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1 results

  • 1 - “It Is Glory to Have Broken Such Infamous Orders”

  • Seth Jacobs, Boston College, Massachusetts
  • Book:
    Rogue Diplomats
    Published online:
    24 April 2020
    Print publication:
    21 May 2020, pp 24-77
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  • Summary

    Chapter 1 examines the first, and arguably most important, act of rogue diplomacy in American history: the refusal of Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and John Jay to heed the Continental Congress's instructions that they make no peace with Britain without first obtaining French consent. The government of Louis XVI had kept the American Revolution afloat through nearly a decade of war, and the French foreign minister - Charles Gravier, Comte de Vergennes - expected his American allies to follow Paris's lead during peace negotiations, but Adams, Jay, and particularly Franklin executed a briliant end-run around Versailles and concluded a separate treaty with London that gave the infant United States far more generous borders (along with other concessions) than Vergennes or Louis ever would have countenanced. By defying the Congress, and by profiting so immensely thereby, Franklin, Jay, and Adams established a standard of diplomatic insubordination that endures to the present day.