and that the United States should be enclosed by the
Alleghanies. The American commissioners found that France regarded the
success of the revolution, the result of her own work, with jealousy,
and wished to shut them out from the Newfoundland fishery and from
extension on the west and north. On the other hand, England acknowledged
American independence on September 27, and showed herself inclined to
meet their demands in a friendly spirit. Accordingly, without consulting
the French ministers, they signed preliminaries of peace on November 30,
the treaty to be concluded when terms were arranged between England and
France. England acknowledged the sovereignty of the United States; the
Mississippi was recognised as their boundary on the west, and on the
north a line passing through the great lakes; and they secured a right
to fish on the banks of Newfoundland and in the gulf of St. Lawrence.
The American revolution was accomplished. Englishmen of all parties
believed that the day of England's greatness was over. Yet the
separation, bitter and humiliating as it was, taught her a lesson in
colonial government which has rendered her empire strong as well as
vast, while in place of discontented colonies with cramped energies, it
laid the foundation of a mighty power bound to her by bonds which will
grow in strength so long as the affairs of both Great Britain and the
United States are wisely directed. It was a happy beginning of the
relations between the two powers that it was through England, and not
through their foreign allies, that the Americans obtained the
gratification of their legitimate ambitions, and that from the peace
with the United States England gained some advantage in treating with
her continental foes.

The treaty did not protect the loyalists. Shelburne did his best for
them, but Franklin was bitter against them, and his feelings were those
of the victorious party generally. The American commissioners would only
agree that there should be no further confiscations and prosecutions,
and that congress should recommend the several states to revise their
laws concerning them. These articles were nugatory. Nothing short of a
renewal of the war could have induced the Americans to forego their
revenge, and if the war had gone on longer, the loyalists' fate would
have been no better. Everywhere, with the exception of South Carolina,
they were treated with barbarity. Some 60,000 persons left the country
before Carle