All hope of success from the mediation had long vanished; the winter had set in; Gallatin was not even a member of the commission; yet he still lingered at St. Petersburg, partly in deference to Count Romanzoff’s wish, partly in the hope of receiving the long-expected communication from the Emperor which was to close the mission, partly in expectation of receiving more decisive news from England or of getting instructions from America, partly in order to have the company of Mr. Bayard on his journey. Not until the 25th January, 1814, did they leave St. Petersburg, and still without a word from the Emperor.
They travelled with all the slowness inevitable in the movements of those times from St. Petersburg to Amsterdam. There they arrived on the evening of the 4th March, and there they remained during four weeks. The situation of affairs did not grow better. The complete destruction of France was practically accomplished, and America was now left to oppose alone the whole power of England, which would infallibly be directed against her. On reaching Amsterdam Mr. Gallatin learned that Lord Castlereagh’s offer of direct negotiation had been promptly met on the part of Mr. Madison by the appointment of a new commission, of which Mr. Gallatin himself was not one, for the reason that at the time these nominations were made he was supposed to be on his way home to resume his post at the Treasury. When the mistake was discovered, and after it had become evident that the Treasury must no longer be left vacant, the President, on the 8th February, nominated Mr. Gallatin as a member of the new commission, and at the same time appointed Mr. G. W. Campbell Secretary of the Treasury. By this accident Mr. Gallatin, instead of standing first in the commission, was made its last member, and all his colleagues, Mr. Adams, Mr. Bayard, Henry Clay, and Jonathan Russell, took precedence of him.
These proceedings had no effect in changing Mr. Gallatin’s movements: whether first or last in the commission, or whether omitted from it entirely, he continued to superintend all the diplomatic operations connected with the proposed peace. Towards the end of March he received from Mr. Baring the necessary permission to visit England, and immediately afterwards he crossed the channel with Mr. Bayard and established himself in London. Almost at the same moment Mr. Clay and Mr. Russell arrived at Gottenburg, and brought with them Mr. Gallatin’s appointment as fifth commissioner. A considerable time necessarily elapsed before all the five envoys could be brought together, and during this interval Mr. Gallatin was quietly employed in smoothing the path of negotiation.
With the British government itself he held no direct communication on the difficult points involved in the future settlement, and if he still hoped to persuade that government to make concessions on the subject of impressment, his hope was altogether disappointed; neither Mr. Baring nor Lord Castlereagh himself would at that moment have dared to suggest the smallest concession on that point in the face of the excited popular feeling of England. Mr. Gallatin appears to have refrained from every attempt to negotiate on his own account, and to have contented himself with removing such obstacles and with setting in motion such influences as it was in his power to affect or control.
The first object he had at heart was the removal of the place of negotiation. Their instructions, not as yet known to Mr. Gallatin, authorized the envoys to treat, and assumed Gottenburg as the place, rejecting the British proposition to treat at London. Mr. Gallatin would have preferred London, because he believed, and with justice, that his chances were better with Lord Castlereagh than with any mere agent of the Foreign Office; but this point was one of pride as well as fear among Americans; to London they would not go, and accordingly Mr. Gallatin contented himself with changing the place of negotiation to Ghent. The following letter explains his motives for this movement.
GALLATIN TO HENRY CLAY.
London, 22d April, 1814.
Dear Sir,—We have just heard of your arrival, but have received no letters, and I am yet ignorant whether I am one of the new commission to treat of peace. My arrangements must depend on that circumstance, and I wait with impatience for the official account which you must have brought. For that reason Mr. Bayard addresses you and Mr. Russell in his own name, but I coincide fully with him in the opinion that the negotiations should by all means be opened here, or at least in Holland, if this is not rendered impracticable from the nature of the commission. If this has unfortunately been limited to treating of peace at Gottenburg, there is no remedy; but if the commission admits of a change of place, I would feel no hesitation in removing them at least to any other neutral place, whatever may be the language of the instructions. For their spirit would be fully answered by treating in any other friendly country as well as if at Gottenburg. On that point I feel great anxiety, because, on account of the late great changes in Europe, and of the increased difficulties thence arising in making any treaty, I do believe that it would be utterly impossible to succeed in that corner, removed from every friendly interference in our favor on the part of the European powers, and compelled to act with men clothed with limited authorities, and who might at all times plead a want of instructions.
