Oct. the Federalist party were communicated from Ghent. Liverpool and Castlereagh by no means wished to make the war more popular in America than before; they were tired of it themselves, far beyond American conception. The sine qua non was gently lowered; an exclusive military possession of the lakes was the first point abandoned; next, admitting a free discussion of the Indian barrier scheme, whose absurdity all familiar with Western frontier life could demonstrate, the British left their painted allies to repose upon a stipulation, readily assented to, which, without putting the InSept. Idian tribes on the plane of equal sovereignty, assured them of their former rights, privileges, and possessions.* These first difficulties surmounted, the next step was to call for the project of a treaty. But the British sketch, when presented, showed the Liverpool ministry still coveting the northeastern angle of Maine. Uti possidetis was Castlereagh's basis, the two countries to make mutual exchange of conquered territory on the northern border, with the advantage on England's side. But the American commissioners bluntly refused to treat on any basis of conquered domain; each nation's territory, they responded, must remain intact as before the war. Their note to this effect produced more confusion than before, and on that point Liverpool and Castlereagh thought seriously of breaking. Gaining time, however, for reflection, while the project was discussed on other issues, the ministry concluded at length to give way again; for British finances were much straitened, the interior of France continued turbulent, negotiations at Vienna were not progressing well, and, moreover, news which now arrived from Canada of the British disaster at Plattsburg made it doubtful whether the rule of uti possidetis might not prove a disadvantage to England. To extricate themselves from the Ghent dilemma, they proposed sending the Duke of Wellington to America with full power to make peace or fight; but that brave and sagacious commander wrote them frankly Oct. 24. * Gallatin showed great skill in giving this turn to the Indian problem, upon which there had been great danger of a rupture.—Adams's Gallatin, 524-535, citing Wellington and Castlereagh Correspondence; 3 John Quincy Adams's Diary. 1814. NEGOTIATIONS AT GHENT, 435 "You have won nothing yet that the error was their own. in the American war," was his answer, "which gives you the right to demand, on principle, a territorial conces- Nov. 18-25. sion." With evident chagrin Castlereagh finally instructed Goulburn not to insist upon the uti possidetis if all other points could be satisfactorily settled.* The American commissioners, all of whom wished for peace, and were downcast at the thought that it might not be honorably obtained, had, meantime, brought the other points of discussion down to the right of fisheries and the navigation of the Mississippi, one being an offset to the other. Goulburn and his associates were not inclined to permit the fisheries to continue off Newfoundland without some equivalent; they claimed possession, too, of the Eastern Maine region. England wished, however, to maintain the right to use the Mississippi as under the Jay treaty. Here Clay and Adams were at bitter variance, each emulous of renown in his own section, and Gallatin found it no light task to be umpire in the secret councils of the American commission. Clay was violently opposed to yielding rights in the Mississippi, but upon the fisheries and sacrificing New England interests comparatively indifferent; Adams, as a New Englander, was the reverse. Gallatin effected a compromise between them. Viewing Britain as less desirous of peace than the United States, the danger was that if our commissioners insisted upon carrying all their points in their own favor, the treaty might break off on minor issues by no means vital, a result of which the British ministry would surely make the most, and which, perhaps, Castlereagh was striving to bring about. Hence, a proposal from the American side to barter the Mississippi navigation for the fisheries. This Goulburn and his colleagues rejected, and proposed in turn a new article, referring both subjects to future negotiation. Not without trepidation Gallatin and his associates gave their assent, coupled with an emphatic reservation of all rights claimed by the United States, but of the northeast possessions permitting no surrender. To their delight the British commissioners, after another reference to Dec. 22. * 9 Wellington Sup. Disp., 402; Adams's Gallatin, 536–510. London, professed themselves satisfied; the ministry would, they said, leave fisheries and the Mississippi out, and upon all other points an admissible treaty might be framed.* Dec. 24. All the difficulties thus surmounted, two more days brought the Ghent negotiation to a successful end, and the treaty of peace was executed in form, with an interchange of triplicates, on the day before Christmas. Feasting closed the year and pleasant civilities, the good burghers of Ghent entertaining all their distinguished guests at a public dinner, where the band constantly played in turn "God save the King" and "Hail Columbia." So far as this treaty went, it was an equable and satisfactory one, and if the United States could point out no clause of plain concession under it, neither could Great Britain.† * Adams and Clay were a little discomfited at this turn, but the former had succeeded in establishing that the rights fixed by the treaty of 1783 were not reopen to negotiation; while the latter had proved nearer right than his colleagues in supposing that Great Britain really wanted peace as well as the United States, or, as he expressed it, that all was a gaine of brag, in which we had only to out-brag the other commissioners to be sure of something.