Ada: So the table in Paris fills up with familiar names. For Britain, a merchant and diplomat called Richard Oswald. For the United States, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, John Jay, and Henry Laurens.
Theo: Laurens — isn't he the one who'd been locked in the Tower of London?
Ada: The very same. Captured at sea, imprisoned as a traitor, then exchanged. He signs the provisional articles but doesn't make it to the final ceremony a year later.
Theo: And 'provisional' is doing a lot of work in that phrase, isn't it?
Ada: It is. These articles, signed in late seventeen eighty-two, recognized American independence — but they only took effect once Britain also made peace with France and the wider war actually ended.
Theo: So America's freedom was hostage to a deal it wasn't even a party to.
Ada: Precisely. And the Americans knew how thin the ground was. Listen to John Adams, in his own words, describing the work of drafting the definitive treaty.
Ada: Yesterday Dr Franklin, Mr Jay, and myself, met to prepare the definitive treaty, and made so much progress in it, that tomorrow we shall be ready to communicate to Mr Hartley the result. But I have small hopes of obtaining anything more by the definitive treaty.
Theo: 'Small hopes of obtaining anything more.' That's not exactly a man expecting a triumph.
Ada: No. He knew the best terms were already caught, and the rest was procedure. But securing those terms meant a delicate, almost disloyal balancing act.
Theo: Because the paper bargain created a new problem: could the Americans win generous terms without alienating the ally who made victory possible?