d without
consulting their faithful ally arranged the terms of peace with England.

Independence was acknowledged as the indispensable preliminary to
negotiation. John Adams declared that he "had no notion of cheating
anybody," and it was agreed that British creditors should "meet with no
lawful impediment to the recovery of all ... _bona fide_ debts
heretofore contracted" in the colonies. The skill of Franklin and the
resolute persistence of Jay and Adams, together with the desire of the
English Government to make a peace without delay, enabled the Americans
to gain, in every other disputed point, all they could hope for and more
than they had any reason to expect. It was conceded that they should
enjoy the customary right of fishing in Northern waters. The best effort
of England to secure a restoration of property and of the rights of
citizens to the Loyalists was unavailing, and the compensation of that
unhappy class fell to the Government whose losing cause it had
supported. But of all the provisions of this Peace of Paris, the most
important, next to the acknowledgment of independence, was the one which
gave to the new State that incomparably rich woodland and prairie
country extending from the thirty-first, degree of north latitude to
the Great Lakes, and as far west as the Mississippi River. With these as
its main provisions, the definitive treaty was signed on September 3,
1783, and ratified by Congress January 14, 1784.

Before the treaty of peace was signed, the cessation of hostilities had
been formally declared and announced to Washington's army on the 19th of
April, eight years to a day after the battle of Lexington. British
troops occupied New York until November 29, when the evacuation of the
city was finally completed, and the United States of America entered the
company of independent nations, the exhausted and half-ruined champion
of those principles of liberty and equality which were soon to transform
the European world. With the British troops there sailed away, never to
return, a great company of Loyalist exiles; part of the thousands who
renounced their heritage and their country in defense of political and
social ideals that belonged to the past. America thus lost the service
of many men of ability, of high integrity, and of genuine culture;
clergymen and scholars, landowners and merchants of substantial estate,
men learned in the law, high officials of proved experience in politics
and administr