-3 John Quincy Adams's Memoirs; Adams's Gallatin, 4. † 3 John Quincy Adams's Memoirs; Adams's Gallatin, 546; 8 U. S. Statutes at Large, 218. The treaty of Ghent, which was ratified and confirmed by the American government, with advice of the Senate, February 17th, 1815, and went at once into effect, having been previously ratified by Great Britain, consisted of ten articles, besides the eleventh, which provided for ratification: (1.) Firm and universal peace was declared between the belligerents; territory, property, archives, etc., in general to be restored on each side. (2.) Immediately upon ratification hostilities were to cease, and orders transmitted accordingly. (3.) Prisoners of war were to be mutually restored. (4, 5.) As for the islands in the Passamaquoddy and the northeast angle, commissioners were to establish the disputed boundary by construction of the treaty of 1783, with final reference, should they disagree, to some friendly power. (6, 7.) Other similar points in dispute as to the northern boundary between the United States and Canada, touching certain islands and from the great lakes to Lake of the Woods, were similarly disposed of. (8.) Details were prescribed for these commissioners, grants in such islands prior to the war being reserved by each government. (9.) Indian hostilities were to cease, each government engaging to restore the Indians with whom they were still at war to all the possessions, rights, and 1815. TREATY OF PEACE CONCLUDED. 437 In a commission composed of five strong but inharmonious characters, all ambitious of distinction, the attrition must have been very great. Indeed, there was such chafing and contention in the present instance, even to deciding who of the commissioners should hold the papers after the treaty was actually signed, nat to bring them first to common ground involved more discussion than to persuade the British commissioners afterwards. Gallatin's service in this respect was immense. Though nominally at the foot of the commission, his good temper, tact, and discretion placed him at the head. To him alone would Clay submit, and the latter gained such ascendency over Bayard and Russell as constantly, with their help, to overrule Adams, with whose scholarly, frugal habits he had little in sympathy. Adams was, by title, first in the commission, but too punctilious, too petulant, and perhaps too pedantic at this time of life, to hold it well in sway, being young, furthermore, and of inflexible temper; while Clay was young, passionate, and domineering. Adams and Gallatin received the chief courtesies in court circles, where Clay, who was neither courtier nor scholar, failed of appreciation. Original in his views, however, as Adams himself records, Clay would fall in with his colleagues upon essentials, though from his own line. All the American commissioners were patriotic, and all disposed to assent to an honorable peace, but to no peace purchased by national dishonor.* After the treaty of Ghent, Gallatin became minister to France in place of Crawford, who had decided to 1815. return home. Adams was transferred from Russia to the court of St. James. Bayard had the tender of the Russian mission, but was too ill to accept; he died the following summer, soon after reaching the United States. Commercial privileges they enjoyed in 1811, provided such tribes desisted on their part. (10.) Both governments promised to promote the entire abolition of the slave trade. * See 3 John Quincy Adams's Diary, where the peace negotiations are fully detailed; also Adams's Gallatin, 493-547, which collates the Castlereagh and Wellington correspondence bearing upon the whole subject. † He declined, besides the opportunity of re-entering Congress, a tempting commercial offer from Astor.-Gallatin's Life. arrangements at London detained Clay abroad, in company with Adams and Gallatin, from April to July, though the American government having little to give could gain little. England had by that time regained her equanimity, July. Wellington routing Napoleon at Waterloo after the one hundred days' restoration. Upon impressment, blockade, and other doctrines, now purely theoretical, the ministry appeared impervious as ever; but those doctrines were never again enforced.* Our war narrative closes fittingly with Jackson's victory at New Orleans, gained a fortnight after the treaty of Ghent was signed, and the most creditable of purely military exploits won in the contest of 1812 by the American arms. Great results had been expected by Great Britain from the secret expedition fitted out against Louisiana; but, in the midst of those immense and costly preparations, such was the anxiety of the ministry by December that peace negotiations were hastily concluded before news could possibly reach Europe that the British troops from Jamaica had disembarked. A reverse was feared, probably, such as Prevost had suffered at the north, and, if so, those fears were well founded. Fifty British vessels, large and small, bore seven thousand British land troops-comprising the invading force from the Chesapeake and a veteran reinforcement from England-across the Gulf of Mexico from Jamaica to the ship channel near the entrance of Lake Borgne, thus approaching New Orleans midway between the Mississippi River and Mobile Bay. Here the fleet anchored; and, after dispersing a meagre Dec. 9-20. flotilla of American gunboats, which opposed their progress in vain, the invaders took full possession of Lake Borgne, and, by means of lighter transports, landed troops * The new negotiations with England procured no rights in the West Indies for the United States, and only commercial privileges with regard to the East Indies under a four years' convention.-See Adams's Galla tin, 547-552; 3 John Quincy Adams's Diary, 311-346; U. S. Statutes at Large, 228, convention of July 3d, 1815. Discriminating duties were abolished by this convention. See Wellington's Letter as to applying the uti possidetis there.Adams's Gallatin; supra, pp. 414, 435. |