The United States retained the great Northwest and the Mississippi became the western frontier, with destiny already whispering that weak and grasping Spain must soon let go of the farther West stretching to the Pacific Ocean.

When Great Britain signed peace with France and Spain in January, 1783, Gibraltar was not returned; Spain had to be content with the return of Minorca, and Florida which she had been forced to yield to Britain in 1763.

Each side restored its conquests in the West Indies.
France, the chief mainstay of the war during its later years, gained from it really nothing beyond the weakening of her ancient enemy.

The magnanimity of France, especially towards her exacting American ally, is one of the fine things in the great combat.

The huge sum of nearly eight hundred million dollars spent by France in the war was one of the chief factors in the financial crisis which, six years after the signing of the peace, brought on the French Revolution and with it the overthrow of the Bourbon monarchy.