I shall not fail, however, to lay the whole before them; and I beg that the King may be assured that their sentiments, and those of the Americans in general, with regard to the alliance, as far as I have been able to learn them, not only from private letters but from authentic public facts, differ widely from those that seem to be expressed by Mr Adams in his letter to your Excellency, and are filled with the strongest impressions of the friendship of France, of the generous manner in which his Majesty was pleased to enter into an equal treaty with us, and of the great obligations our country is under for the important aids he has since afforded us. I have the honor to be, &c. B. FRANKLIN. [6] This letter is printed in Franklin's Correspondence. Vol. III. p. 152. * * * * * TO THE COUNT DE VERGENNES. Paris, July 13th, 1780. Sir, By the treaty of alliance of the 6th of February, 1778, his Majesty and the United States agreed, in case of war, to join their councils and efforts against the enterprises of the common enemy; to make it a common cause, and aid each other mutually with their good offices, their councils, and their forces, according to the exigencies of conjunctures; and each of the contracting parties, in the manner it may judge most proper, is to make all the efforts in its power against the common enemy. I have cited these clauses from the treaty, not as foundations of any demand that I have to make, because they are neither proper to support any demand, nor have I authority to make any if they were, but as an apology for the liberty I take of requesting your Excellency's attention to a few observations upon the present conjuncture of affairs. It is certain, from the best intelligence from London, as well as from the debates in Parliament, on the several motions which have been made for a pacification, that the British Ministry are inflexibly determined to pursue the war another campaign in America, to send more troops and ships there, if they possibly can obtain them, and to put to the hazard not only the national credit, but their maritime power, and even their political existence, rather than give up their designs of domination over America; and indeed this is not at all to be wondered at, that the Ministers and the nation, who have so far lost their justice, their humanity, and policy, as to deliberately form and pursue the plan of changing the foundations of the laws and governments of thirteen Colonies, and reducing them to slavery, and who have pursued this object with such sanguinary fury for so many years, should persist so as to bury themselves in the ruins of their empire, rather than to fail of their purpose, when it is plain they consider, and that not without reason, the same ruin in the independence of America, and her connexion with France.