Negotiating Peace in Paris
In 1782, American diplomats sat down with their European counterparts in
an attempt to conclude a treaty that would
bring an end to the American Revolution.
Some five years of armed hostilities had culminated the previous year
in a crushing British defeat at the Siege of Yorktown,
finally forcing British politicians to the reluctant conclusion
that a military victory had slipped from their grasp.
Now, however, it was time to see who would win the peace.
As the American and British diplomats faced off in Paris,
the stakes could not have been higher, and the American colonies’ fate
was highly precarious.
Britain’s initial position was that it was willing to remove the socalled Intolerable Acts,
which had helped to spark the conflict through measures
like the restriction of democratic institutions
and an increase in the British military presence in the colonies.
Sovereignty for the thirteen colonies, though, was not on the table.
However, changes of prime ministers due to the failings of one and the
sudden death of
another resulted in Britain becoming far more open to major concessions.
Britain had a strong sense of urgency due to the fact
that it was simultaneously engaged in hostilities with the American colonies,
France, Spain,
and the Netherlands.
According to one school of historical thought, the British prime minister, Lord Shelburne,
had the foresight to see America’s potential as a lucrative trading partner.
Yet some point out that Shelburne could also be deceptive, and according
to another school,
he was scheming to utilize the prospect of independence to entice the Americans
into making imprudent concessions in other portions of the treaty.
In fact, the colonial negotiators needed to exercise caution not only in their dealings
with Britain but with their allies as
well.
They were entangled in a complicated alliance with France and Spain,
and they were particularly indebted to France for
the naval power, arms, and financial support that had been crucial in getting
them
to the negotiating table in the first place.
In fact, the victory at Yorktown would not have been possible had the French navy
not prevented the British navy from
breaking the siege.
Now, though, France sought to impose severe diplomatic constraints on the
American negotiators, endeavoring to dictate the terms of the peace.
Further complicating the situation were instructions from the Continental
Congress,
a body composed of epresentatives of the colonies,
that the diplomats should acquiesce to French instructions.
The Congress, however, was unaware that France appeared to be engaged in
a ploy to obstruct the American
colonies from gaining a dominant position in North America.
To this end, France was stipulating that when the United States came into
existence,
its borders should be those of the original colonies
rather than including a vast territory west of the Appalachian Mountains,
whose acquisition was seen as indispensable by the colonies
and which would more than double the new nation’s territory.
The American diplomats, who included Benjamin Franklin and future president John Adams,
were cut off from the colonies they were representing
by an entire ocean during an age when sending a simple message could take
months.
Resentful at being treated as a pawn by the French,
particularly after they discovered a French plot to enter into clandestine negotiations
with the British, the Americans came to the conclusion
that they needed to take matters into their own hands.
The diplomats, however, faced significant obstacles.
First and foremost, the thirteen colonies were little more
than a loose confederation with the mutual interest of independence.
Since the treaty they were negotiating would not necessarily
be binding on the independent colonies and they
were blatantly defying their instructions to be subservient to French wishes,
the diplomats needed to bluff on occasion.
Should the British have discovered this, it could easily have scuttled the negotiations.
Even after the matter of independence was agreed upon,
talks stalled over compensation for the loyal British subjects
who had fought on the British side and on the issue of the new nation’s western boundary.
So serious was the impasse that negotiations were nearly abandoned.
Eventually, however, the skill of the American negotiators led to
major British concessions in both of these areas.
In the end, a deal was hatched in which full independence was granted to
the colonies,
compensation claims could
be made only to individual states, and vast territories on the other side of the Appalachians
were ceded to the new nation.
It was signed in September 1783.
The complicated strategic maneuvers and multiple twists of fate involved
in the achievement of American independence,
however, demonstrate the wisdom of the words of the historian Carl R.
Trueman, who wrote that “. . . we cannot and should not write history
as if it is simply a case of identifying the inevitable phases of a society
as it moves toward a predetermined goal.” |
英語検定 １級(2024年第2回No.4)