“The military defeats that had followed consistently on the Battle of Long Island, and had brought the British so near Philadelphia that Congress had fled to Baltimore, changed the mood of the delegates. The change showed itself immediately after the committee’s letter above of December 21. On the 24th Congress appointed a committee to form a plan for obtaining foreign assistance, on the 28th and 29th debated its report, and on the 30th adopted a series of resolutions that embodied a new approach to foreign policy. Gone was the old optimism, which assumed that French assistance could be had by the offer of a treaty and the promise of neutrality if that treaty brought France and Britain to war. Now the commissioners were authorized to offer much more: military help in obtaining joint control of the fisheries and dividing Newfoundland, while the United States annexed Cape Breton and Nova Scotia; a joint monopoly of American trade with the West Indies; and, if more were needed, a Franco-American assault on British possessions in the Caribbean for the benefit of France alone.”
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-23-02-0056