[London, February 24, 1776] 2
[Extract]
... It was impossible in France to deny that the British Ministry saw the opportunity and realized that the only way to restore the power of England was to capture the Spanish and French islands, not only because they were the eternal objects of regrets on the part of England since the last peace, but rather because the immense progress of cultivation and population in America made it as impossible for the Americans to submit to the Navigation Act as for the British to repeal it or to hope they could convince or compel the Americans to return under the yoke .
. . . The agent of the Colonies [Arthur Lee] told me 3 he had intended to go to Versailles four months ago in order to make the same proposals that Congress had then made to the Spanish court through an envoy ....
Having pressed him on the proposals he intended to present, he told me he could ask France for ammunition and give her the guarantee of a trade agreement between her and America for a period of 4 years following the peace. . . . He insisted on the advantage of taking away the American monopoly from England, ...
1. AMAE, Correspondance Politique, Angleterre, vol. 515, LC Photocopy.. Vergennes was using Lauraguais as an observer in London.
2. Date approximated. Letter carries endorsement, .. Delivered to the King I March 1776."
3. Lauraguais writes in this letter: "I spoke of this to M. de Beaumarchais and told him that I had met the American agent two days in a row at dinner." See Beaumarchais to Louis XVI February 23 and footnote 4 following.