You are sufficiently aware of the total change in our affairs produced by the late revolution and by the restoration of universal peace in the European world, from which we are alone excluded. A well-organized and large army is at once liberated from any European employment, and ready, together with a superabundant naval force, to act immediately against us. How ill prepared we are to meet it in a proper manner no one knows better than yourself; but, above all, our own divisions and the hostile attitude of the Eastern States give room to apprehend that a continuance of the war might prove vitally fatal to the United States.
I understand that the ministers, with whom we have not had any direct intercourse, still profess to be disposed to make an equitable peace. But the hope, not of ultimate conquest, but of a dissolution of the Union, the convenient pretence which the American war will afford to preserve large military establishments, and, above all, the force of popular feeling, may all unite in inducing the Cabinet in throwing impediments in the way of peace. They will not certainly be disposed to make concessions, nor probably displeased at a failure of negotiations. That the war is popular, and that national pride, inflated by the last unexpected success, cannot be satisfied without what they call the chastisement of America, cannot be doubted. The mass of the people here know nothing of American politics but through the medium of Federal speeches and newspapers faithfully transcribed in their own journals. They do not even suspect that we have any just cause of complaint, and consider us altogether as the aggressors and as allies of Bonaparte. In those opinions it is understood that the ministers do not participate, but it will really require an effort on their part to act contrary to public opinion, and they must, even if perfectly sincere, use great caution and run some risk of popularity. A direct, or at least a very near, intercourse with them is therefore highly important, as I have no doubt that they would go further themselves than they would be willing to intrust any other person. To this must be added that Lord Castlereagh is, according to the best information I have been able to collect, the best disposed man in the Cabinet, and that coming from France, and having had intercourse with the Emperor Alexander, it is not improbable that those dispositions may have been increased by the personal expression of the Emperor’s wishes in favor of peace with America. Whatever advantages may be derived from that circumstance and from the Emperor’s arrival here would be altogether lost at Gottenburg....
HENRY CLAY TO GALLATIN.
Gottenburg, 2d May, 1814.
Dear Sir,—I am rejoiced at finding you in Europe. We had great fears that you would have left it before our arrival and proceeded to America. Your rejection last summer in the Senate was very generally condemned by the people, and produced a reaction highly favorable to you. The total uncertainty in which the government was left as to your movements (for on the 1st February, when I left Washington, not one syllable had been received from either yourself or Mr. Bayard), and the increased and complicated concerns of the Treasury, produced a state of things highly embarrassing to the President; so much so that he could no longer resist the pressure to fill the Treasury. After this measure was determined on, it became more than ever desirable that the public should have the benefit of your services here. Had it not been confidently believed when the new commission was formed that you were on your way to America and would be there shortly, you would have been originally comprehended in it.
I have not time to say what I want to communicate on American affairs. Peace, necessary to our country before the astonishing events which have recently occurred on this side of the Atlantic, events with which the imagination can scarcely keep pace, will doubtless be now more than ever demanded. I think, however, you attach more consequence than belongs to the indications in the Eastern States. I have no doubt that a game of swaggering and gasconade has been played off there, without any serious intention to push matters to extremity. After a great deal of blustering about raising 20,000 men and declaring the freedom of the port of Boston, a meeting of the malcontents there determined it inexpedient to take any such measure during the last session of the Legislature. The truth is, they want men, they want money, the principal actors want courage. Yet I would not despise these appearances. If the British government should determine to land a considerable force in the Eastern States, avowing friendship to them and an intention only to war with the Southern States, or with the Administration, certainly very serious consequences might ensue, though I believe they would fall far short of conquest or dissolution....
