The British, meanwhile, were landing at small ports on the coast, which had been the haunts of privateers, and were not only burning shipping and stores but were devastating the country with Loyalist regiments recruited in America.

The French told the Americans that they were expecting too much from the alliance, and the cautious Washington expressed fear that help from outside would relax effort at home.

Both were right.

By the autumn the British had been reinforced and the French fleet had gone to the West Indies.

Truly the mountain in labor of the French alliance seemed to have brought forth only a ridiculous mouse.