merican independence; but who had now
expressed his readiness to acknowledge it. In reply, Lord Shelburne
said that he yielded to necessity, and that the full recognition of
independence was still dependent on the conduct of France; if France
did not consent to peace, it would be withheld. Several warm debates
followed on the subject; and on the 18th of December, a division took
place on a motion made by Fox, for copies of all the parts of the
provisional treaty that related to American independence; which was lost
by an overwhelming majority. After voting 100,000 seamen and marines
for the service of the ensuing year, on the 23rd of December, the house
adjourned for the Christmass recess.

{A.D. 1783}

PRELIMINARIES OF PEACE.

It was a prevailing opinion that negociations with France, Spain, and
Holland would yet fail, and that a general peace was yet a distant
event.

Nevertheless, during the recess, negociations came to a pacific
conclusion. Preliminary articles of peace were signed at Versailles
on the 20th of January; and the arrangements of the whole were as
follow:--Great Britain acknowledged the thirteen United States as
free, sovereign, and independent States, with advantageous boundaries,
comprehending the countries on both sides of the Ohio, and on the east
of the Mississippi. The right of fishing on the banks of Newfoundland
and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence was also granted to the Americans. The
right of navigation on the Mississippi, from its source to the ocean,
was declared common to both powers. In the treaty, the loyalists
were merely recommended to congress; but it was agreed that no new
confiscations or persecutions were to take place. The right of fishing
on the coast of Newfoundland, from Cape St. John on the east, round
the north of the island to Cape Bay on the west, was likewise ceded to
France. That power also obtained the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon
and St. Lucie and Tobago in the West Indies; Senegal and Goree in
Africa; Pondicherry, with other districts in the East Indies, were in
part restored, and in part ceded, to France. The article of the peace
of Utrecht, relative to the fortifications of Dunkirk, were moreover
abrogated. On her part, France restored to Great Britain the islands of
Grenada and the Grenadines, St. Vincent, Dominica, St. Christopher's,
Nevis, and Montserrat. In Africa, she likewise ceded the possession of
Fort James and the River Gambia. Spain obtained th