tish fleets and armies were to be
immediately withdrawn from every place which they held within the limits
of the United States. A supplementary and secret article provided that
if England, on making peace with Spain, should recover Wept Florida, the
northern boundary of that province should be a line running due east
from the mouth of the Yazoo River to the Chattahoochee.

[Sidenote: Vergennes does not like the way in which it has been done.]

Thus by skilful diplomacy the Americans had gained all that could
reasonably be asked, while the work of making a general peace was
greatly simplified. It was declared in the preamble that the articles
here signed were provisional, and that the treaty was not to take effect
until terms of peace should be agreed on between England and France.
Without delay, Franklin laid the whole matter, except the secret
article, before Vergennes, who forthwith accused the Americans of
ingratitude and bad faith. Franklin's reply, that at the worst they
could only be charged with want of diplomatic courtesy, has sometimes
been condemned as insincere, but on inadequate grounds. He had consented
with reluctance to the separate negotiation, because he did not wish to
give France any possible ground for complaint, whether real or
ostensible. There does not seem, however, to have been sufficient
justification for so grave a charge as was made by Vergennes. If the
French negotiations had failed until after the overthrow of the
Shelburne ministry; if Fox, on coming into power, had taken advantage of
the American treaty to continue the war against France; and if under
such circumstances the Americans had abandoned their ally, then
undoubtedly they would have become guilty of ingratitude and treachery.
There is no reason for supposing that they would ever have done so, had
the circumstances arisen. Their preamble made it impossible for them
honourably to abandon France until a full peace should be made, and more
than this France could not reasonably demand. The Americans had kept to
the strict letter of their contract, as Vergennes had kept to the strict
letter of his, and beyond this they meted out exactly the same measure
of frankness which they received. To say that our debt of gratitude to
France was such as to require us to acquiesce in her scheme for
enriching our enemy Spain at our expense is simply childish. Franklin
was undoubtedly right. The commissioners may have been guilty of a
breach of dip