the terms offered, the United States could not entertain them, under the provisions of the alliance. Even after Yorktown peace could not be made, for France was still fighting. But as early as 1779 Congress appointed John Adams as peace commissioner and defined the terms of an acceptable treaty. These, in addition to independence, were: full rights in the fisheries off the Canadian coast, and the Mississippi River for the western boundary.

These demands were more than France was pledged to uphold, and to Vergennes seemed by their excess to threaten a prolongation of the war. Through his influence a modification was made in 1781. Franklin, John Jay, Jefferson, and Henry Laurens were joined with Adams in the peace commission, and the terms of peace were redefined so that independence was made the only indispensable condition. In regard to all other matters the commissioners were instructed to consult with the French minister, and ultimately to guide themselves by his advice.

Jefferson, then governor of Virginia, declined the appointment as commissioner, and Laurens, a South Carolinian, who had been the presiding officer of Congress and was at the time of his appointment a prisoner in England, was not released in time to take much part in the negotiations. Jay had been since 1779 the envoy of Congress in Spain, where he had not only failed to make progress towards an alliance, but had even been denied. official recognition. Of the three men who acted Franklin alone, by temperament and experience, had a sympathetic understanding of France's position.

Vergennes's problem was to satisfy, so far as possible, the conflicting pretensions of his two allies, especially with regard to the Mississippi Valley, and at the same time to avoid making such heavy demands upon England as the price of peace that she would prefer to continue the costly and uncertain war. To give reasonable satisfaction to each belligerent and bring the war to a close would require some concessions by each nation. A compromise was necessarily Vergennes's aim.

Negotiations between the American and British commissioners were begun in September, 1782. Because Jay insisted that Great Britain must recognize the independence of the United States before discussing terms of peace, the commission given

Richard Oswald, who began the negotiations for the British, authorized him to treat with the "Thirteen United States of North America."

The first step was to define the territory of the United States. It was the desire of the British to win the friendship of the former colonies by a liberal treaty. So act, Oswald was instructed, as to "regain the affections of America." Such a course might defeat the hope of France that the new nation, brought into being through her aid, would become her commercial and political satellite. If England could retain the good will of America and the lion's share of her trade, the ill results of independence would be substantially lessened.

Vergennes (or Rayneval, his secretary, who spoke for him), having to consider the interests of others besides the United States, had already suggested to Jay that the territory south of the Ohio River, from the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, be reserved as Indian country, with the Cumberland River as the dividing line between the Spanish and American "spheres of influence," and that the Northwest remain under British control. Jay, remembering his humiliating experience in Spain and noting the Spanish slant of this suggestion, construed it as evidence of an unfriendly disposition on the part of Vergennes. In this opinion he was confirmed when Rayneval was sent in haste to London, presumably to present the French view to the British cabinet.

It is now known that Rayneval's errand had to do with another matter. But Jay, convinced of Vergennes's duplicity, formed the opinion that the commissioners could obtain a better treaty if they dealt with the British without French assistance. "Let us," he wrote to Congress, "be honest and grateful to France, but let us think for ourselves." Adams shared Jay's view, and Franklin finally consented to go on with the negotiations without consulting the French court.

The good faith of this course is open to question. England's policy of conciliation detached the United States, in effect, from her alliance. Many Americans then and since have believed with James Madison that "instead of coöperating with Great Britain" to take advantage of "the embarrassment in which France was placed by the interfering claims of Spain and the

United States," the envoys "ought to have made every allowance and given every facility to it consistent with a regard to the rights" of America.

Nevertheless it is quite likely that the terms obtained were better than they would otherwise have been. The British not only conceded the Mississippi boundary, but recognized the rights in the fisheries as unimpaired by the war and the new status of independence.

