Talk:Peace of Paris (1783)

Comments
This page exists largely to help clarify some of the issues raised in the article Treaty of Paris (1783) which discusses only the Anglo-American treaty, while referring obliquely to "separate agreements" with other nations. Among other things, details of the Anglo-Spanish treaty (e.g. full boundary description for the Belize River area, but none for Florida; and no mention at all of arrangements for navigation along the Spanish-controlled lower reaches of the Mississippi) are important for understanding the subsequent relationship between the United States and its southern neighbour. David Trochos (talk) 18:42, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
 * ...all of them material which, along with all the material here, belongs at an extended and improved, more comprehensive single (encyclopedic) article; whether here or at Treaty of Paris (1783) is immaterial. --Wetman (talk) 20:33, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm inclined to agree, so I've slightly built up the recent contribution to this article by Bkonrad on the Treaty of Paris (1783). If the articles are merged, it should technically be under the Peace of Paris heading; but I'm not going to rush to do it. Any other opinions? David Trochos (talk) 12:59, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Personally, I'd rather see separate articles for each treaty rather than have them merged. The Treaty of Paris (1783) is specifically about the treaty that ended the American Revolution and is linked to by many many other articles in that context. In that context, the other agreements are somewhat ancillary. But they are important nonetheless -- especially the treaty with Spain with the unspecific boundaries for the Florida territory which later played a role in American-Spanish relations. However, I think it would great to have a single article that treated the larger context in which all of the treaties took place, but I think that at least the Treaty of Paris (1783) should remain as a standalone article. older ≠ wiser 13:12, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I have posted a comment on the Treaty of Paris article as well suggesting a merge, as there did not seem to be one on that page 71.77.65.85 (talk) 20:23, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Meaning
From the article: "This treaty later ends to be a very big failure to the nation, letting the British getting a lot of more wealth which then the the War of 1812 will happen.[9][5]"  What could this mean?Fconaway (talk) 05:24, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Map of Spanish Empire
The map shows Spain controlling Jamaica which is not true in 1783. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.69.182.4 (talk) 19:28, 8 November 2016 (UTC)


 * It also appears to show Spain controlling Saint-Domingue (Haiti), when it was French. Funnyhat (talk) 21:15, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

Vermont?
The map shows Vermont as separate from British Canada or the newly independent United States, but why this is is not mentioned at all in the article. Indeed the word Vermont doesn't appear even once. 12.111.91.2 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 01:44, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Check the History section on Vermont's page; they were independent for a few more years before joining the union, and were a seperate political entity until 1788, whereas this article refers to 1783, when they were still independent. I'll be adding the info under the map; remove it if deemed unfit. 99.199.116.200 (talk) 16:38, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

A Problem of Style in the Introductory Section
The first two sentences of the first paragraph of the introduction now run:


 * The Peace of Paris of 1783 was the set of treaties that ended the American Revolutionary War. On 3 September 1783, representatives of King George III of Great Britain signed a treaty in Paris with representatives of the United States of America—commonly known as the Treaty of Paris (1783)—and two treaties at Versailles with representatives of King Louis XVI of France and King Charles III of Spain—commonly known as the Treaties of Versailles (1783). The previous day, a preliminary treaty had been signed with representatives of the States General of the Dutch Republic, but the final treaty which ended the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War was not signed until 20 May 1784; for convenience, however, it is included in the summaries below.

The second sentence presents two problems of style.

The first is in the use of dashes to set off the clauses in which the names of the treaties are given, which is itself predicated on the unjustified withholding of those names.

The second is in readability. The sentence contains one subordinate clause that is broken by a parenthetical appositive clause introduced by a dash and then closed by a dash that introduces a coordinate clause that is itself closed by a dash before another appositive clause; become the syntactical parallelism is broken, the sentence is rather hard to read.

Just for the sake of illustration, I imagine a more readable sentence would run:


 * On 3 September 1783, representatives of King George III of Great Britain signed a treaty in Paris with representatives of the USA (commonly called the ToP (1783), and two others in Versailles with representatives of KL XVI of France and KC III of Spain (commonly called the TsoV (1783).

I say "for the sake of illustration" because I wish to treat other problems in another post, but I can't know whether only one or several editors will try to eliminate the different problems, so I wish to be absolutely clear on what they are. Wordwright (talk) 00:13, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

A Problem of Information in the Introductory Section
The first paragraph in the introductory section now runs:


 * The Peace of Paris of 1783 was the set of treaties that ended the American Revolutionary War. On 3 September 1783, representatives of King George III of Great Britain signed a treaty in Paris with representatives of the United States of America—commonly known as the Treaty of Paris (1783)—and two treaties at Versailles with representatives of King Louis XVI of France and King Charles III of Spain—commonly known as the Treaties of Versailles (1783). The previous day, a preliminary treaty had been signed with representatives of the States General of the Dutch Republic, but the final treaty which ended the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War was not signed until 20 May 1784; for convenience, however, it is included in the summaries below.

