49
Benjamin Franklin’s Draft of Preliminary Articles of Peace
1782
Background
After Yorktown, peace talks in Paris began in April 1782. The Continental Congress appointed John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, Thomas Jefferson and Henry Laurens to a peace commission to travel to Europe and negotiate a peace treaty with the British. Jefferson was unable to go, and Laurens had been captured by the British and was being held in the Tower of London, so the negotiations were left to Franklin, Adams and Jay although Henry Laurens joined them two days before the preliminary articles of peace were signed on November 30, 1782. The Treaty of Paris, formally ending the war, was not signed until nearly a year later on September 3, 1783.
Article 5 (proposed)
It is agreed that his Britannic Majesty will earnestly recommend it to his Parliament to provide for and make Compensation to the Merchants and Shopkeepers of Boston whose Goods and Merchandise were seized and taken out of their Stores, Warehouses and Shops, by Order of General Gage and others of his Commanders or officers there; and also to the Inhabitants of Philadelphia for the Goods taken away by his Army there. And to make Compensation also for the Tobacco, Rice, Indigo and Negroes &c. seized and carried off by his Armies under Generals Arnold, Cornwallis and others from the States of Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia; and also for all Vessels and Cargoes belonging to the Inhabitants of the said United States, which were stopt, seized or taken, either in the Ports, or on the Seas by his Governors or by his Ships of War, before the Declaration
of War against the said States.
And it is further agreed that his Britannic Majesty will also earnestly recommend it to his Parliament to make Compensation for all the Towns, Villages and Farms, burnt and destroyed by his Troops or Adherents in the said United States.
Facts.
There existed a free Commerce upon mutual Faith between Great Britain and America. The Merchants of the former Credited the Merchants and Planters of the latter with great Quantities of Goods on the common Expectation that the Merchants having sold the Goods would make the accustomed Remittances; that the Planters would do the same by the Labour of their Negroes and the Produce of that Labour, Tobacco, Rice, Indigo, &c.
England before the Goods were sold in America, sends an armed Force, seizes the Goods in the Stores, some even in the Ships that brought them and carries them off. Seizes also and carries off the Tobacco Rice and Indigo, provided by the Planters to make Returns, and even the Negroes from whose Labour
they might hope to raise other Produce for that Purpose.
Britain now demands that the Debts shall nevertheless be paid.
Will She, can She justly refuse making Compensation for such Seizures?
If a Draper who had sold a Piece of Linnen to a Neighbour on Credit, should follow him, take the Linnen from him by Force, and then send a Bailiff to arrest him for the Debt, would any Court of Law or Equity award the Payment of the Debt, without ordering a Restitution of the Cloth?
Will not the Debtors in America cry out that if this Compensation be not made, they were betray’d by the pretended Credit; and are now doubly ruined, first by the Enemy, and then by the Negociators at Paris, the Goods and Negroes sold them being taken from them with all they had besides, and they are now to be obliged to pay for what they have been robb’d of?[1]