Frederick the Great told his ambassador at Paris to urge upon France that she had now a chance to strike England which might never again come.

France need not, he said, fear his enmity, for he was as likely to help England as the devil to help a Christian.
Whatever doubts Vergennes may have entertained about an open alliance with America were now swept away.

The treaty of friendship with America was signed on February 6, 1778.

On the 13th of March the French ambassador in London told the British Government, with studied insolence of tone, that the United States were by their own declaration independent.

Only a few weeks earlier the British ministry had said that there was no prospect of any foreign intervention to help the Americans and now in the most galling manner France told George III the one thing to which he would not listen, that a great part of his sovereignty was gone.