"There Never Was a Good War or a Bad Peace" : Benjamin Franklin's diplomacy and the 1783 Treaty of Paris

Abstract

This thesis is an analysis of Benjamin Franklin's actions and motivations as he negotiated the 1783 Treaty of Paris on behalf of the newly created United States. It examines three distinct phases beginning with Franklin's dispatch to France as a member of a three-member commission, his tenure as minister plenipotentiary prior to the actual peace process, and the diplomatic strategies he employed while engaging the British in search of an acceptable peace. This revision of Franklin's diplomatic legacy contributes to his historiography by relying on previously unpublished and obscure sources and by proposing a new interpretation of how Franklin's diplomatic initiatives had the effect of giving a new shape to the Atlantic world.