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