*

further stipulations of any kind, so that all other questions might have been left at loose ends. Even Fox was disinclined to impart any new life to the provisional articles agreed upon by the ministry which he supplanted. He repeatedly avowed the opinion that "a definitive treaty with the United States was perfectly superfluous." The American commissioners became uneasy; but Vergennes pledged himself not to proceed without them,† and Fox readily yielded. On the third of September, when the minister of France and the ambassadors of Great Britain and Spain concluded their conventions at Versailles, the American provisional articles, shaped into a definitive treaty, were signed by Hartley for Great Britain; by Adams, Franklin, and Jay for the United States of America.

The coalition ministry did not last long enough to exchange ratifications. To save the enormous expense of maintaining the British army in New York, Fox hastened its departure; but while "the speedy and complete evacuation of all the territories of the United States " + was authoritatively promised to the American commissioners at Paris in the name of the king, Lord North, acting on the petition of merchants interested in the Canada trade,# withheld orders for the evacuation of the western and north-western interior posts, although by the treaty they were as much an integral part of the United States as Albany or Boston; and this policy, like that relating to commerce, was continued by the ministry that succeeded

him.

We may not turn away from England without relating that Pitt for the second time proposed in the house of commons, though in vain, a change in the representation, by introducing one hundred new members from the counties and from the metropolis. Universal suffrage he condemned, and the privilege of the owners of rotten boroughs to name members of parliament had for him the sanctity of private property, to * Fox to duke of Manchester, 9 August 1783. Same to same, 4 August 1783. MS. Same to Hartley 4 August 1783. MS.

1783.

Hartley to Fox, 31 July 1783. MS.

Fox to Hartley, 10 June 1783. MS. Compare Fox to Hartley, 15 May
MS.

# Regulations proposed by the merchants interested in the trade to the prov ince of Quebec, 1783.

MS.

be taken away only after compensation. "Mankind," said Fox, "are made for themselves, not for others. The best government is that in which the people have the greatest share. The present motion will not go far enough; but, as it is an amendment, I give it my hearty support."

An early and a most beneficent result of the American revolution was a reform of the British colonial system. Taxation of colonies by the parliament of Great Britain, treatment of them as worthless except as drudges for the enrichment of the ruling kingdom, plans of governing them on the maxims of a Hillsborough or a Thurlow,* came to an end. It grew to be the rule to give them content by the establishment of liberal constitutions.

*Sheffield's Commerce of the American States, 175-180.

CHAPTER IV.

AMERICA AND CONTINENTAL EUROPE.

1783.

THE governments of continental Europe vied with each other in welcoming the new republic to its place among the powers of the world. In May 1782, as soon as it was known. at Stockholm that the negotiations for peace were begun, the adventurous king of Sweden sent messages of his desire, through Franklin above all others, to enter into a treaty with the United States. Franklin promptly accepted the invitation. The ambassador of Gustavus at Paris remarked: "I hope it will be remembered that Sweden was the first power in Europe which, without being solicited, offered its friendship to the United States."* Exactly five months before the definitive peace between the United States and Great Britain was signed, the treaty with Sweden was concluded. Each party was put on the footing of the most favored nations. Free ships were to make passengers free as well as goods. Liberty of commerce was to extend to all kinds of merchandise. The number of contraband articles was carefully limited. In case of a maritime war in which both the contracting parties should remain neutral, their ships of war were to protect and assist each other's vessels. The treaty was ratified and proclaimed in the United States before the definitive treaty with Great Britain had arrived.†

The successful termination of the war aroused in Prussia hope for the new birth of Europe, that, by the teachings of America, despotism might be struck down, and the caste of Franklin's Works, ix., 342. Journals of Congress, iv., 241.

hereditary nobility give place to republican equality. These aspirations were suffered to be printed at Berlin.*

The great Frederick had, late in 1782, declared to the British minister at his court, half in earnest and half cajoling, that "he was persuaded the American union could not long subsist under its present form. The great extent of country would alone be a sufficient obstacle, since a republican government had never been known to exist for any length of time where the territory was not limited and concentred. It would not be more absurd to propose the establishment of a democracy to govern the whole country from Brest to Riga. No inference could be drawn from the states of Venice, Holland, and Switzerland, of which the situation and circumstances were perfectly different from those of the colonies." He did not know the power of the representative system, nor could he foresee that by the wise use of it the fourth of his successors would evoke the German state from the eclipse of centuries, to shine with replenished light as the empire of a people. For the moment he kept close watch of the progress of the convention with Sweden, and, so soon as it was signed, directed his minister in France to make overtures to Franklin, which were most gladly received. +

Full seven months before the peace a member of the government at Brussels intimated to William Lee, a former commissioner of congress at the court of Vienna, that Joseph II., who at that time harbored the hope of restoring to Belgian commerce its rights by opening the Scheldt and so preparing the way for a direct trade with America, was disposed to enter into a treaty with the United States.# Soon after the preliminaries of peace between France and Great Britain had been signed, the emperor let it be insinuated to Franklin that he would be well received at Vienna as the minister of a sovereign power. In the following year an agent was sent from Bel

* Die Freiheit Amerika's. Ode vom Herrn Pr. J. E. H. Berlinische Monatsschrift, April 1783, 386. See J. Scherr's Kultur und Sittengeschichte, 508, 619. + Sir John Stepney to secretary of state, 22 October 1782. MS. Goltz to Frederick, 3 March, 28 April, 30 June 1783. MSS.

#William Lee to secretary of foreign affairs, 31 March 1782, Diplomatic Correspondence, ii., 860.

Letter to Franklin from Vienna, 8 April 1783, Franklin's Works, ix., 501.

gium to the United States. The Belgians produced in unsurpassed excellence manufactures which America needed; but they were not enterprising enough to establish houses in America, or to grant its merchants the extended credits which were offered in England.* The subject gained less and less attention, for the emperor was compelled, in violation of natural rights, to suffer the Scheldt to be closed.

On the twenty-second of February 1783, Rosencrone, minister of foreign affairs in Denmark, communicated to Franklin "the satisfaction with which the king's ministry had learned the glorious issue of the war for the United States of America," and their desire to form connections of friendship and commerce. "To overtures for a treaty like that between congress and the states general," he added, "we should eagerly and frankly reply." But a question of indemnity for violations of neutrality by Denmark during the war impeded the negotiation.

Before the end of March the burgomaster and senate of the imperial free city of Hamburg, seeing "European powers courting in rivalry the friendship of" the new state, and impressed with "the illustrious event" of the acknowledged independence of America as "the wonder of that age and of remotest ages to come," deputed one of their citizens to bear to congress their letter, offering free trade between the two republics.

In midsummer, 1783, Portugal made overtures to treat with Franklin, but did not persist in them.

Russia was at that time too much engrossed by affairs in the East to take thought for opening new channels of commerce with the West; and the United States, recalling their minister, declined to make advances. But the two nations, without any mutual stipulations, had rendered each other the most precious services. Catherine had scornfully refused to lend troops to George III., rejected his entreaties for an alliance, and by the armed neutrality insulated his kingdom; the United States, by giving full employment to the maritime powers, had made for the empress the opportunity of annexing to her dominions the plains of Kuban and the Crimea.

*Correspondence of the Austrian agent, Baron de Beelen Bertholff. MS.