How we cite our quotes: (Article.Sentence)
Quote #1
It having pleased the Divine Providence to dispose the hearts of the most serene and most potent Prince George the Third, by the grace of God, king of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, defender of the faith, duke of Brunswick and Lunebourg, arch-treasurer and prince elector of the Holy Roman Empire etc. (Intro.2)
Whether or not King George was a tyrant or not, his list of titles sure sound like something a tyrant would use. A lot of these date back to other countries entirely. While it's alien to the American mind for the leader of a country to have a title in another (it's actually forbidden in the Constitution), it's not weird at all for nobility. They intermarried all the time, and it wasn't unusual for a noble from one place to rule another country. In this case, George, a German, ruled Great Britain.
Quote #2
His Brittanic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz., New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be free sovereign and independent states, that he treats with them as such, and for himself, his heirs, and successors, relinquishes all claims to the government, propriety, and territorial rights of the same and every part thereof. (1.1)
That would be the freedom the Patriots wanted from the beginning. Laid out there in black and white. To modern eyes, though, this independence doesn't look much like freedom, as it pretty much only applied to landowning white men.
Quote #3
It is agreed that the people of the United States shall continue to enjoy unmolested the right to take fish of every kind on the Grand Bank and on all the other banks of Newfoundland, also in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and at all other places in the sea, where the inhabitants of both countries used at any time heretofore to fish. (3.1)
"The unmolested right" is another way to say freedom. We had the right to take fish, as did Great Britain. That was far more important back then, when a larger percentage of the diet came from the sea.
Quote #4
It is agreed that creditors on either side shall meet with no lawful impediment to the recovery of the full value in sterling money of all bona fide debts heretofore contracted. (4.1)
While it's weird to modern eyes to see a matter of debts looked at as part of freedom, it was. The exchange of money and debt is an important part of commerce, and property rights were a huge part of what needed to be guaranteed. So asserting that loans could still be collected was a matter of freedom.
Quote #5
All prisoners on both sides shall be set at liberty, and his Brittanic Majesty shall with all convenient speed, and without causing any destruction, or carrying away any Negroes or other property of the American inhabitants, withdraw all his armies, garrisons, and fleets from the said United States, and from every post, place, and harbor within the same; leaving in all fortifications, the American artilery that may be therein. (7.2)
It's very easy to look at history from this time as the history of white guys. This quote here is literally the only time people of color are mentioned in the treaty. At all…despite Native Americans forming a significant part of the fighting forces. Here, the treaty treats "Negroes" —African Americans—as property. Legally, at the time, they were. It would take another four score and seven years to rectify that monstrous injustice.