These were necessarily long and tedious, but Jay, Franklin's colleague, made them needlessly so by his finical refusal to treat till England had acknowledged our independence by a separate act. This, indeed, jeopardized peace itself, since Shelburne's days of ministerial power were closing, and his successor was sure to be less our friend. Jay at last receded, a compromise being arrived at by which the treaty was to open with a virtual recognition of independence in acknowledging Adams, Franklin, and Jay as "plenipotentiaries," that is, agents of a sovereign power. Boundaries, fishery rights, and the treatment of loyalists and their property were the chief bones of contention. As the negotiations wore on it became apparent that Spain and France, now that their vengeance was sated against England by our independence, were more unfriendly to our territorial enlargement than England itself. There still exists a map on which Spain's minister had indicated what he wished to make our western bound. The line follows nearly the meridian of Pittsburgh. This attitude of those powers excused our plenipotentiaries, though bound by our treaty with France not to conclude peace apart from her, for making the preliminary arrangements with England privately. At last, on November 30, 1782, Franklin, Jay, and John Adams set their signatures to preliminary articles, which were incorporated in a treaty of peace between Great Britain and the United States, France, and Spain, signed at Paris on September 3, 1783. David Hartley signed for England. Our Congress ratified on February 14, 1784. The treaty recognized the independence of the United States. It established as boundaries nearly the present Canadian line on the north, the Mississippi on the west, and Florida, which now returned to Spain and extended to the Mississippi, on the south. Despite the wishes of Spain, the free navigation of the Mississippi, from source to mouth, was guaranteed to the United States and Great Britain. Fishery rights received special attention. American fishermen were granted the privilege of fishing, as before the war, on the banks of Newfoundland, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and in all other places in the sea where the inhabitants of both countries had been accustomed to fish. Liberty was also granted to take fish on such parts of the coast of Newfoundland as British fishermen should use, and on the coasts, bays, and creeks of all other British dominions in America. American fishermen could dry and cure fish on the unsettled parts of Nova Scotia, Labrador, and the Magdalen Islands. America agreed, for the protection of British creditors, that debts contracted before the war should be held valid, and should be payable in sterling money. It was also stipulated that Congress should earnestly recommend to the several States the restitution of all confiscated property belonging to loyalists.