n preparing the way for a lasting peace. He had the
instructions of Congress to guide him in what America would claim; and
his own mind was quickly made up as to what England must yield. Four
points were indispensable: a full recognition of independence; an
immediate withdrawal of her troops; a just settlement of
boundaries,--those of Canada being confined, at least, to the limits of
the Act of 1774; and the freedom of the fisheries. Without these there
could be no treaty. But to make the work of peace sure, he suggested, as
equally useful to both parties, four other concessions, the most
important of which were the giving up of Canada, and securing equal
privileges in English and Irish ports to the ships of both nations. The
four necessary articles became the real basis of the treaty.

John Adams, John Jay, and Henry Laurens were joined with him in the
commission. Jay was first on the ground, reaching Paris in June; Adams
came in October; Laurens not till November, when the preliminary
articles were ready for signature. They all accepted Franklin's four
articles as the starting-point. But, unfortunately, they did not all
share Franklin's well-founded confidence in the sincerity of the French
Government. Jay's mind was embittered by the tergiversations of Spain.
Adams had not forgotten his former disagreements with Vergennes, and
hated Franklin so bitterly that he could hardly be prevailed upon to
treat him with the civility which his age and position demanded, much
less with the consideration which the interest of his country required.
Both Jay and Adams were under the influence of that hostility to France
which prevailed as extensively in the Colonies as in the mother
country,--an hostility which neither of them was at sufficient pains to
conceal, although neither of them, perhaps, was fully conscious of it.
It was this feeling that kept them both aloof from the French Minister,
and made them so accessible to English influences. And it was a
knowledge of this feeling which three years later suggested to George
III. that well-known insinuation about Adams's dislike to French
manners, which would have been a scathing sarcasm, if it had not been an
inexcusable impertinence.

The English agents availed themselves skilfully of those
sentiments,--sowing suspicions, fostering doubts, and not shrinking,
there is strong reason to suppose, from gross exaggeration and
deliberate falsehood. The discussion of articles, like all s