On the point of removing the place of negotiation from Gottenburg to Ghent Mr. Gallatin was successful, and perhaps it was on the whole fortunate that he was disappointed in his wish to negotiate at London, for the delays consequent on the distance of Ghent were an element in the success of the negotiation.
Another point which Mr. Gallatin pertinaciously labored to gain was the active aid of the Emperor Alexander. What Romanzoff had been unable to effect, and what Moreau had died too soon to accomplish, Mr. Gallatin was bent upon doing by other means. Fortunately, his former ally, William H. Crawford, had been taken by Mr. Madison from the Senate and sent as minister to Napoleon, after whose fall he remained in Paris, waiting for new credentials and for recognition from Louis XVIII. As a diplomate, Mr. Crawford was not altogether successful; his temper and manners were little suited to the very delicate situation in which he was placed; nevertheless he was a person on whose aid Mr. Gallatin could thoroughly rely, and the assistance of La Fayette and Humboldt went far to supply his deficiencies. Mr. Gallatin, therefore, enrolled him also in the service, and wrote at some length, giving him a sketch of the situation in much the same language used in the letter to Mr. Clay of the next day, but with a different conclusion.
GALLATIN TO W. H. CRAWFORD.
London, 21 April, 1814.
The only external check to those dispositions [of enmity in England] can be found in the friendly interposition of the Emperor Alexander, not as a mediator, but as a common friend, pressing on this government the propriety of an accommodation and expressing his strong wishes for a general restoration of peace to the civilized world. I do not know whether your situation affords you means of approaching him, and can only state my opinion of the great importance that an early opportunity should be taken by you or any other person you may think fitted for the object, to call his attention to the situation in which we are left, and to the great weight which his opinion in favor of peace on liberal conditions, strongly expressed to this government, must necessarily have at this time. Of his friendly disposition for the United States there is no doubt; but we may be forgotten; and it is necessary that he should be apprised of the hostile spirit which prevails here, and which, if not balanced by some other cause, may even carry ministers beyond their own wishes and views. It should also be stated that our government having accepted one year ago the Emperor’s mediation, and not having supposed that, considering the political connection between him and Great Britain, she could reject that offer, no other provision was made on our part to obtain peace until our government was apprised, in January last, of the rejection of the mediation by England. Thus was a delay of a year produced, and the opening of our negotiations unfortunately prevented till after England is at peace with the rest of the world, a circumstance which, although it does not give us a positive right to claim the Emperor’s interference, affords sufficient ground to present the subject to his consideration. I entreat you to lose no time in taking such steps as may be in your power in that respect, and to write to me whatever you may think important for the success of the mission should be known to us....
On the 13th May, Mr. Crawford replied that he had attempted to carry out Mr. Gallatin’s wishes, and had received a polite rebuff from Count Nesselrode and no notice whatever from the Emperor. He added: “After I had failed in obtaining access to the Emperor of Russia and to his minister, I requested General La Fayette to endeavor, through Colonel La Harpe, to have the proper representations made to Nesselrode or to the Emperor. Every effort to effect this object has been abortive. It seems as if there had been a settled determination to prevent the approach of every person who is suspected of an attachment to the United States. The general has, however, come in contact several times with Baron Humboldt, the Prussian minister, who has imbibed already the British misrepresentations.”
La Fayette soon succeeded, however, in breaking down these barriers which English influence had raised about the Emperor. On the 25th May he wrote: “Mr. Crawford is better qualified than I am to give you all the information from this quarter which relates to American concerns. The confidence with which he honors my zeal has enabled me to discuss the matter with some influencing characters among the allied generals and diplomates. Two of the latter act a great part in the present negotiations. I found them well acquainted with British arguments and impressed with British prejudices which convinced me that care had been taken to influence their opinion. An opportunity has been seeked, which I am bound not to name, for putting directly under the eyes of Emperor Alexander a note of Mr. Crawford. You may depend it has been faithfully delivered, with proper comments, along with a letter, the copy of which Mr. Crawford has desired me to enclose. I expect this evening to meet the Emperor of Russia at a friend’s house, and shall try to obtain some conversation on the subject.”
