" Both Latin powers had their own axes to grind, and
America was to tend the grindstone. France looked for recovery of
her old prestige in Europe and expected to supersede England in
commerce. She would do this, in the beginning, chiefly through
control of America and of America's commerce. Vergennes therefore
sought not only to dictate the final terms of peace but also to
say what the American commissioners should and should not demand.
Of the latter gentlemen he said that they possessed "caracteres
peu maniables!" In writing to Luzerne, the French Ambassador in
Philadelphia, on October 14, 1782, Vergennes said: "it behooves
us to leave them [the American commissioners] to their illusions,
to do everything that can make them fancy that we share them, and
undertake only to defeat any attempts to which those illusions
might carry them if our cooperation is required." Among these
"illusions" were America's desires in regard to the fisheries and
to the western territory. Concerning the West, Vergennes had
written to Luzerne, as early as July 18, 1780: "At the moment
when the revolution broke out, the limits of the Thirteen States
did not reach the River [Mississippi] and it would be absurd for
them to claim the rights of England, a power whose rule they had
abjured.
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