In spite of the resource and tenacity of Washington and the convenient inactivity of Howe, it is difficult to see how the Revolution could have succeeded without the assistance which now came from France. Contrary to expectation, French troops and even the French navy were of little direct aid until the battle of Yorktown. But French gold financed the war. In the winter of 1778, when Washington's heroic remnant of barefoot soldiers lay starving at Valley Forge while Pennsylvania farmers sold provisions to the British and Loyalists who were comfortable and merry at Philadelphia, the Continental Congress was already a discredited and half bankrupt Government. Confiscated Loyalist property was sold for the benefit of the new State Governments; and Congress, unable to collect its requisitions, was forced to rely upon ever-increasing issues of paper money. In this very year $63,000,000 were added to the $38,000,000 already in circulation, and in 1779 the printers turned out $143,000,000 more. Laws fixing prices were without effect, and the value of paper fell to 33 cents on the dollar in 1777, to 12 cents in 1779, and to 2 cents in 1780. When a pound of tea sold for $100, when Thomas Paine bought woolen stockings at $300 a pair and Jefferson brandy at $125 a quart, General Gates could with $500,000 of paper get a hundred yards of fence built in which to guard British prisoners, but arms and munitions of war were forthcoming only so long as drafts on Franklin were honored by the French Government.
But if the French alliance brought assistance to the Americans, it induced the English Government to undertake a more vigorous prosecution of the war. The ministers had doubtless thought that the policy of conducting the war with the olive branch and the sword in either hand would prove successful. Certainly Howe had so interpreted his instructions. He had fought only when it was necessary to fight; easily accomplished everything he seriously attempted; never pressed any advantage; had supposed that by occupying the principal cities, affording protection to the loyal, and by moderation winning the lukewarm, the flame of rebellion would burn low for want of fuel and in good time quite flicker out. Too faithfully followed by half, this policy had ended in the humiliation of Saratoga and in the added burden of a war with France. News of Burgoyne's surrender scarcely reached England before offers of conciliation, embracing more than every concession the colonies had originally demanded, were hastily pushed through Parliament and entrusted to commissioners sent to America to negotiate peace. It was now too late. Once before, just after the battle of Long Island, General Howe, declaring himself authorized to discuss terms of conciliation, had induced Congress to send a committee to meet him at Staten Island. The conference came to nothing; and the only effect of the episode was to create a strong suspicion in the mind of the French Minister that the Americans would abandon their Declaration at the first convenient opportunity. It was above all necessary that the ardor of France should not again be damped by any further dallying with English offers. The commissioners were therefore coolly received, and the attempt of Johnstone to bribe Washington and Reed, published by Congress in August, 1778, only furnished new fuel to the patriot flame.