On the 26th May, General La Fayette wrote the following letter to Mr. Crawford, who enclosed it on the 28th in a despatch to Mr. Gallatin.
LA FAYETTE TO W. H. CRAWFORD.
26th May, 1814.
My Dear Sir,—I passed the last evening in company with the Emperor Alexander, who, however prepossessed in his favor, has surpassed my expectations. He really is a great, good, sensible, noble-minded man, and a sincere friend to the cause of liberty. We have long conversed upon American affairs. It began with his telling me that he had read with much pleasure and interest what I had sent him. I found ideas had been suggested that had excited a fear that the people of the United States had not properly improved their internal situation. My answer was an observation upon the necessity of parties in a commonwealth, and the assertion that they were the happiest and freest people upon earth. The transactions with France and England were explained in the way that, although the United States had to complain of both, the British outrages came nearer home, particularly in the affair of impressments. He spoke of the actual preparation and the hostile dispositions of England. I of course insisted on the rejection of his mediation, the confidence reposed in him by the United States who hastened to send commissioners chosen from both parties, which he very kindly acknowledged. He said he had twice attempted to bring on a peace. “Do, sir,” said I, “make a third attempt; it must succeed; ne vous arrêtez pas en si beau chemin. All the objects of a war at an end, and the re-establishment of their old limits can the less be opposed as the Americans have gained more than they have lost. A protraction of the war would betray intentions quite perverse and hostile to the cause of humanity. Your personal influence must carry the point. I am sure your majesty will exert it.” “Well,” says he, “I promise you I will. My journey to London affords opportunities, and I will do the best I can.” I told him I had received a letter from Mr. Gallatin, now in London, and we spoke of him, Mr. Adams, Mr. Bayard, and the two new commissioners. I had also other occasions to speak of America; one afforded me by the Swedish Marshal Stadinck, who mentioned my first going over to that country; another by a well-intentioned observation of Mme. de Staël that she had received a letter from my friend Mr. Jefferson, of whom he spoke with great regard. This led to observations relative to the United States and the spirit of monopoly in England extending even to liberty itself. The Emperor said they had been more liberal in Sicily than I supposed them. I did not deny it, but expressed my fears of their protecting Ferdinand against the cortes. His sentiments on the Spanish affairs were noble and patriotic. The slave-trade became a topic upon which he spoke with philanthropic warmth. Its abolition will be an article in the general peace.
You see, my dear sir, I had fully the opportunity we were wishing for. If it has not been well improved, the fault is mine. But I think some good has been done. And upon the promise of a man so candid and generous I have full dependence. If you think proper to communicate these details to Mr. Gallatin, be pleased to have them copied. He spoke very well of him, and seemed satisfied with the confidence of the United States and the choice of their representatives to him. By his last accounts Mr. Adams was at St. Petersburg. The particulars of this conversation ought not, of course, to be published; but you will probably think it useful to communicate to the commissioners.
The obstinate determination of England to isolate the United States and cut off all means of co-operation between her and the Baltic powers became more and more evident as the season advanced, and stimulated Gallatin’s efforts. On the 2d June he wrote to Mr. Monroe from London: “I have remained here waiting for the answers of our colleagues at Gottenburg, and will depart as soon as I know that they and the British commissioners are on their way to the appointed place. The definitive treaty of European peace being signed and ratified, Lord Castlereagh is expected here this day, and the Emperor of Russia in the beginning of next week. I enclose copy of an extract of a letter of Mr. Crawford to me. I may add that I have ascertained that the exclusion of all discussions respecting maritime questions and of any interference in the American contest was one of the conditions proposed at the Châtillon conferences, and I have reason to believe that, with respect to the first point, a positive, and in the other at least a tacit, agreement have taken place in the late and final European negotiations at Paris.”
