Last week we left off with the struggles of the both British and American delegations to form a coherent negotiation strategy for the peace treaty. The British Prime Minister, the Earl of Shelburne, seemed to change his views on American Independence with each conversation. Benjamin Franklin, who had been the American representative in France for several years, was dealing with recall efforts headed by Arthur Lee in the Continental Congress. Franklin also had to figure out a way to work with his fellow peace commissioners.
Franklin Steps Back
Some time during that summer of 1782, Franklin suffered a bout of bladder stones, which made traveling, or even moving, very painful. Franklin had to remain in bed while John Jay took over the primary negotiation role for the Americans.
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| Siege and Relief of Gibraltar |
By contrast, Franklin’s fellow commissioner, John Jay had spent very little time in France, spoke no French, and was much less interested in maintaining a relationship with America’s ally than he was negotiating a peace treaty with Britain. Jay had spent two years as minister to Spain, and got nothing but a cold shoulder from the government in Madrid. As a result, he had no attachment to Spanish interests either. At one point, Jay suggested to the British negotiator, Richard Oswald, that Britain should redeploy its armies in New York and Charleston to recapture West Florida from Spain. Jay told the British negotiator that he would rather have Britain as a neighbor than Spain.
Clearly Jay had no intention of simply following the lead of either France or Spain in any negotiation. While Jay was aware of the instructions from Congress to follow France’s lead in negotiations, he was also aware that delegates in Congress, led by Arthur Lee, were pulling away from that idea and that many now distrusted France to have America’s best interests at heart when negotiating the final peace. In addition to negotiating with Richard Oswald, Jay began using Franklin’s British backchannel contact, Richard Vaughn, to establish direct communications with the Earl of Shelburne in London.
The Ministry in Britain saw Jay as an opportunity to separate America from France and Spain in the negotiations. British agents showed Jay a letter from the secretary of French Minister Luzerne in Philadelphia. The letter argued against allowing Americans to get the western lands all the way to the Mississippi River. These British agents also informed him that French Minister Vergennes had sent Alexander Gérard de Rayneval, to Britain. Gérard de Rayneval had been the first French Ambassador to America. He had returned to France in 1779 and was working with the Foreign Ministry. During the summer of 1782, Gérard de Rayneval had traveled in secret to open direct peace negotiations between France and Britain.
This British-provided intelligence convinced Jay that France and Spain were conspiring to bargain away western lands in America in exchange for other British concessions to them. As Britain had hoped, Jay began negotiating directly with Britain, cutting out France and Spain entirely.
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| Benjamin Franklin |
Of course, even after Yorktown, America was still heavily dependent on the French alliance. The Continental Congress had only survived financially for the past several years, from gifts or loans from Europe. Future gifts and loans looked difficult, especially if they were going against the diplomatic interests of those European powers. Others in Congress recognized this reality and pushed back against Lee’s efforts to break the treaty of alliance with France and seek a separate peace with Britain.
Leading the opposition to Lee’s proposals was a young delegate, also from Virginia. Since his arrival in Philadelphia two years earlier, James Madison had been focused on the ongoing financial crisis that Congress had failed to fix. He opposed any moves that would cause a break in the Franco-American alliance at this critical time, especially when Congress was still asking Franklin to arrange additional loans from France to keep the Continental government operational.
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| John Jay |
In frustration, Lee wrote a letter to a friend in Virginia that expressed his hostility toward France. When this letter became public, it threatened to create a rift between the two countries. The Virginia assembly considered a motion of censorship and recalling Lee from the Continental Congress. Lee appeared to want to destroy America’s alliance with France. The vast majority of American leaders realized this would be a fatal error. In the end, Lee’s important family connections in Virginia resulted in the censure vote failing narrowly. But the American debate over whether to break with France in pursuing peace with Britain remained highly contentious on both sides of the Atlantic.
French Concerns
Back in France, Foreign Minister Vergennes was keeping a close eye on the Americans. His minister in Philadelphia, Luzerne, kept him up to date on the debates in Congress and Lee’s efforts to break with France.
France was certainly motivated to bring the war to an end. They were going deeply into debt, and were finding it increasingly difficult to borrow money to continue the war. If finances were going to determine the winner, Britain had the clear advantage.
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| Comte de Vergennes |
In addition, France needed to end the war soon or find itself ousted as the key power in Europe. Crimea, at this time, was an independent power that was essentially controlled by Russia. In June of 1782, a group backed by the Ottoman Empire overthrew the Russian backed government in Crimea. Russia responded by blocking all of the ports and massing 15,000 soldiers on the Crimean border. Russia also allied with Austria. Joseph II of Austria saw an opportunity to ally with Russia so that both powers could take more control of Ottoman territories. Although France was busy with these other wars, they offered France the prize of Egypt if France would support the invasion of Crimea.
France was allied with the Ottomans. It had a valuable trade relationship with them. Vergennes, who had been the French Ambassador in Constantinople for many years, realized that what was going one was a power play by Russia and Austria to extend their power, which would be to France’s disadvantage. He also knew that he was in this position because of the ongoing war with Britain.
