"FRENCH MONEY, TROOPS, AND SHIPS TURN THE SCALE IN FAVOUR OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE.
"A far more important cause in determining the ultimate failure of the British was the aid afforded by France to America, followed by that of Spain and Holland. It was impossible for England to re-conquer a continent and carry on a war at the same time with the three most powerful naval States of Europe. The instincts of race have tended on both the English and American side to depreciate the value of the aid given by France to the colonists. It may be true that Rochambeau's troops, which disembarked on Rhode Island in July, 1780, did not march till July, 1781; that they were blockaded soon after their arrival, threatened with attack from New York, and only disengaged by a feint of Washington's on that city. But more than two years before their arrival, Washington wrote to a member of Congress: 'France, by her supplies, has saved us from the yoke thus far.' The treaty with France alone was considered to afford a 'certain prospect of success' to 'secure' American independence. The arrival of D'Estaing's fleet, although no troops joined the American army, and nothing eventually was done, determined the evacuation of Philadelphia. The discipline of the French troops, when they landed in 1780, set an example to the Americans; chickens and pigs walked between the lines without being disturbed. The recruits of 1780 could not have been armed without fifty tons of ammunition supplied by the French. In September of that year, Washington, writing to the French envoy, speaks of the 'inability' of the Americans to expel the British from the South unassisted, or perhaps even to stop their career; and he writes in similar terms to Congress a few days later. To depend 'upon the resources of the country, unassisted by foreign loans,' he writes to a member of Congress two months later, 'will, I am confident, be to lean upon a broken reed.' In January, 1781, writing to Colonel Laurens,[121] the American envoy in Paris, he presses for 'an immediate, ample, efficacious succour in money from France,' also for the maintenance on the American coasts of 'a constant naval superiority,' and likewise for 'an additional succour in troops.' And since the assistance so requested was in fact granted in every shape, and the surrender of Yorktown was obtained by the co-operation both of the French army and fleet, we must hold that Washington's words were justified by the event."[122]