Doubtless one of Mr. Gallatin’s objects in remaining so long in London was to have a personal interview with the Emperor. La Fayette wrote to him from Paris on the 3d of June, recounting briefly the incidents of his own interview with the Emperor at the house of Mme. de Staël, and urging Mr. Gallatin to see him: “You may begin the conversation with thanking him for the intention to do so [to serve us] to the best of his power, which he very positively expressed to me. Our friend Humboldt, who has already spoken to him on the subject, would be happy to receive your directions for anything in his power. I hasten to scribble this letter to be forwarded by him.”
The Emperor Alexander came to London, and Mr. Gallatin had his interview on the 17th or 18th June. Of this interview Mr. C. J. Ingersoll, in his History of the War of 1812, has given a somewhat dramatic account, derived perhaps from Mr. Levett Harris, who had been secretary to the mission at St. Petersburg, and who, being now in London, accompanied Mr. Gallatin to the audience. Mr. Ingersoll has in that work so seldom succeeded in stating facts with correctness, that to quote him is usually to mislead. All Mr. Gallatin ever recorded on the subject of the interview is contained in his despatch of June 20 to Mr. Monroe: “Mr. Harris and myself had on the 17th an audience from the Emperor of Russia. His friendly dispositions for the United States are unimpaired; he earnestly wishes that peace may be made between them and England; but he does not give or seem to entertain any hope that he can on that subject be of any service. I could not ascertain whether he had touched the subject since he had been here; only he said, ‘I have made two—three attempts.’ If three, the third must have been now. He added, ‘England will not admit a third party to interfere in her disputes with you. This is on account of your former relations to her (the colonial state), which is not yet forgotten.’ He also expressed his opinion that, with respect to conditions of peace, the difficulty would be with England and not with us. On the whole, this conversation afforded no reason to alter the opinions expressed in my letter of 13th inst.[124] I yesterday, with his permission, sent him a note, ... which contains nothing new to you, and which will not probably produce any effect.”[125]
To these facts Mr. Ingersoll adds some details. According to him, the interview took place on the 18th, the day when the city of London gave its great banquet to the allied sovereigns at Guildhall. The time appointed by the Emperor for his audience was the hour before he left his residence in Leicesterfields to attend the entertainment; and Mr. Gallatin and Mr. Harris drove in “a mean and solitary hackney-coach, with a permit,” through the shouting crowd, unknown and unnoticed, except by an occasional jeer and a hail as “old Blucher” from the throng. The Emperor’s words are not given, but the substance was that Mr. Gallatin and his associates should take a high tone and outbrag the British.
The reader may safely assume that the Emperor said nothing of the kind, for Alexander was not a man to indulge in impertinence. He earnestly wished for peace, and he saw how small a chance there was of obtaining it. He doubtless spoke to Mr. Gallatin with perfect sincerity of his wishes and his acts; he may have hinted that America would gain little by showing too great eagerness for peace, but he would certainly have said nothing which, if repeated, could possibly have offended England. Indeed, he had gone to the extreme verge of civility in giving any audience at all to an American agent while he was himself the guest of the country with which America was then at war.
