feb 6, 1778 - French Treaty of Amity and Commerce

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The Treaty of Amity and Commerce Between the United States and France, was the first of two treaties between the United States and France, signed on February 6, 1778, at the Hôtel de Coislin [fr] in Paris. Its sister treaty, the Treaty of Alliance (as well as a separate and secret clause related to the future inclusion of Spain into the alliance) were signed immediately thereafter. The Treaty of Amity and Commerce recognized the de facto independence of the United States and established a strictly commercial treaty between the two nations as an alternative to, and in direct defiance of, the British Acts of Trade and Navigation; the Treaty of Alliance, for mutual defense, was then signed "particularly in case Great Britain in Resentment of that connection and of the good correspondence which is the object of the first Treaty, should break the Peace with France, either by direct hostilities, or by hindering her commerce and navigation, in a manner contrary to the Rights of Nations, and the Peace subsisting between the two Crowns". These were the first treaties ever negotiated by the fledgling United States and signed in the midst of the American Revolutionary War. Due to later complications with the alliance treaty, America would not sign another military alliance until the Declaration by United Nations in 1942.

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