We’ve noted before that France had been helping the United Colonies for a little while, using gray markets and go-betweens in order to give themselves some plausible deniability. Britain and Spain were both a little salty about having been beaten by Britain in the past, so they were only too happy to have somebody else fighting them while they stood by and watched. And in the long run it didn’t cost them much to provide materials to the Colonies to help them get the job done.

But while both nations committed money and supplies to the cause, it was at least another year before either of them would formally announce an alliance. This was more like an eighteenth century version of the Lend Lease Act that allowed us to arm Allied Powers in World War 2 before Pearl Harbor.

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