Date Published:
January 2005

L’Encyclopédie de l’histoire du Québec / The Quebec History Encyclopedia

Treaty of Paris

[1783]

Paris, Treaty of (1783). This was the treaty of peace, signed on September 3, 1783, between Great-Britain and the United States of America, which brought to an end the American Revolutionary War. By it, Great Britain acknowledged "the said United States ... to be free, sovereign, and independent states"; and defined the boundaries between them and what remained of British North America. It granted also to American citizens fishing rights on the banks of Newfoundland and in the gulf of St. Lawrence. An attempt was made to protect the interests of the American loyalists by an agreement that creditors should "meet with no lawful impediment" to the recovery of their debts, and that the American Congress should "earnestly recommend it to the legislatures of the respective states, to provide for the restitution of all estates, rights, and properties which have been confiscated, belonging to real British subjects"; but these clauses remained almost wholly a dead letter. For the full test of the treaty, see W. P. M. Kennedy (ed.), Documents of the Canadian constitution, 1759-1915 (Toronto, 1918).

Source  : W. Stewart WALLACE, ed., The Encyclopedia of Canada, Vol. V, Toronto, University Associates of Canada, 1948, 401p., p. 87.