s were our negotiators. The various
important points were acknowledgment of our independence, settlement
of boundaries, freedom of fishing in the neighborhood of the Canadian
coast. We had agreed to reach no settlement with England separately
from France and Spain. They were our recent friends. England, our recent
enemy, sent Richard Oswald as her peace commissioner. This private
gentleman had placed his fortune at our disposal during the war, and was
Franklin's friend. Lord Shelburne wrote Franklin that if this was not
satisfactory, to say so, and name any one he preferred. But Oswald was
satisfactory; and David Hartley, another friend of Franklin's and also
a sympathizer with our Revolution, was added; and in these circumstances
and by these men the Treaty was made. To France we broke our promise to
reach no separate agreement with England. We negotiated directly with
the British, and the Articles were signed without consultation with the
French Government. When Vergennes, the French Minister, saw the terms,
he remarked in disgust that England would seem to have bought a peace
rather than made one. By the treaty we got the Northwest Territory and
the basin of the Ohio River to the Mississippi. Our recent friend, the
French King, was much opposed to our having so much territory. It was
our recent enemy, England, who agreed that we should have it. This was
the result of that game of jackstraws.

Let us remember several things: in our Revolution, France had befriended
us, not because she loved us so much, but because she loved England so
little. In the Treaty of Paris, England stood with us, not because
she loved us so much, but because she loved France so little. We must
cherish no illusions. Every nation must love itself more than it loves
its neighbor. Nevertheless, in this pattern of England's policy in 1783,
where she takes her stand with us and against other nations, there is a
deep significance. Our notions of law, our notions of life, our notions
of religion, our notions of liberty, our notions of what a man should be
and what a woman should be, are so much more akin to her notions than
to those of any other nation, that they draw her toward us rather
than toward any other nation. That is the lesson of the first game of
jackstraws.

Next comes 1803. Upon the Louisiana Purchase, I have already touched;
but not upon its diplomatic side. In those years the European game of
diplomacy was truly portentous. Bonaparte