France

France is presented as both a consequential trading partner and a competitor whose proximity and commercial interests sharpen the essays’ arguments about American peace, revenue, and political union. Its role ranges from a prospective treaty partner to a comparison for the costs of policing trade between separate jurisdictions, while historical references to France’s conflicts with other powers illustrate the risks of private ambition shaping national policy.

Foreign Relations and Commercial Rivalry

The essays count France among the foreign powers with which America had treaties, noting that six nations were party to such agreements and that all but Prussia were maritime powers capable of inflicting harm. Alongside extensive American commerce with Portugal, Spain, and Britain, these treaty relationships made observance of the laws of nations an important condition of peace. The argument is that a single national government could manage those obligations more wisely and consistently than thirteen separate states or several smaller confederacies.

France also figures as a direct commercial competitor. The United States, the essay argues, could supply French markets with fish at lower prices than France could supply them itself, despite French bounties or duties intended to protect domestic producers. In navigation and the carrying trade, American expansion would likewise reduce, to some degree, the share of commerce available to France and other European nations. The essays therefore caution against assuming that those nations would welcome the growth of American shipping: their interests could incline them to restrain it.

Trade with China and India forms another part of this rivalry. American participation in those markets would challenge advantages that other nations had largely monopolized, while allowing Americans to obtain goods they had previously purchased from those intermediaries. France’s place in this account is not that of an enemy already at war with America, but of a power whose commercial incentives could diverge from American ambitions.

Separation, Borders, and the Risk of Conflict

The essays argue that breaking the Union into distinct confederacies would not reliably preserve peace through alliances among the new governments. Separate nations would regulate foreign commerce through separate treaties; because their products and markets differed, their commercial agreements and foreign attachments would differ as well. A power at war with a southern confederacy might be the very nation with which a northern confederacy most wanted to maintain peace. The resulting alliances would be difficult to form and, even if made, difficult to honor faithfully.

The danger follows from the proposed confederacies’ proximity to one another. The essays predict that neighboring American governments might fear each other more than distant European powers and seek foreign alliances against their near rivals. Foreign fleets could then enter American ports and armies American territory more readily than they could be persuaded or compelled to leave. France serves within this broader account as one of the European powers whose relationships with separate American governments could be shaped by competing commercial interests; the text does not claim that France had already intervened in such a divided America.

The essays also contrast this projected fragmentation with the advantages of a common system for trade enforcement. If each state or confederacy imposed its own duties, rivers, bays, easy communication, and familiar habits of intercourse would make illicit trade across internal borders difficult to prevent. A single national government, by contrast, would principally need to guard the Atlantic coast against foreign imports. The contrast makes political union a practical means of avoiding both porous internal customs borders and the coercive surveillance that fragmented revenue systems might require.

France as a Measure of Enforcement Costs

A comparison with France gives this argument a concrete scale. The essay reports that France employed more than twenty thousand customs patrols to defend its fiscal regulations against contraband. Even that extensive force demonstrated the difficulty of preventing smuggling where inland communication connected jurisdictions. The text further warns that the arbitrary and vexatious powers needed to maintain such patrols would be intolerable in a free country.

The comparison is not a claim that American conditions were identical to French ones. Rather, France’s experience serves as a warning about the expense and intrusiveness of trying to police trade across internal borders. Under a unified American government, foreign vessels would have to face the risks of the coast and the possibility of detection both before and after reaching their destination. A small number of armed vessels stationed at port entrances, supported by coordinated enforcement across the states, could act as sentinels for the revenue laws. The essays emphasize that America’s distance from Europe made direct contraband imports less convenient, while separation would make indirect trade through a neighboring state comparatively easy and safe.

Historical Example and the Limits of Political Judgment

France also appears in a historical account of how private ambition can pull a government into war. Thomas Wolsey, chief minister to Henry VIII, hoped to secure the papal office with the support of Emperor Charles V. To gain the emperor’s favor, Wolsey precipitated England into war with France, contrary to what the essay calls the plainest dictates of policy and at risk to the kingdom’s safety and independence. In the account, France is the target of a war whose stated national rationale is overshadowed by a minister’s personal ambition and dependence on a powerful foreign patron.

The example supports the essays’ broader warning that national tranquility may be sacrificed to private advantage even when political actors invoke public motives. It also complements their account of commercial rivalry: foreign relations are shaped not only by the collective interests of nations but by individual ambitions and attachments. Across these uses, France helps establish the stakes of the argument for union: a government capable of coordinating diplomacy, trade regulation, and responsibility is presented as better equipped to manage competing interests without exposing the country to avoidable conflict or oppressive enforcement.