France did not act without long and careful premeditation on the part of the French crown and its ministers, for the relations between England and her American colonies had been carefully and acutely considered by the statesmen of Versailles long before the point of open revolt was reached. Even when France concluded to throw her resources into the scale on the side of the United States she did not altogether abandon her cautious attitude. The French government acknowledged the United States as a sovereign and treaty-making power; but while the treaty of commerce of February 6, 1778, was absolute and immediate in its effects, the treaty of alliance of the same date was contingent on war taking place between Great Britain and France. It is interesting to note that Benjamin Franklin was the subject of invective by Arthur Lee and others because at the suggestion of Silas Deane, of Connecticut, he procured a clause in the commercial treaty providing for the exportation of molasses to the United States, free of duty, from the French colonies--the molasses being used to manufacture New England rum. Owing to the objection of Lee this clause was afterward abrogated, and the infant industry of making New England rum had to survive without special protection. Upon receiving formal notice of the treaties Lord North immediately recalled the British ambassador from Paris, and George III. stated, in bad English, to Lord North (the king spelled "Pennsylvania" "Pensilvania," and "wharfs" "warfs") that a corps must be drawn from the army in America sufficient to attack the French islands. There was a state of partial war without a declaration of war. The naval forces of England and France came into unauthorized collision, and actual war was the result. * * * Pending the negotiations with France Washington and his heroic army spent a winter of painful hardship at Valley Forge, about twenty miles from Philadelphia. Half-naked and half-fed, they shivered in the rude huts which they erected, while their commander, if better housed, showed by actions more than words that he felt every pang of his soldiers. Washington's anxiety at this critical period was greatly aggravated by the conspiracy known as "Conway's Cabal," to depose him from the command, and put in his place the pretentious but incapable Gates. This conspiracy was narrowly defeated by the patriotic firmness of the supporters of Washington in Congress, one of whom--William Duer, of New York, an Englishman by birth--had himself carried in a litter to the floor of Congress, at the risk of his life, to give his vote for Washington. Never on the battlefield did he who is justly called the Father of Our Country show such heroism, such fortitude, such devotion to duty as in face of this combination of deluded men to effect his ruin. * * *