The Treaty of Paris was negotiated in 1783, and it was negotiated between the the U.S. and Great Britain. The Continental Congress had named a five-member commission to negotiate a treaty they included John Jay, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and Henry Laurens. Henry Laurens was captured by the British warship Vestal, and held in the tower of london until the war ended, in 1783. Thomas Jefferson was not able to make it out of the U.S. in time to be a part of the negotiations. So because this happened the other three conducted them. The negotiations began in April, 1782, after the American and French victory at Yorktown led to the toppling of Lord North’s Tory government and the naming of Lord Shelburne as foreign minister. They also named a Whig, Lord Rockingham, as prime minister.
