America began to feel the need of external support in the terrible struggle she had just engaged in. Already agents had been sent to France to sound the intentions of the government in relation to the revolted colonies. M. de Vergennes leaned toward secret aid. M. Turgot advised the most strict neutrality. "Leave to the insurgents," said he, "full liberty to make their purchases in our ports, and to procure by means of commerce the supplies, even the money of which they have need. To furnish them secretly with these would be difficult of concealment, and this step would excite just complaint on the part of the English." The Minister of Foreign Affairs, under the influence of the Duke de Choiseul, had for a long time founded great hopes on the dissensions which should burst forth between England and her colonies. Faithful to tradition, the first clerk, M. de Ragneval, presented a remarkable memorandum which precluded hesitation. One million, speedily followed by other aid, was poured for the Americans into the hands of Beaumarchais, who was ardently engaged in the cause of American independence, in the service of which he had then put forth all the resources of the most fertile and busy mind. "I would never have been able to fulfill my mission here without the indefatigable, intelligent, and generous efforts of M. de Beaumarchais," wrote Silas Deane to the secret committee, whose agent he was. "The United States are more indebted to him in every respect than to any other person on this side of the ocean."
Franklin had come to join Silas Deane. Already well known in Europe, where he had fulfilled several missions, his great scientific reputation and his clever and wise devotion to his country's cause had prepared the way to a worldly success which the skillful negotiator was well able to make subserve the success of his enterprise. Soon the French government began to remit money directly to the agents of the United States. Everything tended to a recognition of their independence. In spite of the king's formal prohibition, numerous French volunteers set out to serve the cause of liberty in America. The most distinguished of all, M. de la Fayette, arrested by order of the court, had evaded the surveillance of his guards, leaving his young wife, who was on the point of her confinement, in order to embark on a ship which he had secretly purchased. He landed in America in the month of July, 1777.