The Treaty of Paris not only recognized that the thirteen colonies were free, sovereign, and independent, it also established the boundaries between the United States and Britain's remaining North American colony in what is now Canada, granted important fishing rights to U.S. fisherman, provided for the mutual payment of debts, prohibited the confiscation of Loyalists property, repatriated all prisoners of war, and granted access to the Mississippi River to both the United States and Great Britain.
