[6] Within days of the news of Burgoyne's surrender reaching France, King Louis XVI decided to enter into negotiations with the Americans that resulted in a formal Franco-American alliance and the French entry into the war, moving the conflict onto a global stage.

The Franco-Spanish alliance, however, in 1782 encountered severe setbacks with the defeat and capture of De Grasse at the Battle of the Saintes in April as well as the failure of the Great Siege of Gibraltar in September.

In addition, a series of naval battles between Admirals Edward Hughes and Pierre André de Suffren were fought in a French attempt to displace Britain from her Indian territories.

[18] North's government, fearful of war with France, sought reconciliation with the American colonies and was willing to grant a fair measure of autonomy to this end, but what would be enough in 1775 would no longer suffice by 1778.

[24] During that conflict, France had been pinned down in Europe fighting Continental powers while Britain defeated the French navy and won victories in India, the West Indies and North America.

[32] The French frigate Concorde reached Martinique on August 17 with orders from Paris to take Dominica at the earliest opportunity, and de Bouillé made immediate plans for such an operation.

[38] News of Dominica's fall was received with surprise in London; considering that a single ship of the line might have prevented the attack, Admiral Barrington was widely blamed for the loss, and criticised for adhering too closely to his orders.

[39] French Admiral the comte D'Estaing arrived in the West Indies in early December 1778 in command of a fleet consisting of 12 ships of the line and a number of smaller vessels.

[45] Furthermore, Byron departed St. Lucia on 6 June in order to provide escort services to British merchant ships gathering at St. Kitts for a convoy to Europe, leaving d'Estaing free to act.

Although Washington failed to cooperate with his allies, being fixated on attacking the British in New York City, D'Estaing landed the troops in aid to the Americans before he returned to France, as he had been ordered to do.

[30] One clear result of the renewal of the Anglo-French contest in the East Indies between 1778 and 1783 was a greater appreciation by the British of the strategic needs of their newly acquired possessions in Asia.

The superimposition of a global struggle between European powers upon several localised Indian wars did unnerve the British East India Company and seriously embarrass its presidencies.

[51] In March 1779 the British forces won Mahé ("Mahey") from the French; the Nairs ("Nayhirs"), a Hindu community took this opportunity to rebel against Haidar Ali's rule.

Spain sought to recover Gibraltar and Minorca, Mobile and Pensacola in Florida, and to expel the British from Spanish Central America by ending their right to cut logwood in the Bay of Honduras and the coast of Campeche.

[53] France declared that her aims were to expel the British from the Newfoundland fishery, to end restrictions on French sovereignty over Dunkirk, to regain free trade in India, to recover Senegal and Dominica, and to restore the Treaty of Utrecht provisions relating to the Anglo-French commerce.

[63] Upon the return of the ships from Minorca, Rodney put to sea again on February 13, for the West Indies, the detachment from the Channel fleet accompanied him three days' sail on his way, and then parted for Britain with the prizes.

[64] On this return voyage it fell in with fifteen French supply vessels, convoyed by two sixty-fours, bound for the Ile de France, in the Indian Ocean, one of the ships of war, the Protée, and three of the storeships were taken.

[65] In North America, the Spanish governor of Louisiana, Bernardo de Gálvez, attacked the south part of the United States and took British garrisons by surprise.

The combined French and Spanish fleet boasted 66 ships of the line, whose goal was to sweep the Royal Navy from the Channel in preparation for the landing of 30–40,000 troops who had been readied for the invasion.

Despite superiority of numbers over the British fleet in the English Channel, the combined French-Spanish operation failed due to a comedy of errors of navigation, miscommunication, disease, food shortages, and bad weather.

On 3 September, having failed to decisively engage the British fleet, which had by then taken up a strong defensive position in The Solent, the leaders of the great Armada decided to retreat with as many as 8,000 being afflicted with disease.

When in July 1780 the Lieutenant General Comte de Rochambeau, arrived in Newport with an army of 6,000 men, he described the situation: "in any operation, and under all circumstances, a decisive naval superiority is to be considered as a fundamental principle, and the basis upon which every hope of success must ultimately depend".

[70] The national currency was virtually worthless, public support for the war, about to enter its sixth year, was waning, and army troops were becoming mutinous over pay and conditions.

It turned out that the Spanish were not interested in operations against Jamaica until after they had dealt with an expected British attempt to reinforce besieged Gibraltar, and merely wanted to be informed of the movements of the West Indies fleet.

De Grasse concurred with Rochambeau and subsequently sent a dispatch indicating that he would reach the Chesapeake at the end of August but that agreements with the Spanish meant he could only stay until mid-October.

The rest of the Windward Islands (Antigua, St Lucia, and Barbados) still remained under British control, while Admiral George Rodney arrived in the Caribbean theatre the following month, having brought reinforcements.

[91] The British ships by this time had hulls which had gone through a process known as copper sheathing; found to be a practicable means of protecting them from marine growth and fouling as well as salt water corrosion.

[100][101] The two equally capable and determined fleets broke off their mutual challenge only when news arrived that peace treaties had been signed by Britain, France and Spain in early 1783.

On 18 September the allies launched their grand assault with ten French designed floating batteries involving more troops than had ever been in service at one time on the entire North American continent.

With Gibraltar safe along with Rodney's victory at the Saintes back in April, British demands at the peace talks had now greatly strengthened and had undermined the French confidence that had greeted the success at Yorktown.