Treaty of Paris: Writing Style

    Treaty of Paris: Writing Style

      Treaties and How to Write Them

      The writing style is more or less exactly what you'd expect from a treaty at the time: a little bit stuffy, a little bit florid, and a lot bit written with a quill. The language is extremely formalized (although it's thankfully not as dense as other legal documents).

      Essentially, the treaty was designed to be readable by any gentleman, which at the time was narrowly defined as a landowning white guy with at least a bit of education.

      One reason this document is so excruciatingly formal by 21st-century standards is because of the listing of the titles. So. many. titles. This is so everyone knows precisely who is talking and to honor both sides. In victory or defeat, both sides were expected to conduct themselves as gentlemen, and that included some very proper respect-paying. The Americans weren't going to namedrop King Jerkbag III, no matter how satisfying that would have been.

      In the articles themselves, the language had to be precise—after all, since the purpose of a treaty is to end a war, the last thing they want is to start another one. Everything had to be 100% crystal clear…down to who got to fish where. (Yawn.)

      But the Treaty of Paris isn't a law. It's a framework for an agreement between two states. So you'll have language that suggests that one side is expected to make a good faith effort to talk to their legislative body about a law. (Whether or not it actually gets done is another thing entirely.)

      In fact, because treaties aren't laws, Britain ignored portions of Article 7, leaving behind soldiers at certain outposts, which required—you got it—another treaty.