§ 290]

TO THE MISSISSIPPI

241

still only French settlers, had been organized, like Kentucky, as a Virginia county.

The Americans, therefore, had ground for claiming territory to the Mississippi,1 and such extension of territory was essential to our future development. England, however, at first expected us to surrender this thinly settled western region in return for the evacuation of New York, Charleston, and other cities still held by her armies. Moreover, France and Spain secretly intended that the treaty should shut up our new nation between the Atlantic and the Appalachians, leaving the northwest territory to England, and the southwest to Spain and the Indians.

289. By the treaty of 1778, we were bound to make no peace without the consent of France, and our commissioners had been strictly instructed by Congress to act only with the advice of Vergennes, the French minister. But Jay and Adams suspected Vergennes of bad faith, and finally persuaded Franklin to disregard the instructions. With patriotic daring, the American commissioners entered into secret negotiations with England, and secured terms which Vergennes could not well refuse to approve when the draft of the treaty was placed before him.

290. By this Treaty of 1783, England acknowledged the independence of the United States, with territory reaching to the Mississippi, and from the Great Lakes to Florida, surrendering,

1 In 1777, Clark received a letter of encouragement from Jefferson, who, even so early, felt keenly the importance of the West. "Much solicitude," he wrote, "will be felt for the outcome of your expedition . . . If successful, it will have an important bearing in ultimately establishing our northwestern boundary."

2 Which had been legally a part of Canada, § 248, note.

8 France had no desire to injure America, but she had no objection to leaving it helpless and dependent upon her favor; and she did wish to satisfy her ally Spain, whom she had dragged into the war. The story goes that, while Franklin and Jay were discussing the situation, Franklin asked in surprise, "What! would you break your instructions?" "As I break this pipe," said Jay, throwing his pipe into the fireplace. Franklin had rendered incalculable diplomatic service to his country, but his long and intimate relations with the French government had unfitted him for an independent course in this crisis.

without consideration, not only the seacoast cities she held, but also the Northwest posts, which had never been seen by an American army. She also granted to the Americans the right to share in the Newfoundland fisheries, from which other foreign nations were shut out. In return, the American Congress recommended to the various States a reasonable treatment of the Loyalists,' and promised solemnly (a matter which should have gone without saying) that no State should interpose to prevent Englishmen from recovering in American courts the debts due from Americans before the war. No

CROSSED SWORDS of Colonel William Prescott and Captain John Linzee, who fought on opposite sides at Bunker Hill. A grandson of Prescott and a granddaughter of Linzee married, and the offspring of this marriage mounted the swords in this way "in token of international friendship and family alliance." From a photograph of the mounted swords, which are now in the rooms of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

...

wonder that the chagrined Vergennes wrote: "The English buy the peace, rather than make it. . . Their concessions regarding boundaries, fisheries, and the Loyalists exceed anything I had thought possible."

The territorial advantages, however, were not fully enjoyed by the United States for some twelve years. When the English forces evacuated the American seaports, they carried away a few hundred Negroes, who, they claimed, had become free by aiding them during the war, and whom they would not now surrender to their old masters. The American State governments made this a pretext for deliberately breaking one of the most reasonable articles of the treaty, that regarding British debts.

1 The American negotiators told the English commissioners frankly that the "recommendation" regarding the Loyalists would carry no weight. England herself afterwards appropriated large sums of money to compensate partially that unfortunate class of exiles.

§ 291]

MEANING OF THE REVOLUTION

243

Despite the pledged faith of the central government, State after State passed laws to prevent the collection of such debts in their courts. Meantime, the Americans had not at first been ready to take over the posts on the Great Lakes; and when they desired to do so, England refused to surrender them, because of these infractions of the treaty.

291. The period of the Revolution covers twenty years. The first twelve were spent in wrangling; the next eight, in war (1763-1775, 17751783). That war created the first American state. It helped to make the colonial policy of all European countries less selfish and more enlightened. It laid the foundation for the French Revolution" (Modern Progress, 267), and so helped modify profoundly the internal character of Europe. Whatever their blunders, the Americans had "warred victoriously for the right in a struggle whose outcome vitally affected the whole human race."

Says an English historian, "The American Revolution split the English-speaking race—and doubled its influence." Not least among its results, the Revolution helped to start England herself upon her splendid march to democracy. Now, after a century and a half, the two great divisions of the English-speaking race are coming together once more in sympathetic friendship, again to "double their influence."

FOR FURTHER READING on the Treaty, see opening chapters of Fiske's Critical Period or of McLaughlin's Confederation and Constitution. For other matters, see close of chapter xxi.