Treaty of Paris (1783), page 9

What it is

This is a scan of a handwritten manuscript page from the Treaty of Paris, signed in 1783. The brown ink cursive text covers fishing rights off Newfoundland and Labrador and begins Article 4, which deals with creditors. Three binding holes are visible on the left edge. The image is a scan from the U.S. National Archives, uploaded in 2008.

Why it matters

The treaty ended the American Revolutionary War and set the terms between the United States and Great Britain. John Jay was one of the American negotiators. Its articles on fishing rights and debts show what the new nation and its former ruler had to settle, and why these questions mattered to ordinary fishermen and merchants. The treaty is one of the key documents of the early United States.

Look closer

• What do the fishing rights and the debt article tell you about the problems the negotiators had to solve?
• Who would have written this page, and how might the handwriting and layout differ from a printed copy?
• What does this single page leave out about the wider negotiations and the people who were not at the table?