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s at Paris a strong feeling of distrust and suspicion against their new allies. That feeling we find most plainly expressed by Mr. Adams in relating his own conversations with Mr. Oswald. 'You are afraid,' said Mr. Oswald to-day, 'of being made the tools of the Powers of Europe?' 'Indeed I am,' said I. 'What Powers?' said he. 'All of them,' said I. "But in the minds of the American Commissioners, the distrust against France was more vehement than against any other State. The best American writers of the present day acknowledge that all surmises thence arising were, in truth, ill-founded; that the conduct of France towards the United States had been marked throughout not only by good faith and honour, but by generosity." (Lord Mahon's History of England, etc., Vol. VII., Chap. lxvi., pp. 293, 294.)] [Footnote 60: In the preamble of the treaty, it was provided that "The treaty was not to be concluded until terms of peace shall be agreed upon between Great Britain and France." By this limitation (which was a mere form, as the provisional articles were to be meanwhile binding and effective), the Americans were in hopes of avoiding, at least of softening, their French allies. "The first Article acknowledged in the fullest terms the independence of the United States. The second fixed their boundaries, and certainly to their advantage. The third gave their people the right to take fish on all the banks of Newfoundland, but not to dry or cure them on any of the King's settled dominions in America. By the fourth, fifth, and sixth Articles, it was engaged that Congress should earnestly recommend to the several Legislatures to provide for the restitution of all estates belonging to real British subjects who had not borne arms against them. All other persons were to be at liberty to go to any of the provinces and remain there for twelve months to wind up their affairs, the Congress also recommending the restitution of their confiscated property, on their repayment of the sums for which they had been sold. No impediment was to be put in the way of recovering _bona fide_ debts; no further prosecutions were to be commenced, no further confiscations made. It was likewise stipulated in the seventh and eighth Articles, that the English should at once withdraw their fleets and armies from every port or place which they still possessed within the limits of the United States; and that the navigation of the Mississippi, from its source to
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