Summary

George III and his Privy Council, which, in October, 1774, had decreed no more shipments of gunpowder or arms to the colonies, had no thought that this might prove a tinder spark to ignite the latent fires of resistance in a continent already seething under the Coercive Acts passed by Parliament earlier in that same year. To the minds of Ministry and Parliament the hotbed of rebellion was New England, and more specifically, Massachusetts. That there might be some armed demonstration there was considered a possibility. Should it occur, it could and would be decisively crushed. Opinions differed as to whether the navy alone would be sufficient to the task, or if army reinforcements should be sent to Boston. That question was still undecided as the year 1774 drew to aclose.

No other problem confronted the British Empire at that time. India was quiescent under the firm hand of Warren Hastings, its first titular governor. Russia, emerging as a world power after crushing the Turks, was consolidating the fruits of victory in the Crimea. Spain, ever smarting under depredations of the Barbary Pirates, was concentrating upon a punitive expedition, and repressing, though not forgetting, its ambitions to recover Gibraltar, Minorca and Florida. Holland, no longer a great sea power, had declined politically to a nonentity. Finally France, because of its Family Compact with Spain, would scarcely move while the latter was involved in the Mediterranean.

Yet, in December, 1774, the French charge d'affaires in London had been approached by American sympathizers, who queried whether, in case of a break with England, the colonists might look for an alliance with, or, at least, secret support from France. The Compte de Vergennes, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and one of the ablest of European statesmen, received this report with pleasure, but caution. His was an undying hatred for Great Britain, and a consecrated de­ termination to restore to France the world-wide prestige lost, along with Canada, in the French and Indian War. Years before he had made the sage remark that with Canada surrendered, the American colonists need no longer look to the Mother Country for protection and, when the tax burden became too onerous, would strike off their dependence upon her. Whether this moment was at hand remained to be seen. He had no intention of placing France in an untenable position by too early support of what might prove an abortive revolt. His policy was to wait and watch.