He did not wish to see a great military power on the northern frontier of the United States.

This would be to confirm the jeer of the Loyalists that the alliance was a case of the wooden horse in Troy; the old enemy would come back in the guise of a friend and would then prove to be master and bring the colonies under a servitude compared with which the British supremacy would seem indeed mild.
The intervention of France brought a cruel embarrassment to the Whig patriot in England.

He could rejoice and mourn with American patriots because he believed that their cause was his own.

It was as much the interest of Norfolk as of Massachusetts that the new despotism of a king, who ruled through a corrupt Parliament, should be destroyed.

It was, however, another matter when France took a share in the fight.
France fought less for freedom than for revenge, and the Englishman who, like Coke of Norfolk, could daily toast Washington as the greatest of men could not link that name with Louis XVI or with his minister Vergennes.