tranquil spectator of their efforts for a better constitution. Lafayette not only watched over the interests of America in Europe, but to the president of congress and to the secretary for foreign affairs he sent messages imploring American patriots to strengthen the federal union.

Ambos Mundos, for May 1855, written by Ferro del Rio. In his letter on exchanging for Portugal the Spanish possessions in America, Aranda writes, "ex. ceptuando las islas." The train of thought is the same.