- [Narrator] At the end of 1782,
a preliminary agreement of peace was signed
and sent to London and Philadelphia for approval.
It did not require reparations to Americans
who had remained loyal to England.
And France which had given so much to the new nation
had been excluded altogether.
Franklin was assigned the task
of smoothing things over with Vergennes.
- Franklin writes one of the greatest letters
he ever wrote to Vergennes.
Apologizing for this in a beautiful way
and really disarming the,
what could have been a huge international crisis.
That we had not fulfilled our promise
to work out the diplomatic aspects
of the end of the war with France and not separately.
But he also, in that same letter of apology to Vergennes,
this masterpiece said,
and by the way we need some more money too.
And he got it.
(calm music)
- [Narrator] Finally, on September 3rd, 1783,
the Treaty of Paris was signed.
England officially recognized its former colonies
as the United States of America.
The revolutionary war was over.
Members of the British delegation refused to pose
for the portrait meant to commemorate the moment.
In the unfinished painting, Franklin sits in the middle
with his grandson, Temple.
The delegation secretary sitting to his left.
On Franklin's right, sits John Adams,
already worried about how history
would remember the revolution.
- [Narrator 2] The history of our revolution
will be one continued lie from one end to the other.
And the essence of the whole
will be that Dr. Franklin's electrical rod smelt the earth
and out sprang Gen. Washington.
That Franklin electrified him with his rod.
And hence forward,
these two conducted all the policy negotiations,
legislation and war.
(calm music)
- [Joseph Ellis] The treaty of 1783
is one of the most lopsided treaties
in American diplomatic history.
It's a total victory for the United States.
It's independence is recognized by France
and the rest of Europe in England.
And we get a third of a continent.
Everything from the Mississippi to the Atlantic
and from the Canadian border to Florida.
We now become a nation larger than France, England,
Spain put together.
There's a consensus at the end among the negotiators
including the Brits
that we're witnessing the creation of an American empire.
(calm music)
- By the end of the war,
France's coffers were more or less depleted.
France had the satisfaction
in triumphing over their archenemy, Great Britain.
But they hadn't counted on bankrupting their own country
in the process.
So Franklin extracted in a way,
the life blood out of the royal coffers
and he gave in return something that the monarchy
was not counting on.
He lit a fire, not only in France, but in all of Europe
promoting the democratic ideals
that the United States stood for.
To put down tyranny was something
that all the peasants could understand.
- [Narrator] For Native Americans,
the treaty was devastating.
Many nations had decided that they would be better off
by allying with the British, not the colonists.
Who for nearly two centuries
had been encroaching on their lands.
Now the United States was claiming an even vaster territory.
And as its white citizens pushed farther west,
more and more native people would be dispossessed.
Regardless of whose side they had taken during the war.
- Hi, this is Ken Burns.
I hope you enjoyed that excerpt from the film David Schmidt
and I made exploring the extraordinary life
of Benjamin Franklin.
Here are some more clips you might like
and you can watch the entire "Benjamin Franklin" series
on the PBS Video App or at pbs.org.