It has been a long day and I don’t have the time or inclination to do a deeper dive, but I would be neglectful not to mention that Benjamin Franklin, Arthur Lee, and Silas Deane, and their French counterparts signed the Treaty of Alliance on this date in 1778, 245 years ago today. I don’t think I grasped until a fateful visit to the Museum of the American Revolution in 2017 how intertwined the world was even in the eighteenth century. We think today that globalization is new, but really each generation for centuries has had its own manifestation.
The Strawfoot 
Yet there were French cannons on Bemis Heights at Saratoga
in the fall of 1777.
Yes, the French were definitely active in the war even before coming out publicly in favor of the Americans by signing the treaty in winter 1778.
the Combo of Beaumarchais and Silas Deane got cannons and balls on American shores north of Boston just in time for Burgoyne coming South to Saratoga; the transportation west attracted many more militiamen to join the upcoming fray
I cannot imagine what it took to make that happen.
Yet there were French cannons on Bemis Heights at Saratoga
in the fall of 1777.