after being informed of the terms by Franklin, wrote to Rayneval in London that the English had rather bought a peace than made one; that their concessions as regards the boundaries, the fisheries, and the loyalists exceeded anything that he had believed possible. Rayneval replied that the treaty seemed to him a dream. Vergennes wrote Luzerne: "The boundaries must have caused astonishment in America. No one can have flattered himself that the English ministers would go beyond the headwaters of the rivers falling into the Atlantic." De Aranda, the Spanish ambassador, wrote to the king of Spain in the spirit of a seer: "This federal republic is born a pigmy. A day will come when it will be a giant; even a Colossus, formidable to these countries. Liberty of conscience, the facility for establishing a new population on immense lands, as well as the advantages of the new government, will draw thither farmers and artisans from all the nations. In a few years we shall watch with grief the tyrannical existence of this same Colossus." The Venetian ambassador wrote: "If the union of the American provinces shall continue, they will become by force of time and of the arts the most formidable power in the world." 1

Lecky, the English historian, says: "It is impossible not to be struck with the skill, hardihood, and good fortune that marked the American negotiations. Everything the United States could, with any shadow of plausibility, demand from England, they obtained; and much of what they obtained was granted them in oppo

17 Winsor's Narrative and Critical History of America, 152.

sition to the two great powers by whose assistance they had triumphed. America gained at the peace al

most everything she desired, and started, with every promise of future greatness, upon the mighty career that was before her." 1

14 Lecky's History of England in the XVIII. Century, 263.

CHAPTER III.

PEACE UNDER THE CONFEDERATION.

THE last chapter was concluded with the signature of the preliminary treaty of peace of 1782, which the next year became in effect the permanent treaty, and thus established in form the independence of the United States, fixed its relations with Great Britain, and gave the young nation a position among the governments of the world. As it is the most important treaty ever celebrated by this country, it may be interesting to look more closely at some of the incidents attending its negotiation, and at the personages most prominent in bringing it to a successful conclusion.

The first incident which attracts our attention is the issue which Jay raised soon after his arrival in Paris as to the sufficiency of Oswald's commission, which authorized him to treat with any commissioners named by the Colonies. Upon Jay's positive refusal to proceed with the negotiations, Oswald exhibited to the American commissioners his instructions, which stated that in case the commissioners were "not at liberty to treat on any terms short of independence, you are to declare to them that you have authority to make that concession." But even this was not satisfactory. Jay contended that the British and American commissioners should meet on equal terms as the representatives of equal nations;

that the treaty should be the consequence of independence, and not independence a consequence of the treaty. His persistency carried the day, and the new commission to Oswald authorized him to treat with any commissioners "vested with equal powers, by and on the part of the thirteen United States of America," naming

them.

The importance of this position arises from the relation which is to be ascribed to the parties in making the treaty. If they were negotiating as independent nations the stipulations entered into were in the nature of the partition of an empire, and each continued in the exercise of the rights which pertained to them respectively, except as limited by the stipulations entered into. If, on the other hand, the negotiations were conducted on the basis of the continuing colonial existence, independence under the treaty carried with it only such rights as to boundaries, fishing, and navigation as the mother country should "grant" by virtue of the treaty. This question, we shall see, assumed practical interest when in later years the fishing rights became the subject of discussion and negotiation.

The question has been much mooted whether, if Franklin had been heartily supported by his colleagues, Canada might not have been included in the United States by the treaty of peace. In his informal "Notes for Conversation," which he handed to Oswald before the negotiations had been fairly opened, Franklin suggested the voluntary cession of Canada, and, with a foresight which discerned the embarrassments and daa1 5 Dip. Cor. Rev. 541.