Treaty of Paris (1763)
France signed away its North American empire in Paris on 10 February 1763. The Seven Years' War had gone catastrophically for it outside Europe. Britain had taken Quebec in 1759, Montreal in 1760, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Havana, Manila and the Senegal posts, and had destroyed French power in India at Plassey and Wandiwash. The negotiation was therefore about what Britain would hand back rather than what it would take. France ceded Canada and everything east of the Mississippi except New Orleans; kept its Indian factories on condition they were not fortified or garrisoned, which ended it as a power there; and kept the fishing rights off Newfoundland and two small islands to dry the catch on, which its negotiators fought harder for than for Canada. It also kept Guadeloupe and Martinique, and the argument in London over whether to take Canada or Guadeloupe was serious — the sugar islands were worth more in annual trade than the whole fur economy, and Britain took Canada largely to remove the French threat from its own colonies' northern frontier. Spain gave up Florida for the return of Havana and Manila, and received Louisiana west of the river from France as compensation for having lost them. The war left Britain with the largest empire in the world and a doubled national debt, and its attempts to make the colonies pay for their own garrisons produced the Stamp Act two years later. Removing France also removed the reason those colonies needed Britain. The colonies rebelled twelve years after the treaty that had removed their strongest reason not to.
- Year: 1763 CE
- Category: Political
