Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. I.djvu/106

76 calamities were seriously dreaded by many Englishmen in the event of the success of the Americans.

Immediately on reaching home Mr. Adams was chosen delegate from Braintree to the convention for framing a new constitution for Massachusetts; but before the work of the convention was finished he was appointed commissioner to treat for peace with Great Britain, and sailed for France in the same French frigate in which he had come home. But Lord North's government was not ready to make peace, and, moreover, Count Vergennes contrived to prevent Adams from making any official communication to Great Britain of the extent of his powers. During Adams's stay in Paris a mutual dislike and distrust grew up between him self and Vergennes. The latter feared that if negotiations were to begin between the British government and the United States, they might lead to a reconciliation and reunion of the two branches of the English race, and thus ward off that decadence of England for which France was so eagerly hoping.

On the other hand, Adams quite correctly believed that it was the intention of Vergennes to sacrifice the interests of the Americans, especially as concerned with the Newfoundland fisheries and the territory between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi, in favor of Spain, with which country France was then in close alliance. Americans must