Richard Oswald (merchant)
Richard Oswald was a Scottish merchant, slave trader and diplomat. During the American Revolution, he served as an advisor to the North ministry on trade regulations and the best way to respond to the American War of Independence. Oswald is best known for being one of the British peace commissioners who negotiated the Peace of Paris in 1782.
portrait by William Denune
Treaty of Paris, by Benjamin West (1783), shows the American commissioners who negotiated the 1783 Treaty of Paris. Temple Franklin is on the right. Left of him are Henry Laurens, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and John Jay. The British commissioners did not pose for West, and the picture was never finished.
Signature page of the Treaty of Paris.
Mary Oswald, portrait by Johann Zoffany
East Florida was a colony of Great Britain from 1763 to 1783 and a province of the Spanish Empire from 1783 to 1821. The British gained control over Spanish Florida in 1763 as part of the Treaty of Paris that ended the Seven Years' War. Deciding that the colony was too large to administer as a single unit, British officials divided Florida into two colonies separated by the Apalachicola River; the colony of East Florida, with its capital located in St. Augustine and West Florida, with its capital located in Pensacola. East Florida was much larger and comprised the bulk of the former Spanish colony and most of the current state of Florida. It had also been the most populated region of Spanish Florida, but before control was transferred to Britain, most residents – including virtually everyone in St. Augustine – left the territory, with most migrating to Cuba.
Front page of the East Florida Gazette (Volume 1, no 16), a pro-loyalist newspaper.