settlements, or otherwise, shall meet with no lawful impediment in the prosecution of their just rights.
Art. 6. That there shall be no future confiscations made, nor any prosecutions commenced against any person or persons, for or by reason of the part which he or they may have taken in the present war; and that no person shall on that account suffer any future loss or damage, either in his person, liberty, or property; and that those who may be in confinement on such charges, at the time of the ratification of the Treaty in America, shall be immediately set at liberty, and the prosecutions so commenced be discontinued.
Art. 7. There shall be a firm and perpetual peace between his Britannic Majesty and the said States, and between the subjects of the one and the citizens of the other; wherefore, all hostilities, both by sea and land, shall then immediately cease; all prisoners on both sides shall be set at liberty, and his Britannic Majesty shall, with all convenient speed, and without causing any destruction, or carrying away any negroes, or other property of the American inhabitants, withdraw all his armies, garrisons, and fleets, from the said United States, and from every port, place, and harbour within the same, leaving in all fortifications the American artillery that may be therein; and shall also order and cause all archives, records, deeds, and papers, belonging to any of the said states, or their citizens, which, in the course of the war, may have fallen into the hands of his officers, to be forthwith restored and delivered to the proper states and persons to whom they belong.
Art. 8. The navigation of the Mississippi, from its source to the ocean, shall for ever remain free and open to the subjects of Great Britain, and the citizens of the United States.
Art. 9. In case it should so happen, that any place or territory belonging to Great Britain, or to the United States, should be conquered by the arms of either, from the other, before the arrival of these Articles in America, it is agreed, that the same shall be restored without difficulty, and without requiring any compensation.
Done at Paris, the 30th day of November, in the year 1782.
Richard Oswald, | (L.S.) |
John Adams, | (L.S.) |
B. Franklin, | (L.S.) |
John Jay, | (L.S.) |
Henry Laurens, | (L.S.) |
Witness,
Caleb Whitefoord, Secretary to the British Commission.
W. T. Franklin, Secretary to the American Commission.