In the end the American Commissioners agreed to ask the
individual States to meet the desires of the British negotiators,
but both sides understood that the States would do nothing, that
the confiscated property would never be returned, that most of
the exiled Loyalists would remain exiles, and that Britain
herself must compensate them for their losses. This in time she
did on a scale inadequate indeed but expressive of a generous
intention. The United States retained the great Northwest and the
Mississippi became the western frontier, with destiny already
whispering that weak and grasping Spain must soon let go of the
farther West stretching to the Pacific Ocean. When Great Britain
signed peace with France and Spain in January, 1783, Gibraltar
was not returned; Spain had to be content with the return of
Minorca, and Florida which she had been forced to yield to
Britain in 1763. Each side restored its conquests in the West
Indies. France, the chief mainstay of the war during its later
years, gained from it really nothing beyond the weakening of her
ancient enemy. The magnanimity of France, especially towards her
exacting American ally, is one of the fine things in the great
combat. The huge sum of nearly eight hundred million dollars
spent by France in the war was one of the chief factors in the
financial crisis which, six years after the signing of the peace,
brought on the French Revolution and with it the overthrow of the
Bourbon monarchy.
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