The terms of the peace, particularly the proposed treaty with the United States, had caused a political storm in Britain.
The concession of the Northwest Territory and the Newfoundland fisheries, and especially the apparent abandonment of Loyalists by an Article which the individual States would inevitably ignore, had been condemned in Parliament.
The last point had been the easiest solved—British tax revenue saved by not continuing the war will be used to compensate Loyalists.
Nevertheless, on February 17, 1783 and again on February 21, motions against the treaty had been successful in Parliament, so on February 24 Lord Shelburne had resigned, and for five weeks the British government had been without a leader.
Finally, a solution similar to the previous year's choice of Lord Rockingham had been found.
The government was to be led, nominally, by the Duke of Portland, while the two Secretaries of State were to be Charles Fox and, remarkably, Lord North.
Richard Oswald had been replaced by a new negotiator, David Hartley, but the Americans have refused to allow any modifications to the treaty—partly because they would have to be approved by Congress, which, with two Atlantic crossings, would take several months.
Therefore, on September 3, 1783, at Hartley's hotel in Paris, the treaty as agreed by Richard Oswald the previous November is formally signed, and ...
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