fort in British hands.' The daring exploit was successful, and upon the temporary possession of this single post Spain was suspected of trying to build up a claim to the western territory north as well as south of the Ohio.2

The territory which Clark and his ill-disposed Spanish allies were conquering for the United States had both a beneficent and a malign effect upon the American union. The kindlier effect was the final one. At first, before the possession of the Northwest was even assured, there were bitter quarrels over its ownership. Six of the states could claim no western lands, but the rest claimed the lands stretching away to the Mississippi. South of the Ohio there was little dispute, but to the north there was endless conflict. Massachusetts and Connecticut claimed strips extending through the Northwest, and over them, like blankets, extended New York's claims, based on her protectorate over the Iroquois domain, and Virginia's stronger claim, based on her early charter and now reinforced by the conquests of her commissioned officer George Rogers Clark.

3

The quarrel became still more complex when the Articles of Confederation were submitted for the approval of the states, and the landless states

1 Mason, "March of the Spaniards across Illinois," in Magazine of Am. Hist., May, 1886.

'Franklin, Writings (Sparks's ed.), IX., 206, 386; Wharton, Dip. Corresp., V., 363, 364.

Regents' Report on the Boundaries of New York, 65.

VOL. IX.-20

hesitated to agree to them because they feared the overweening influence which the great western domain would give to the states controlling it. New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Delaware, and New Jersey all hesitated, but Maryland alone held out until New York gave up her claims and the other states showed a willingness to do likewise. All land in the Northwest was finally ceded to Congress, and the members of the confederation felt a stronger bond of union because of their common interest in common property. Unity in the revolutionary period had been greatly aided by the previous colonial co-operation in regulating the frontier, and now to common interest was added common ownership.

CHAPTER XVI

FRENCH AID AND AMERICAN REVERSES

WHE

(1778-1780)

WHEN France announced her alliance with America, in the spring of 1778, she expected, of course, the resentment of Great Britain and a consequent war, which, indeed, was contemplated in the treaty of alliance. France and America were to render each other mutual aid, and America's independence was to be the condition of peace. If the United States should seize the Bermuda Islands or the British possessions in North America, France would make no claim to them; but she was in turn to have the right to capture and hold any British islands in or near the Gulf of Mexico, and her existing holdings in America were guaranteed.1 As events proved, the temptations thus offered her in the West Indies were to have an evil influence upon her effectiveness as an ally.

The French alliance brought to America that which was most needed-a sea power which would counterbalance that of England. "A decisive naval superiority is," Washington asserted, "the basis

1 Treaties and Conventions (1889), 308.

1

upon which every hope of success must ultimately depend." The American armies could do nothing final so long as it was possible for British ships to bring unlimited supplies to the British armies, or, like guardian genii, pick them up and carry them off oversea when they were too hard pressed by the Americans on land. Congress had very early tried to provide for a navy, but time and money were both wanting, and meanwhile England reaped the advantage of her undisputed sea power. The ocean was abandoned to her, except for a cruising warfare which was chiefly carried on by American privateers.

It was mainly in commerce - destroying that America figured at that time upon the seas. Franklin wrote from France, in February of 1777: "That which makes the greatest impression in our favor here is the prodigious success of our armed ships and privateers. The damage we have done their West India trade has been estimated . . . by the merchants of London at £1,800,000 sterling, which has raised insurance to twenty-eight per cent., higher than at any time in the last war with France and Spain." Indeed, he thought the delay of the French government in making an alliance was not without its advantages. "In the mean time America has the whole harvest of prizes made upon

3

1 Washington, Writings (Ford's ed.), Memorandum (dated July 15, 1780), 345; Mahan, Influence of Sea Power, 346.

2

Journals of Congress, October 13 and 30, and December 14,

Wharton, Dip. Corresp., II., 262, 311.