France had also traditionally allied with Austria. After all, Queen Marie Antoinette’s marriage to King Louis was supposed to embody that alliance. But if France and Austria found themselves as enemies, France would be particularly isolated and would be vulnerable, especially if it continued to weaken itself through the ongoing war with Britain.
Siege of Gibraltar
Part of ending the war required that France had to worry about its treaty with Spain. Recall that when Spain entered the war in 1779, France agreed that the war could not end until Spain recovered Gibraltar. Years of siege had led to nothing. The British defenses there were far too strong, and the British Navy seemed capable of resupplying the garrison whenever it was needed.
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| Floating Batteries |
The batteries had walls built with three foot wide oak timbers packed with wet sand in between two layers to prevent direct fire, and had decks covered with wet sand in order to prevent hot shot from setting them on fire. Each battery held between ten and twenty six large siege guns to pound the enemy defenses. Over 4000 men would serve on these batteries.
The combined French and Spanish fleet also included 47 ships of the line with a total of 40,000 soldiers and sailors against the garrison of about 7000 British and Hessian soldiers in Gibraltar.
The Duc de Crillon took command of this force in March 1782. He had recently defeated the British at Minorca and was considered one of France’s best military commanders. France and Spain spent most of the summer preparing their armies and navies for this definitive assault.
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| Destruction of the floating batteries |
The artillery fire continued back and forth all day. During the morning, the British grew frustrated that they could not penetrate the walls of the firing platforms. They switched to hotshot (highly heated cannonballs) in an effort to burn them. At first the efforts to contain fire damage seemed to work, but eventually enough hotshots hit wood of the floating batteries and set them aflame. By nightfall the shooting from the floating batteries had stopped as the crew tried to escape the burning vessels. Overnight, most of the batteries exploded as flames reached their ammunition bunkers. By morning, the two remaining batteries were set on fire by their own crews, in order to prevent capture by the enemy.
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| Relief of Gibraltar |
Howe’s fleet was outgunned by the 49 ships of the line in the French and Spanish fleets. Howe placed his warships between the enemy and the merchant fleet. The French and Spanish fleets seemed reluctant to engage. Some people blame this on the recent naval loss in the West Indies. In any event, the hesitation allowed the merchant fleet to sail into Gibraltar and supply the garrison with everything it would need for the next year. Britain had broken the siege.
John Adams
The impending war in eastern Europe, and the failure of the Siege of Gibraltar, along with accumulating war debt made France especially eager to find a path to peace. Unfortunately, the American Peace delegation only seemed to create more complications.
In October of 1782, shortly after the British success at Gibraltar, John Adams arrived in France from the Netherlands. Adams was feeling especially cocky, having just concluded a Dutch loan of 5 million guilders for the Continental Congress. Adams already disliked Franklin. The two men decidedly did not get along when Adams had been in France a few years earlier. Adams also had concerns about Jay since he thought Jay was too closely associated with Silas Deane.
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| John Adams |
A few days later, Franklin mentioned to Adams that Vergennes was offended that Franklin had not even bothered to call on the French ministry, something any foreign diplomat was expected to do. A contrite Adams scheduled a visit. When he got there, Vergennes tried to use his diplomatic charm with Adams, treating him to a lavish dinner and congratulating him on arranging the Dutch loan.
Adams was polite but unmoved. Shortly after meeting with Vergennes, Adams also called on the British negotiator, Richard Oswald to assure him that Adams and Jay wanted to continue direct negotiations and were not concerned about coordinating with France.
Franklin found himself in the difficult position of either breaking with his fellow peace negotiators from America and standing with France as America’s ally, or joining Adams and Jay to negotiate a separate peace and creating a potential break with France. In the end, Franklin decided that keeping unanimity among the US commissioners was most important and agreed to cooperate with the negotiations that Jay had been conducting with Oswald.
One Final Gamble
For Vergennes, holding a grudge against the American defection was not going to solve anything. Vergennes, above all, was a realist. France was going broke. It was losing influence in Europe. The British victory at Gibraltar had emboldened London. There was a chance that when the British Parliament returned in November, they might oust Shelburne as Prime Minister and just continue the war. Parliament had already voted to increase the size of its navy for 1783.
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| Marquis de Lafayette |
Not quite ready to sign onto a bad treaty, Vergennes considered one final gamble. He convinced Spain to assemble another armada. This fleet would carry a 25,000 man army to the West Indies, which would capture Jamaica. After that, the fleet would sail up to New York and expel the British. After that, the fleet would sail north to Canada and return that region to French control.
This plan sounded almost naively optimistic. A proposed plan that required three high risk victories seemed a bit ill-considered. But Vergennes was running out of good options. The commander who had pushed for this campaign was young but also had a good run of success. That commander was the Marquis de Lafayette.
