the Caribbee
Islands were wrested from France; and the very important city of
Havanna, which in a great degree commands the gulf of Mexico, was
taken from Spain.

This course of conquest, which no force in possession of France and
Spain seemed capable of checking, while any of their distant
possessions remained to be subdued, was arrested by preliminary
articles of peace signed at Paris.

By this treaty, his Christian Majesty ceded to Britain, all the
conquests made by that power on the continent of North America,
together with the river and port of Mobile; and all the territory to
which France was entitled on the left bank of the Mississippi,
reserving only the island of New Orleans. And it was agreed that, for
the future, the confines between the dominions of the two crowns, in
that quarter of the world, should be irrevocably fixed by a line drawn
along the middle of the Mississippi, from its source as far as the
river Iberville, and thence, by a line drawn along the middle of that
river, and of the lakes Maurepas and Pont Chartrain.

The Havanna was exchanged with Spain for the Floridas. By establishing
these great natural boundaries to the British empire in North America,
all causes of future contest respecting that continent, with any
potentate of Europe, were supposed to be removed.

CHAPTER XIII.

Opinions on the supremacy of parliament, and its right to
tax the colonies.... The stamp act.... Congress at New
York.... Violence in the towns.... Change of
administration.... Stamp act repealed.... Opposition to the
mutiny act.... Act imposing duties on tea, &c. resisted in
America.... Letters from the assembly of Massachusetts to
members of the administration.... Petition to the King....
Circular letter to the colonial assemblies.... Letter from
the earl of Hillsborough.... Assembly of Massachusetts
dissolved.... Seizure of the Sloop Liberty.... Convention at
Fanueil Hall.... Moderation of its proceedings.... Two
British regiments arrive at Boston.... Resolutions of the
house of Burgesses of Virginia.... Assembly dissolved....
The members form an association.... General measures against
importation.... General court convened in Massachusetts....
Its proceedings.... Is prorogued.... Duties, except that on
tea, repealed.... Circular letter of the earl of
Hillsborough.... New York recedes from the non-importation