George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 10

On the thirtieth, the commissioners of both countries signed and sealed fair copies of the convention. Thus far no word in it had, except indirectly, indicated the existence of slavery in the United States. On the demand of Laurens, a clause was interlined, prohibiting, on the British evacuation, the ‘carrying away any negroes or other property of the inhabitants.’ So the treaty of peace, which already contained a confession that the United States were not compacted into one nation, made known that in their confederacy men could be held as property; but it, as interpreted alike by American and English statesmen, included free negroes among the citizens of the United States. In the hope of preventing the possibility of a future dispute about boundaries, they were marked interchangeably by a strong line on copies of the map of America by Mitchell.

The articles of peace, though entitled provisional, were made definitive by a declaration in the preamble. Friends of Franklin gathered around him, and as the Duke of Rochefoucauld kissed him for joy, ‘My friend,’ said Franklin, ‘could I have hoped at such an age to have enjoyed so great happiness?’ The treaty was not a compromise, nor a compact imposed by force, but a free and perfect solution, and perpetual settlement of all that had been called in question. By doing an act of justice to her former colonies, England rescued her own liberties at home from imminent danger, and opened the way for