TREATY OF FRIENDSHIP & TRADE, CONCLUDED BETWEEN THE KING - Lot 57

TREATY OF FRIENDSHIP & TRADE, CONCLUDED BETWEEN THE KING & THE UNITED STATES of North America, February 6, 1778. In Supplément pour les journaux politiques, ou Gazette des gazettes des mois d'octobre, novembre & décembre 1778. Booklet in-12, 98 pp. stapled in paperback. Printed in the year of the original edition of this Traité d'amitié, which appears on pages 31 to 43 of the present volume. This treaty, which was supplemented by a military alliance and a secret annex involving Spain, was signed at Versailles, for the United States by representatives Benjamin Franklin, Arthur Lee and Silas Deane, and for France by Conrad-Alexandre Gérard, first clerk to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Count de Vergennes. France thus de facto recognized the independence of the United States, and entered into belligerence against England. ENCLOSED: CONVENTION NATIONALE. Decree [...] exempting the ships of the United States of America from the provisions of the decree of May 9, 1793. Of July 1, 1793, the second year of the French Republic. [Paris], de l'imprimerie de C.-F. Patris, imprimeur de la Marine, [1793]. In-4, 3-(one blank) pp. one bifeuillet in modern cover. The decree of May 9, 1793 in question authorized "French warships and privateers to arrest and bring into the ports of the Republic neutral ships loaded [...] either with edibles belonging to neutrals and destined for enemy ports, or with goods belonging to enemies".