int that had been expressly stipulated; and
Franklin, who felt that he understood Frenchmen better than his
colleagues, was naturally unwilling to seem behindhand in this respect.
At the same time, in regard to matters not expressly stipulated,
Vergennes was clearly playing a sharp game against us; and it is
undeniable that, without departing technically from the obligations of
the alliance, Jay and Adams--two men as honourable as ever lived--played
a very sharp defensive game against him. The traditional French subtlety
was no match for Yankee shrewdness. The treaty with England was not
concluded until the consent of France had been obtained, and thus the
express stipulation was respected; but a thorough and detailed agreement
was reached as to what the purport of the treaty should be, while our
not too friendly ally was kept in the dark. The annals of modern
diplomacy have afforded few stranger spectacles. With the indispensable
aid of France we had just got the better of England in fight, and now we
proceeded amicably to divide territory and commercial privileges with
the enemy, and to make arrangements in which the ally was virtually
ignored. It ceases to be a paradox, however, when we remember that with
the change of government in England some essential conditions of the
case were changed. The England against which we had fought was the
hostile England of Lord North; the England with which we were now
dealing was the friendly England of Shelburne and Pitt. For the moment,
the English race, on both sides of the Atlantic, was united in its main
purpose and divided only by questions of detail, while the rival
colonizing power, which sought to work in a direction contrary to the
general interests of English-speaking people, was in great measure
disregarded.

[Sidenote: The separate American treaty, as agreed upon: 1. Boundaries;]

As soon as the problem was thus virtually reduced to a negotiation
between the American commissioners and Lord Shelburne's ministry, the
air was cleared in a moment. The principal questions had already been
discussed between Franklin and Oswald. Independence being first
acknowledged, the question of boundaries came up for settlement. England
had little interest in regaining the territory between the Alleghanies
and the Mississippi, the forts in which were already held by American
soldiers, and she relinquished all claim upon it. The Mississippi River
thus became the dividing line between the