Say what? There are two sets of events: one set occurs in Paris and Versailles in 1783; another occurs notionally in 1783, but really only in 1784—why are they jointly known as the Peace of Paris? What have the first four nations got to do with one another? It seems that the only peace arrived at was the end of the war between GB and the former colonies; what has the Fourth Anglo-Dutch war, which apparently did not end in 1783, got to do with that?

The fundamental problem is that this paragraph presumes the ordinary reader, no matter what their country, to know that, although originally the ARW was a conflict between GB and her colonies, eventually, for reasons that had little to do with American independence, France, Spain, and the Dutch Republic joined in to support the Americans. This presumption—not an assumption mind you, which differs logically from a presumption—is not justified.

Perhaps the initial paragraph might run:


 * The Peace of Paris (1783) refers to the four treaties by which Great Britain negotiated separate terms to end hostilities with the United States of America as the principal adversary in the American War for Independence, and with France, Spain, and the Dutch Republic who, although each supporting the Americans in some form, nevertheless did so independently of one another and thus engaged Great Britain in militarily independent conflicts and theatres. On 3 September 1783, in Paris, representatives of King George III of Great Britain met with their American counterparts to sign the agreement known commonly as the Treaty of Paris (1783); on that same day, in Versailles, other British representatives met with those, respectively, of King Louis XVI of France and King Charles III of Spain to sign separate treaties that are jointly known as the Treaties of Versailles (1783). Strictly speaking, the war between GB and the DR did not end until 1784, but since their representatives did agree on the preliminaries to a peace on 2 September 1783, historians include those negotiations as part of the Peace of Paris.

I do not know whether all in my version is correct, but I think that in it I have included many of the things one needs to make sure the ordinary reader is properly oriented and, if he reads no further, has a sound nutshell background understanding. Wordwright (talk) 00:37, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Problems of Topicality and Exposition in the second paragraph of the Introductory Section
The second paragraph of the introductory section now runs:


 * The British lost their Thirteen Colonies and the defeat marked the end of the First British Empire. The United States gained more than it expected, thanks to the award of western territory. The other Allies had mixed-to-poor results. France got its revenge over Britain after its defeat in the Seven Years' War, but its material gains were minor (Tobago, Senegal and small territories in India) and its financial losses huge. It was already in financial trouble and its borrowing to pay for the war used up all its credit and created the financial disasters that marked the 1780s. Historians link those disasters to the coming of the French Revolution. The Dutch did not gain anything of significant value at the end of the war. The Spanish had a mixed result; they regained Menorca and Florida, but Gibraltar remained in British hands.

Although it is clear that the second paragraph is meant to summarize the states of affairs that issued from the Peace of Paris, it needs a transitional topic statement to that effect.

As for the specifics themselves, they are presented in a jumbled order, and are phrased in ways utterly at odds with the nature of a treaty. In particular, the tone is not neutral: "mixed-to-poor results," "got its revenge," and "mixed result" are colloquialisms that introduce an unseemly note of subjective pathos, and so offend against the linguistic register and the analytical dignity of the subject.

Since the point of a treaty is to negotiate the terms of peace, one should summarize those terms, and reserve for the end a neutral report of the terms that, according to the historical consensus, figured in each party's war aims and in each party's evaluations of the treaty.

If one is going to refer to Britain's relation to the colonies at all, one should say that Britain lost her colonies, for strictly speaking the term the British does not refer to the King, whereas it is the King who personifies Britain, and it is to the British Crown that the colonies belonged.

There is really no such entity as the "first" British Empire, but even if there were, the treaty could not have contained any mention of its demise; the only relevant report should concern whatever territorial stipulations figured in the treaty. On similar grounds, all the talk of France's getting revenge, financial losses, credit, and historians' opinions about events after the ToP of 1783 is irrelevant—an introductory section is not a place even to sketch the aftermath of treaties.

Because the second paragraph just does heap statements higgledy-piggledy about matters without relating them clearly to the terms of the treaties, it thumps to a halt. The end sentence should be a crisp statement about the role that any of the treaties played in the matter of future relations between the signatories; if the historical consensus states that any particular treaty did play a significant role in the fate of a nation, then, again, a crisp neutral-sounding statement (that is, one that does not use slang to indicate affect) should spell the matter out. Wordwright (talk) 01:13, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
 * the paragraph summarizes the scholarly consensus. Words like "revenge" are used by scholars in this context. [A Companion to the American Revolution, 2000 states: "The American Revolution gave ancien régime France its last foreign policy success, a very popular war that brought revenge for the humiliations of 1756–63, but at a cost many historians have considered disastrous."] Historians really do talk about a "first British Empire." [Three Victories and a Defeat: The Rise and Fall of the First British Empire by Brendan Simms, 2008] What happened to Britain and what happened to France are major topics in academic textbooks, and the paragraph adds Spain's main results as well. Rjensen (talk) 01:25, 7 February 2020 (UTC)