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After the capture of Minorca by the
Duke de Crillon,
the
French and
Spanish fleets united under his command to reduce
Gibraltar; and
Count d'artois, the brother of the king, passed through
Madrid to be present at its surrender.
But danger inspired the
British garrison with an unconquerable intrepidity.
By showers of red-hot shot, and by a most heroic sortie under
General Elliot, the batteries which were thought to be fire-proof were blown up or consumed, and a fleet under Lord Howe was close at hand to replenish the stores of the fortress.
The news of the catastrophe made
Paris clamorous for peace.
France, it was said, is engaged in a useless war for thankless allies.
She has suffered disgrace in the
West Indies while undertaking to conquer
Jamaica for
Spain; and it now shares in the defeat before
Gibraltar.
Vergennes saw that
France needed and demanded repose.
To obtain a release from his engagement to
Spain, he was ready to make great sacrifices on the part of his own country, and to require them of
America.
Congress was meanwhile instructing
Franklin ‘to use his utmost endeavors to effect the loan of four millions of dollars through the kind and generous exertions of the king of
France;’ and on the third
of October it renewed its resolution to hearken to no propositions for peace except in confidence and in concert with him. On the fourteenth of the same
month,
Vergennes thus explained to the
French envoy at
Philadelphia the policy of
France: ‘If ’
