Count de Guines wrote to M.de Vergennes "Lord Rochford confided to me yesterday that numbers of persons on both sides were perfectly convinced that the way to put a stop to this war in America was to declare it against France, and that he saw with pain that opinion gaining ground.

I assure you, sir, that all which is said for is very extraordinary and far from encouraging.

The partisans of this plan argue that fear of a war, disastrous for England, which might end by putting France once more in possession of Canada, would be the most certain bugbear for America, where the propinquity of our religion and our government is excessively apprehended; they say, in fact, that the Americans, forced by a war to give up their project of liberty and to decide between us and them, would certainly give them the preference." The question of Canada was always, indeed, an anxious one for the American colonists; Washington had detached in that direction a body of troops which had been repulsed with loss.

M.de Vergennes had determined to keep in the United States a semi-official agent, M.de Bonvouloir, commissioned to furnish the ministry with information as to the state of affairs.

On sending Count de Guines the necessary instructions, the minister wrote on the 7th of August, 1775: "One of the most essential objects is to reassure the Americans on the score of the dread which they are no doubt taught to feel of us.