Those attachments which originated in the signal services received from his most Christian Majesty during the war of the revolution, had sustained no diminution.

Yet, from causes which it was found difficult to counteract, the commercial intercourse between the two nations was not so extensive as had been expected.

It was the interest, and of consequence the policy of France, to avail herself of the misunderstandings between the United States and Great Britain, in order to obtain such regulations as might gradually divert the increasing trade of the American continent from those channels in which it had been accustomed to flow; and a disposition was felt throughout the United States to co-operate with her, in enabling her merchants, by legislative encouragements, to rival those of Britain in the American market.
A great revolution had commenced in that country, the first stage of which was completed by limiting the powers of the monarch, and by the establishment of a popular assembly.

In no part of the globe was this revolution hailed with more joy than in America.

The influence it would have on the affairs of the world was not then distinctly foreseen: and the philanthropist, without becoming a political partisan, rejoiced in the event.