"It is not to be doubted My Lord, that the French will continue to send them every possible clandestine succour, no Remonstrance that can be made will prevent or check, to any Degree this fraudulent Practice." Thus, on 17 December, wrote the British ambassador to France of the secret aid being sent from there to America, aid he knew to be essential to the rebel cause. He urged the stationing of ships to intercept the shipments. Despite official French edicts to the contrary, American prizes continued to be sold in French ports, while French merchants and American agents prepared to dis­patch large quantities of war supplies across the sea; even a warship, to be called the Deane, was building at Nantes for the Continental Navy. French treatment of the Americans wore an ambivalent face. American ships of war were ordered out of port at the first opportunity of wind and tide, yet were granted the use of the royal naval facilities to refit. Louis XVI's return to their British owners of the Hanover Planter and the Clarendon, made prize by two American privateers, angered Americans, while the French court forbade the American Commissioners in France telling their compatriots of the large amounts of French aid. French officials opposed American reciting of French seamen and prohibited French ship masters from sailing to American ports; but in mid-December they agreed in principle to enter an alliance with the United States and promised a naval convoy for a large shipment of war supplies.

The period covered in this volume began with the arrival in France of Continental Navy ships Raleigh and Alfred, and concluded with their sailing. Continental Navy sloop Independence sailed with dispatches for America. The American Commissioners took the merchantman La Brune into the Continental Navy as the Queen of France. John Paul Jones, in Continental Navy ship Ranger, arrived with news of the surrender of Burgoyne's army at Saratoga, and Captain Thomas Thompson voiced a tentative appraisal of the Due de Duras, Jones's future command, the Bonhomme Richard.

The American Commissioners made arrangements to investigate conditions of, and arrange relief for, American prisoners in Great Britain, while concerned Britons took their own steps to insure good treatment of the American prisoners.

When American privateering activity moved south to the coasts of Spain and Portugal, the British Admiralty responded to the pleas of British merchants by stationing additional cruisers in those waters. Gustavus Conyngham, in Continental Navy cutter Revenge, disturbed relations between Great Britain and Spain by using the latter's ports as bases for several successful cruises.

American captures of French and Spanish vessels laden with British goods led to a diplomatic crisis in which the Spanish temporarily suspended their clandestine aid to the United States. The American Commissioners defused the crisis by apologizing to the two courts and issuing a circular to commanders of American armed vessels adjuring them to respect neutral shipping.

American revolutionary activity reached as far as the ports of Sweden, where Americans connived at smuggling out gunpowder.