FROM THE TREATY OF PEACE WITH FRANCE, 1763, TO THE TREATY OF PEACE WITH ENGLAND, 1783.
BY WILLIAM FREDERICK POOLE, LL.D.
Librarian of the Newberry Library, Chicago.
THE treaty of peace signed at Paris, February 10, 1763, marks perhaps the most important epoch in the political and social history of North America.[1422] It settled forever a question which had been in doubt for a century,—whether the rule and civilization of France or of Great Britain were to shape the destinies of the western continent. It was the culmination of a seven years' war, in which the vigorous administration of William Pitt had crushed the allied forces of France and Spain. The capture of Quebec by Wolfe, and the surrender of the French army to Amherst at Montreal, were but incidents in the general humiliation which France and Spain had experienced on the continent of Europe, in India, in the West Indies, and on the ocean. They could fight no longer, and were glad to accept any terms of peace which Great Britain might dictate.[1423]
The Treaty of Paris made a strange transformation of the political map of North America, and for the first time brought under British sway the territory which now comprises the Western States of the American Union. Great Britain in the preceding century had granted in the charters of her American colonies boundaries extending from ocean to ocean; but her actual possessions until 1763 were a fringe of country along the Atlantic coast, and extending west to the crests of the Alleghanies. Spain was in possession of Florida and Mexico, and the remainder of the continent was in the real or nominal possession of France. Her imperial domain extended from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Ocean, and from the Alleghanies to undetermined limits beyond the Rocky Mountains. By the Treaty of Paris, Canada and that portion of Louisiana between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi came to Great Britain. In a secret treaty with his Bourbon ally, Carlos III. of Spain, made November 3, 1762, the day when the preliminary articles of peace were signed,[1424] Louis XV. ceded to Spain that part of Louisiana which lay west of the Mississippi, with the island on which New Orleans is situated. France therefore, in this desperate crisis, parted with all her American possessions on the main land, and her name nearly disappeared from the map of North America.[1425] Spain in the war had lost Havana, and in order to recover this key to her other West India possessions she gave up to Great Britain Florida in exchange for Havana.
Severer terms than these would have been exacted by Great Britain from both the allies, except for the recent accession of George III. to the throne, and the changes he made in his cabinet and policy. In the midst of the negotiations of the treaty, Pitt resigned in disgust, and they were concluded by his successor, the Earl of Bute, and by the Duke of Bedford. The transfers of the immense territories ceded by the treaty were not immediate, and several years elapsed before they came into possession of their new rulers.
In the discussions by the new cabinet as to the terms of the treaty, a question arose which was alarming to the American colonies. Should Canada or the Island of Guadaloupe be restored to France? The sugar trade of the latter, it was claimed, was more important to Great Britain than the Canadian for trade. It was further claimed that, if the colonies were relieved from the menace of the French and their savage allies, they would cover the continent, become a great nation, manufacture their own goods, and eventually declare themselves independent.[1426] Many pamphlets appeared in England advocating and opposing the restoration of Canada to France, but there was no abler advocate of the retention of Canada than Dr. Franklin, who was then in London.[1427]
On the 7th of October, 1763, George III. issued a proclamation,[1428] providing for four new governments or colonies, namely: Quebec, East Florida, West Florida, and Grenada, and defining their boundaries. The limits of Quebec did not vary materially from those of the present province of that name, and those of East and West Florida comprised the present State of Florida and the country north of the Gulf of Mexico to the parallel of 31° latitude.
It will be seen that no provision was made for the government of nine tenths of the new territory acquired by the Treaty of Paris, and the omission was not an oversight, but was intentional. The purpose was to reserve as crown lands the Northwest territory, the region north of the great lakes, and the country between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi, and to exclude them from settlement by the American colonies. They were left, for the time being, to the undisputed possession of the savage tribes.[1429] The king's "loving subjects" were forbidden making purchases of land from the Indians, or forming any settlements "westward of the sources of the rivers which fall into the sea from the West and Northwest", "and all persons who have wilfully or inadvertently seated themselves upon any lands" west of this limit were warned "forthwith to remove themselves from such settlements." Certain reasons for this policy were assigned in the proclamation, such as "preventing irregularities in the future, and that the Indians may be convinced of our justice", etc.; but the real explanation appears in the Report of the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, in 1772, on the petition of Thomas Walpole and others for a grant of land on the Ohio. The report was drawn by Lord Hillsborough, the president of the board. The report states:—
"We take leave to remind your Lordships of that principle which was adopted by this Board, and approved and confirmed by his Majesty, immediately after the Treaty of Paris, viz.: the confining the western extent of settlements to such a distance from the seacoast as that those settlements should lie within reach of the trade and commerce of this kingdom, ... and also of the exercise of that authority and jurisdiction which was conceived to be necessary for the preservation of the Colonies in a due subordination to, and dependence upon, the mother country. And these we apprehend to have been the two capital objects of his Majesty's proclamation of the 7th of October, 1763.... The great object of colonizing upon the continent of North America has been to improve and extend the commerce, navigation, and manufactures of this kingdom.... It does appear to us that the extension of the fur trade depends entirely upon the Indians being undisturbed in the possession of their hunting-grounds, and that all colonizing does in its nature, and must in its consequences, operate to the prejudice of that branch of commerce.... Let the savages enjoy their deserts in quiet. Were they driven from their forests the peltry-trade would decrease; and it is not impossible that worse savages would take refuge in them."[1430]