No, the problem that the French had in 1779 was waiting for the overdue Spanish fleet to arrive. An extended period at sea has an unfortunate effect on supplies and living conditions, especially when you can't return to port out of concern that the ally(Spain) might finally arrive after you leave.
40+ SOLs were certainly not diverted for more than a month due to any raid by John Paul Jones.
You keep offering ideas which offer wonderful promise, in theory, and not the slightest explanation for how these ideas can come into play. As the new example, if the Continental Congress stops offering Letters of Marque...
1) How the Continental Congress will be willing to do this, given that you've already mentioned the involvment of many key congressmen in privateering, is not given.
2) How the Continental Congress can get all the (financially troubled) state governments to stop issuing such Letters is not given.
3) How you can convince the investors in privateering to divert their wealth and ships(!) into the CN, which is sure to involve higher risks and much lower returns, is not given.
4) How the sailors can be persuaded to take a lower rewards for greater risks is not given.
5) How the British will not be able to respond to the naval buildup, especially now that the reduction in privateering frees up their own ships and sooner than any American benefit is not given.
To make matters worse, your basic premise is that the 20+ frigates which the CN did have during the war achieved little but somehow a few more could prove decisive.
When you take into account the genuine threat briefly presented by the French and Spanish in 1779 plus all the British forces tied down elsewhere, especially at the siege of Gibralter, not to mention the literally hundreds of American privateers at sea, the odds of a few more American raiders making a difference either to North's government or the RN's efforts in North America to a greater degree than all those historical events are pretty much nil.
However, the diversion of thousands of men and hundreds of artillery pieces and desperately need funding for the CN, given the US defeats on land 1779-1781, could well do more damage to the Continental Army than anything a few raiders could repair.
Oh, God, now you're imagining the US somehow developing massive artillery foundries as well, which the British also never notice or never think to take any action against, in complete disregard of the fact that the Continental Congress would have loved to do that, as would the independent United States over the next generation, but could not.
40+ SOLs were certainly not diverted for more than a month due to any raid by John Paul Jones.
You keep offering ideas which offer wonderful promise, in theory, and not the slightest explanation for how these ideas can come into play. As the new example, if the Continental Congress stops offering Letters of Marque...
1) How the Continental Congress will be willing to do this, given that you've already mentioned the involvment of many key congressmen in privateering, is not given.
2) How the Continental Congress can get all the (financially troubled) state governments to stop issuing such Letters is not given.
3) How you can convince the investors in privateering to divert their wealth and ships(!) into the CN, which is sure to involve higher risks and much lower returns, is not given.
4) How the sailors can be persuaded to take a lower rewards for greater risks is not given.
5) How the British will not be able to respond to the naval buildup, especially now that the reduction in privateering frees up their own ships and sooner than any American benefit is not given.
To make matters worse, your basic premise is that the 20+ frigates which the CN did have during the war achieved little but somehow a few more could prove decisive.
When you take into account the genuine threat briefly presented by the French and Spanish in 1779 plus all the British forces tied down elsewhere, especially at the siege of Gibralter, not to mention the literally hundreds of American privateers at sea, the odds of a few more American raiders making a difference either to North's government or the RN's efforts in North America to a greater degree than all those historical events are pretty much nil.
However, the diversion of thousands of men and hundreds of artillery pieces and desperately need funding for the CN, given the US defeats on land 1779-1781, could well do more damage to the Continental Army than anything a few raiders could repair.
Oh, God, now you're imagining the US somehow developing massive artillery foundries as well, which the British also never notice or never think to take any action against, in complete disregard of the fact that the Continental Congress would have loved to do that, as would the independent United States over the next generation, but could not.