France

France is presented as a potential trading partner and diplomatic power whose relationship with the American colonies has been distorted by their dependence on Great Britain. Thomas Paine argues that France has no necessary quarrel with America as America; separation, rather than reconciliation with Britain, would let the continent pursue commerce and peace without being made an instrument of British imperial rivalry.

France and the Origins of Enmity

Paine challenges the claim that Great Britain protects the colonies from France. In his account, British protection serves British interest and dominion: France and Spain have opposed the colonies because the colonies are British subjects, and the same imperial connection that exposes them to British enemies sustains the danger. If Britain relinquished its claims, or America threw off its dependence, he contends, America could be at peace with France and Spain even while those powers were at war with Britain.

That distinction recasts hostility as a consequence of political status rather than an inevitable national antagonism. Paine argues that France has never been, and perhaps never would be, an enemy of the colonies as Americans; it becomes their enemy because they belong to Great Britain. He uses this reasoning to challenge the notion that colonial kinship with Britain outweighs the consequences of being governed by it.

Trade, Peace, and Separation

Paine presents commerce as America’s more durable protection than military alignment. Europe needs American trade, he argues, and the continent’s role as a free port would give European powers a practical interest in peaceful relations. Corn could find a market in Europe, while imported goods would have to be paid for wherever they were bought. In this account, commercial exchange could secure friendship without binding America to a European power’s political quarrels.

Dependence on Britain, by contrast, makes American trade vulnerable whenever Britain goes to war. Because Europe is divided among competing kingdoms, Paine regards renewed conflict as a recurring danger; neutrality, he argues, would be safer than being drawn into war as Britain’s dependent. His case for avoiding European entanglements is therefore not a call to withdraw from commerce. It rests on separating trade with Europe from political subordination to Britain.

Mediation and Foreign Assistance

Paine connects independence to the possibility of diplomacy. While America continues to call itself Britain’s subject, he argues, another power cannot properly mediate between the parties: the status of subjecthood leaves the conflict without an effective external route to settlement. A formal declaration of independence would instead allow the colonies to take their place among nations and make mediation possible.

He likewise argues that France or Spain has little reason to help America if the assistance would merely repair the breach and restore the connection with Britain. Such an outcome would strengthen a rival power at their expense. Independence would clarify the purpose of foreign support: a manifesto could describe the colonies’ grievances and failed peaceful efforts, announce the break with Britain, and assure foreign courts of America’s peaceful disposition and desire for trade. Paine presents that appeal to European courts as more promising than sending another ship of petitions to Britain.

France in the Case for American Independence

France thus occupies an important but carefully delimited place in Paine’s reasoning. It is neither portrayed as a natural enemy nor treated as an ally whose intervention can substitute for American independence. Its relation to America depends on the political arrangement that makes the colonies British subjects; changing that arrangement could transform the grounds for hostility and open the way to trade, mediation, and assistance.

The argument makes sovereignty the hinge between war and peaceful relations. So long as America remains tied to Britain, its commerce and diplomacy are exposed to British conflicts, and its appeal for outside help remains compromised. Independence, in Paine’s account, would allow France to deal with America as a separate political community rather than encounter it through Britain’s imperial claims.