At the end of March 1783 news arrived that the preliminary treaty of peace had been signed. The final treaty was not signed till his fifty-ninth birthday, the 3rd of the following September. The signature of the preliminaries simplified the naval and military situation. But it made the situation of the Loyalists worse than ever. Compared with them the prisoners of war had been most highly favoured from the first. And yet the British prisoners had little to thank the Congress for. That they were badly fed and badly housed was not always the fault of the Americans. But that political favourites and underlings were allowed to prey on them was an inexcusable disgrace. When a prisoner complained, he was told it was the fault of the British government which would not pay for his keep! This answer, so contrary to all the accepted usages of war, which reserve such payments till after the conclusion of peace, was no empty gibe; for when, some time before the preliminaries had been signed, the British and American commissioners met to effect an exchange of prisoners, the Americans began by claiming the immediate payment of what the British prisoners had cost them. This of course broke up the meeting at once. In the meantime the German prisoners in British pay were offered their freedom at eighty dollars a head. Then farmers came forward to buy up these prisoners at this price. But the farmers found competitors in the recruiting sergeants, who urged the Germans, with only too much truth, not to become 'the slaves of farmers' but to follow 'the glorious trade of war' against their employers, the British government. To their honour be it said, these Germans kept faith with the British, much to the surprise of the Americans, who, like many modern writers, could not understand that these foreign mercenaries took a professional pride in carrying out a sworn contract, even when it would pay them better to break it. The British prisoners were not put up for sale in the same way. But money sent to them had a habit of disappearing on the road--one item mentioned by Carleton amounted to six thousand pounds. If such was the happy lot of prisoners during the war, what was the wretched lot of Loyalists after the treaty of peace? The words of one of the many petitions sent in to Carleton will suggest the answer. 'If we have to encounter this inexpressible misfortune we beg consideration for our lives, fortunes, and property, _and not by mere terms of treaty_.' What this means cannot be appreciated unless we fully realize how strong the spirit of hate and greed had grown, and why it had grown so strong.