The treaty definition of the boundary was made in partial ignorance of the geography of the country through which the line ran. Beginning on the northeast at the mouth of the St. Croix River, the line followed that stream to its source. Thence it ran north to the "highlands," separating the streams flowing into the Atlantic from those falling into the St. Lawrence. Following the "highlands" to the upper waters of Connecticut River, and that stream to the forty-fifth parallel of latitude, it ran due west to the St. Lawrence, thence up that river and through the Great Lakes and the chain of small lakes beyond Superior, to the northwest corner of the Lake of the Woods. From this point it ran "due west to the Mississippi," thence south with the course of the river to the thirty-first parallel, thence east along that parallel to the Chattahoochee, down this stream to its junction with the Flint, thence straight to the source of the St. Mary's, and along its course to the sea.

At several points this line had subsequently to be adjusted. A dispute arose as to which stream was the St. Croix of the treaty; there proved to be no highlands forming a watershed as described; the line through the small lakes in the Northwest had to run by actual survey; and it developed that the Mississippi would not be reached by a line running west from the Lake of the Woods. Sixty years elapsed before these boundary questions were finally disposed of.

Besides these disputes with England over the interpretation and application of the treaty, another serious one arose with Spain over the southern boundary. The generalship of Bernardo de Galvez, governor of Louisiana, had placed the Spanish in the British posts at Mobile and Pensacola, and in control of the east bank of the Mississippi as far north as the present Natchez. As peace terms had not been agreed on between England and

Spain when the negotiations with the United States were under way, the fate of the Floridas was undetermined. While fixing the southern boundary of the United States at the thirty-first parallel, therefore, a secret clause of the treaty provided that in case the British retained West Florida when they made peace with Spain, it should have its old northern boundary, fixed in 1767 at 32° 28'. When peace was made with Spain, England found it necessary to yield the Floridas, which she did without definition of boundaries. Spain then not unnaturally claimed

BOUNDARY DISPUTE WITH SPAIN UNDER TREATIES OF 1783.

that the provinces ceded to her were the Floridas as bounded by the British while in their possession. The United States claimed the thirty-first parallel, Spain clung to the line of 32° 28', and the quarrel dragged on until 1795.

Provisions of the treaty as to two other matters were also the cause of later disagreements. These were the stipulations that creditors in either country should encounter no legal impediments in attempting to collect debts due them in the other; and that Congress would recommend to the states restoration of the confiscated estates of Loyalists, or compensation of the losers. The purpose of the first clause was to enable English merchants to sue their American customers for pre-war debts; but as many states had passed laws requiring such debtors to pay the sums due into the state treasuries, the treaty right was nullified.

The states moreover ignored the recommendations of Congress concerning the Loyalists. The British complained of the nonperformance of the treaty, and made it the ground for retaining a number of posts along the Canadian border which the treaty provided should be relinquished.

The preliminary treaty made in the autumn of 1782 became a definitive treaty when France and England made peace the next year (September, 1783). Americans had every reason to rejoice over the terms secured. Not so the French and British. "The English," wrote Vergennes to Rayneval, "buy peace rather than make it." Although the treaty was ratified, the ministry went down under the storm of criticism, and the new government was distinctly less friendly towards America.

One result of the change of ministry was the refusal to make a commercial treaty. The American commissioners hoped to conclude such an agreement in connection with the peace, but negotiations were postponed to a more convenient season. This proved unfortunate for the United States, for on account of the changed attitude of the King's government many years passed before it was possible to obtain a treaty of commerce.

When Vergennes learned of the signing of the preliminary agreement, he complained to Franklin of the violation of the instructions of Congress. "I pray you to consider," he wrote, "how you are to fulfill those [obligations] which are due to the king." Franklin could only reply that nothing had been done contrary to the interests of France, and Vergennes, although he might well have disputed the statement, did not press the matter further. To the French minister in Philadelphia he wrote, however, "If we may judge of the future from what has passed here under our eyes, we shall be poorly paid for all that we have done for the United States."

Thus was the United States ushered into the company of the nations of the earth. Many Europeans regarded its future cynically. Few believed that the feeble bonds of union would long hold the states together, much less stretch to the lands beyond the mountains without breaking. Nature herself, they said, had decreed that the Alleghenies should be the western limit of the new republic. Count de Aranda, the Spanish ambassador in France, wrote in quite another strain: "This federal