The experience of former wars had taught France the worth of the Americans as enemies, and she was expecting to find in them valuable helpers in her schemes of revenge; now it seemed that even alone they might be able to take care of themselves, and reject any alliance.

The tidings reached Europe on the 2d of December, 1777; on the 16th the French foreign minister informed the commissioners of Congress that the king was ready to recognize the independence of the United States, and to make with them a commercial treaty and contingent defensive alliance.

The speed with which the business was done shows that France had made up her mind; and the treaty, so momentous in its necessary consequences, was signed on the 6th of February, 1778.
It is not necessary to give the detailed terms of the treaty; but it is important to observe, first, that the express renunciation of Canada and Nova Scotia by France foreshadowed that political theory which is now known as the Monroe doctrine, the claims of which can scarcely be made good without an adequate sea-force; and next, that the alliance with France, and subsequently with Spain, brought to the Americans that which they above all needed,--a sea power to counterbalance that of England.

Will it be too much for American pride to admit that, had France refused to contest the control of the sea with England, the latter would have been able to reduce the Atlantic seaboard?
Let us not kick down the ladder by which we mounted, nor refuse to acknowledge what our fathers felt in their hour of trial.
Before going on with the story of this maritime war, the military situation as it existed in the different parts of the world should be stated.
The three features which cause it to differ markedly from that at the opening of the Seven Years' War, in 1756, are--( 1) the hostile relation of America to England; (2) the early appearance of Spain as the ally of France; and (3) the neutrality of the other continental States, which left France without preoccupation on the land side.
On the North American continent the Americans had held Boston for two years.

Narragansett Bay and Rhode Island were occupied by the English, who also held New York and Philadelphia.