(Treaty of Paris) | "His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the said United States … to be Free, Sovereign and Independent States. …"

(Treaty of Paris)

Provisional Articles, Signed at Paris, the 30th of November, 1782, by the Commissioner of His Britannic Majesty, and the Commissioners of the United States of America. London: Printed by T. Harrison and S. Brooke, in Warwick-Lane, 1783

4to, 4 leaves (250 x 190 mm, uncut). Woodcut printer's device on title, woodcut headpiece and initial; title-page with pinhole in upper margin, some very minor marginal browning and foxing. Original blue wrappers, stab-sewn; worn with losses at spine and from a few tears and one inkblot, 2 Public Record Office ink-stamps on rear wrapper. Half blue morocco slipcase, marbled paper chemise.

A very good copy of a very rare early printing of the Provisional Articles of the Treaty of Paris. Signed in type at the end by British commissioner Richard Oswald and American commissioners John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, and Henry Laurens and by witnesses Caleb Whitefoord, Secretary to the British Commission, and William Temple Franklin, Franklin's grandson and Secretary to the American Commission.

This provisional agreement is the first document in which Britain recognized the United States as a sovereign nation: "Article 1. His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz. New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, to be Free, Sovereign and Independent States. …"

Additional terms of the provisional treaty comprised removal of British troops from American soil, with the boundaries being set on the west by the Mississippi and on the south by Florida; fishing rights within British North American waters; and guaranty against legal obstacles for the collection of private pre-war debts to British creditors.

Peace talks between the United States and Great Britain began on 12 April 1782. The articles agreed to on 30 November 1782 continued to be provisional until terms of peace were concluded between Great Britain and France. The Definitive Treaty of Peace, incorporating the nine articles printed here, was signed at Paris on 3 September 1783 and ratified by Congress 14 January 1784. 

While ESTC locates copies of this edition of the Provisional Articles in fifteen libraries, there are no copies cited in Rare Book Hub since the sale of the André de Coppet collection in 1955.

REFERENCE:

Adams, Controversy 83-48; ESTC T82632; Sabin 65046