Challenge: An independant USA but keep the "old Northwest" British

It seems rather unlikely.

My guess is you need to get Britain and the US to accept the French peace proposal but I'm not really sure that is at all likely.

If the war was to continue much longer the Rebels are probably going to fall apart.

The other possiblity would be to strike Shelburne down and not have his replacement be willing to buy off the Americans to get them to backstab their French allies.
 
I would think a much harder line in the peace negotiations would do it. I think even the Americans were surprised at the willingness to jettison the old North West. Of course you would need a very different set of ministers and negotiators for that to work.
 
I would think a much harder line in the peace negotiations would do it. I think even the Americans were surprised at the willingness to jettison the old North West.

Not really, many of them were pretty deluded.

Franklin was demanding Canada and Florida in 77.
 
Having George Rogers Clark's adventure misfire at some point would probably do it.

I think this was used in the What If? book that came out a few years ago - tho available as an omnibus at Costco every once in a while. The main point here is that Clark's expedition is a failure and colonial control over the Old Northwest isn't established enough by the end of the ACW. The Indians remain unconquered and various British forts in the region are never abandoned. I worked with this WI to create an Indian buffer zone nation between the US and Canada.
 
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