The Tories. *Winsor's America, and 1776 were among the most skillful statesmen the country has ever had; they were much better able to judge of the temper of their constituents than is the student of the present day, and they had to reckon with a powerful opposition in nearly every state. Moreover, the rapidly depreciating paper currency was really a species of tax; it was probably the only form of general taxation the people would have endured. 162. The Loyalists. The Continental Congress and the several state legislatures were unable to adopt more enerVII, 185-214. getic measures, owing, in part at least, to the fact that large portions of the people were either opposed to the contest with Great Britain or were half-hearted in its prosecution. The people may be considered as divided into three portions: the radicals, who supported the movement enthusiastically; and the ultraconservatives, who opposed it as much as they could; between these two extremes was the great mass of the population, who cared little which way the matter went provided they were left in peace. As is always the case, at times of disturbance, the radicals, being the most aggressive, possessed a power and attracted attention out of all proportion to their numerical importance. It is of course impossible to state the numbers of these sections respectively or to give an accurate idea of the proportion each bore to the whole. Some very competent students believe that the radicals were in a minority: it is certain that in some parts of the country the conservative element was at least equal in point of number to the radical section and was fully as aggressive; this was the case in South Carolina, in Pennsylvania, in New York, and in portions of Massachusetts. Many loyalists fought actively on the king's side; they formed regiments, as Ferguson's Riflemen, who were destroyed at King's Mountain, and the Queen's Rangers, who accompanied Arnold to Virginia. The most celebrated of these warlike loyalists was Benjamin Thompson, a native of Massachusetts; after the war he went to Europe, became one of the most 1782] Peace Negotiations 225 important scientific men of the early part of the nineteenth century, and received the title of Count Rumford from the king of Bavaria; in his declining years, he remembered his native country, and founded several prizes and one professorship for the promotion of scientific objects. The The patriot active loyalists were regarded with hatred by the Revolu- leaders and the loyalists. tionary leaders: Washington stigmatized them as "detestable parricides," and words were insufficient to exhibit Franklin's detestation of these devoted adherents of the British monarch. On the other hand, a great deal of the bitterness displayed by the loyalists was the direct result of the severity with which they were treated by the radicals. Of late years, there has been a disposition to regard their loyalty with more leniency. Some students even regret the harsh measures which drove them from the country, and wish that they might have been treated as were the Southerners at the close of the Civil War; they point out that their exile deprived the country of many men of education, and are inclined to think that some of the evils which beset the nation in the course of the next few years were owing to the loss of this conservative element in its population. 163. Peace Negotiations of 1782. - The disaster at Yorktown not merely brought hostilities in America to a sudden the North close, it also put an abrupt termination to the king's system 1782. of government in Great Britain. Lord North, who had Fiske's long been anxious to leave office and had remained only from a misplaced feeling of loyalty to his royal master, now resigned and the king was obliged to summon Rockingham and the other leaders of the opposition and place the government in their hands. The two secretaries of state in the new ministry were Charles James Fox and the Earl of Shelburne. They were the real leaders of the government, and were not on good terms. Fox hated and distrusted Shelburne, and there was some ground for his dislike; the latter, indeed, was regarded by men of that time as a trickster. At all events, Shelburne seems to have been sincerely desirous of peace with America. He opened ♦ Fall of Ministry, Critical Period, 1-45; III, 68. 1782] ment. communications with Dr. Franklin, whom he had known Propositions well during the latter's residence in England before the for peace, 1782. war. This, coming to the ears of Fox, confirmed his Winsor's suspicions of Shelburne's fidelity and he seized the oppor- America, tunity afforded by Rockingham's death to resign with his VII, 96–106. friends; then Shelburne became the head of a reconstructed ministry. Congress had appointed five commissioners to negotiate a treaty of peace. Their instructions required them to proceed in conjunction with the French governThe commissioners appointed were Dr. Franklin, then minister to France; John Jay, minister to Spain; John Adams, who had official business in Holland; Henry Laurens and Thomas Jefferson. The last declined to cross the ocean and Laurens was captured on the voyage and was a prisoner in the Tower of London during the period. of important negotiations. The first communications were with Dr. Franklin, who was soon joined by Jay. The former had lived long in France, had been regarded as one of the "lions" of the day, and had a firm faith in the integrity and good will of the French government. Jay's Jay's experience in Spain had led him to believe that the Bourbon suspicions powers (France and Spain) were using the American war to and Spain. further their own interests, especially those of Spain. Jay *Winsor's thought that he had sufficient evidence to justify the con- America, clusion that these governments were averse to the extension of the United States beyond the Alleghanies, and preferred to have the British retain the territory between the Ohio, the Great Lakes, and the Mississippi, to having it handed over to the new republic. He also thought that France was opposed to having the Americans share in the rights to the fisheries under the Treaty of Utrecht, and that Spain was similarly opposed to giving them a share in the free navigation of the Mississippi, secured to England in the treaty of 1763. Historical students are divided as to the soundness of Jay's conclusions; the best opinion, however, inclines to the belief that he was right. John Adams, when he reached Paris, agreed with Jay; the commissioners. of France VII, 107-136. The 1782. Winsor's America, VII, 137-145. The Definitive Treaty, 1783. broke their instructions and negotiated directly with Great Britain, without the knowledge of France. Seldom in the history of diplomacy have negotiations begun in doubtful circumstances been crowned with greater success; the English historian, W. E. H. Lecky, noting this, wrote: "It is impossible not to be struck with the skill, hardihood, and good fortune that marked the American negotiations." The "Preliminary Articles" which should form a treaty when a general peace should be made between Great Britain and the United States were signed on November 30, 1782. Dr. Franklin communicated them to the French government with so many soothing assurances, that France acquiesced in them. September 3, 1783, the Definitive. Treaty was signed at Paris on the same day that treaties between Great Britain and France and between Great Britain and Spain were signed at Versailles; in this manner, the terms of the alliance with France were technically complied with, but hostilities had already ceased in the preceding April between the British and the Americans. It is necessary to examine in detail the treaty between the United States and Great Britain, as on its provisions depended in great measure the relations between those powers for many years. 164. The Treaty of Peace, 1783. - The boundaries of the new nation were to be those of the English colonies according to the treaty of 1763 and the king's Proclamation of that year (p. 136). Thus the Mississippi to the thirty-first VII, 163-165. parallel was to be the western boundary. The southern Boundaries. boundary was the northern boundary of the Floridas according to the Proclamation,-the thirty-first parallel, from the Mississippi to the Chattahoochee, then down that river to its junction with the Flint, thence in a straight line to the source of the St. Mary's, and thence to the sea. This was the line contained in both the Preliminary Articles and the Definitive Treaty. A separate and secret article, appended to the former, provided that in case Great Britain should win back the Floridas from Spain, which |