She would do this, in the beginning, chiefly through control of America and of America's commerce.

Vergennes therefore sought not only to dictate the final terms of peace but also to say what the American commissioners should and should not demand.

Of the latter gentlemen he said that they possessed "caracteres peu maniables!" In writing to Luzerne, the French Ambassador in Philadelphia, on October 14, 1782, Vergennes said: "it behooves us to leave them [the American commissioners] to their illusions, to do everything that can make them fancy that we share them, and undertake only to defeat any attempts to which those illusions might carry them if our cooperation is required." Among these "illusions" were America's desires in regard to the fisheries and to the western territory.

Concerning the West, Vergennes had written to Luzerne, as early as July 18, 1780: "At the moment when the revolution broke out, the limits of the Thirteen States did not reach the River [Mississippi] and it would be absurd for them to claim the rights of England, a power whose rule they had abjured." By the secret treaty with Spain, furthermore, France had agreed to continue the war until Gibraltar should be taken, and--if the British should be driven from Newfoundland--to share the fisheries only with Spain, and to support Spain in demanding that the Thirteen States renounce all territory west of the Alleghanies.

The American States must by no means achieve a genuine independence but must feel the need of sureties, allies, and protection.