The young general returned to France following his role in the Yorktown victory. He arrived in France in January of 1782. The first thing he did was go home to his wife and sire his third child, daughter, Marie Antoinette Virginie. After that, he began lobbying for a new military command.
The king gave overall command of the armada to the Comte d’Estaing. The admiral had recovered from his injuries, to both his body and reputation for his loss at the Siege of Savannah in 1779. Lafayette received appointment as chief of staff of this united French and Spanish force. He would lead a French army of 8000 soldiers to march to Cadiz in southern Spain where the fleet would depart. Once the fleet arrived in America, Lafayette would command the land forces that would be involved in each assault.
Rayneval Negotiations
Even while planning another military offensive, Vergennes was still looking for a respectable peace treaty with Britain. The story that British officials had told Jay about Vergennes secretly sending Gerard de Rayneval to London to negotiate directly was true.
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| Gérard de Rayneval |
Vergennes also shared the view that Spain would get the land, but kept quiet about it. He allowed Gerard de Rayneval to make the point, so Vergennes personally would not be committed to anything. Rayneval told Jay that he thought the American land claims were extravagant. This seemed to be the time that Jay decided that negotiating alongside France was not in the American interest.
It’s not clear for certain the motivations, but one could believe that Vergennes thought that sending Rayneval to Britain might be better since he seemed to be in such direct conflict with Jay. Using Rayneval to feel out the British terms of peace would also remove him from direct contact with the American commissioners.
The substance of negotiations between Rayneval and Shelburne are a mystery since no written record of those discussions seems to exist. But Shelburne informed the King that Rayneval seemed knowledgeable and down to business in getting the terms of a final peace treaty resolved. The king remained suspicious that anyone that Vergennes sent did not have some level of cunning, and told Shelburne that he would not approve what he considered a “bad peace.”
During the course of these negotiations Britain broke the Siege of Gibraltar. This victory not only increased the King’s resolve, but also British sentiment overall toward giving into any peace treaty that would not give Britain a big win.. Shelburne could not agree to a treaty that appeared to give away everything if continuing the war would improve Britain’s position. At the same time, if he did not have a treaty by the time Parliament reconvened in November, he might be thrown out of office in favor of a government that would continue the war.
So, by October 1782, all parties seemed more than eager to reach final peace terms, but no one seemed willing to agree on exactly what those terms should be.
Next week, the diplomats will finally be pushed into an agreement that we know today as the Treaty of Paris.
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Next Episode 320 Treaty of Paris (Available July 21, 2024)
Previous Episode 318 Peace Negotiations
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Further Reading
Websites
Treaty of Paris, The American Negotiators https://teachingamericanhistory.org/blog/the-treaty-of-paris-the-american-negotiators
Treaty of Paris https://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/treaty-of-paris
John Adams’ Diplomatic Missions https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/adams-diplomatic-missions
Great Siege of Gibraltar: https://www.gibmuseum.gi/our-history/military-history/great-siege-of-gibraltar
Grand Assault on Gibraltar: https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/grand-assault-on-gibraltar
Relief of Gibraltar: https://www.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/rmgc-object-11945
Free eBooks
(from archive.org unless noted)
The Treaty of Paris (1783) in a changing states system: papers from a conference, January 26-27, 1984 (borrow only).
Bemis, Samuel F. The Diplomacy Of The American Revolution, Indiana Univ. Press, 1935.
Jay, John The Peace Negotiations of 1782 and 1783. An address delivered before the New York Historical Society on its seventy-ninth anniversary, Tuesday, November 27, 1883, New York Historical Society, 1884.
Pellew, George John Jay, Boston, New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Co. 1890.
Perkins, James B. France in the American Revolution, Boston: Houghton, Mifflin Co. 1911.
Books Worth Buying
(links to Amazon.com unless otherwise noted)*
Bond, Peter 300 Years of British Gibraltar 1704–2004, Peter-Tan Publishing Co. 2003.
Brown, Marvin Luther American Independence Through Prussian Eyes: A Neutral View of the Peace Negotiations of 1782-1783 - Selections from the Diplomatic Correspondence, Duke Univ. Press, 1959 (borrow on Archive.org).
Dull, Jonathan A Diplomatic History of the American Revolution, Yale Univ. Press, 1985.
Fleming, Thomas The Perils of Peace: America's Struggle for Survival After Yorktown, Harper Collins, 2007.
Hoffman, Ronald and Peter Albert (eds) Peace and the Peacemakers: The Treaty of 1783, Univ. Press of Va., 1986. (borrow on Archive.org).
Hutson, James H. John Adams and the Diplomacy of the American Revolution, Univ. Press of Kentucky, 1980. (borrow on Archive.org).
Morris, Richard B. The Peacemakers: The Great Powers and American Independence, Harper & Row, 1965 (borrow on Archive.org).
Smith, Page John Adams, Vol. 1, Doubleday & Co. 1962.
Stockley, Andrew Britain and France at the Birth of America: The European Powers and the Peace Negotiations of 1782-83, Liverpool Univ. Press, 2001.
* As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
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