Peace of Paris

Peace of Paris (1763) - commonly known as the Treaty of Paris - was a treaty between Britain and France which marked the end of the Seven Years' War. The treaty significantly decreased the power of France in America. The main dispute in the writing of the treaty concerned the ownership of sugar producing Caribbean Islands. Britain had used the Seven Years' Warar to seize the Islands of St Vincent, the Grenadines, Tobago, Domica, St Lucia, Guadeloupe, Martinique, and St Lucia. Because the English sugar lobby feared the competition that the Caribbean Islands would bring to the industry, they convinced the English government to give the Islands of Guadeloupe, Martinique and St. Lucia back to France. In exchange France gave England control of Canada, Nova Scotia and their claims to the Ohio Valley, Thus leading to the deal being coined, ‘Snow for Sugar’. To appease the Spanish losses in Florida, as a result of the war, France gave Cuba and Mandila to Spain.

Historian, Paul Johnson, wrote in his book bestselling book, A History of the American People, that,

The Treaty was one of the greatest territorial carve-ups in history. It says a lot for the continuing ignorance of the European powers like Britain and France, and their inability to gasp the coming importance of continental North America, that they spent most of the peace process haggling over the Caribbean sugar-islands, which made quick returns in ready cash....The net result was to knock France out of the American hemisphere, in which it retained only three Caribbean islands, two in the fisheries, and negligible chunk of Guyana"