The result of all Mr. Gallatin’s efforts in this direction was, therefore, apparently a complete failure. The power of England was supreme in Europe, and whatever irritation the continental sovereigns may have felt under the extravagant maritime pretensions of Great Britain, not one of them ventured to lisp a word of remonstrance. Yet it is by no means certain that Mr. Gallatin was so unsuccessful as he seemed. The fate of the negotiation at Ghent hung on Lord Castlereagh’s nod, and among the many influences which affected Lord Castlereagh’s mind, a desire to preserve his friendly relations with Russia was one of the most powerful. The moment came when the British ministry had to decide the question whether to let the treaty fail or to abate British pretensions, and it can hardly be doubted that the repeated remonstrances of Russia had some share of influence in causing England to recoil from a persistent policy of war. At the crisis of the negotiation, on the 27th September, Lord Liverpool wrote to Lord Castlereagh, who was then at Vienna, advising him of the capture of Washington and the state of affairs at Ghent, and adding: “The Americans have assumed hitherto a tone in the negotiation very different from what their situation appears to warrant. In the exercise of your discretion as to how much you may think proper to disclose of what has been passing to the sovereigns and ministers whom you will meet at Vienna, I have no doubt you will see the importance of adverting to this circumstance, and of doing justice to the moderation with which we are disposed to act towards America. I fear the Emperor of Russia is half an American, and it would be very desirable to do away any prejudice which may exist in his mind or in that of Count Nesselrode on this subject.”[126]
While Mr. Gallatin was engaged in arranging the preliminaries of negotiation and in bringing to bear on the British ministry such pressure as he was able to command, he did not neglect to act the part of diplomatic agent for the instruction of his own government. The time was long gone by when Mr. Gallatin and his party had declaimed against the diplomatic service. Mr. Madison had now sent abroad nearly every man in America whose pretensions to civil distinction were considerable. There were six full ministers between London, Holland, and Paris, and among them were included two Senators, the Speaker of the House, and the Secretary of the Treasury. The position of Mr. Gallatin in London was particularly delicate, since he was in a manner bound not to betray the confidence which Lord Castlereagh had placed in him by permitting his residence in England; but he knew little more of military movements than was known to all the world, and within these limits he might without impropriety correspond with his government. Thus his well-known despatch of June 13 was written.[127] In this letter he gave a sketch of the whole field of diplomatic and military affairs. Beginning with the announcement that England was fitting out an armament which, besides providing for Canada, would enable her to land at least 15,000 to 20,000 men on the Atlantic coast; that the capture of Washington and New York would most gratify them, and the occupation of Norfolk, Baltimore, &c., might be expected; this letter continued:
“Whatever may be the object and duration of the war, America must rely on her resources alone. From Europe no assistance can for some time be expected. British pride begins, indeed, to produce its usual effect. Seeds of dissension are not wanting. Russia and England may at the approaching Congress of Vienna be at variance on important subjects, particularly as relates to the aggrandizement of Austria. But questions of maritime rights are not yet attended to, and America is generally overlooked by the European sovereigns, or viewed with suspicion. Above all, there is nowhere any navy in existence, and years of peace must elapse before the means of resisting with effect the sea-power of Great Britain can be created. In a word, Europe wants peace, and neither will nor can at this time make war against Great Britain. The friendly disposition of the Emperor of Russia, and a just view of the subject, make him sincerely desirous that peace should be restored to the United States. He may use his endeavors for that purpose; beyond that he will not go, and in that it is not probable he will succeed. I have also the most perfect conviction that, under the existing unpropitious circumstances of the world, America cannot by a continuance of the war compel Great Britain to yield any of the maritime points in dispute, and particularly to agree to any satisfactory arrangement on the subject of impressment; and that the most favorable terms of peace that can be expected are the status ante bellum, and a postponement of the questions of blockade, impressment, and all other points which in time of European peace are not particularly injurious; but with firmness and perseverance those terms, though perhaps unattainable at this moment, will ultimately be obtained, provided you can stand the shock of this campaign, and provided the people will remain and show themselves united.” ...
This despatch arrived in Washington only when one part of its advices had been already verified by the capture and destruction of that city. Meanwhile the other American commissioners were beginning to assemble at Ghent, and the British government showed no sign of haste in opening the negotiation. Mr. Gallatin, on the 9th June, attempted to hurry Lord Castlereagh’s movements by asking when the British commissioners would be ready. He was told they would start for Ghent on the 1st July, and on the strength of this information he himself left London on June 21, and, after a rapid visit to Paris, arrived at Ghent on July 6.
Nearly three months had Mr. Gallatin thus passed in London, and, after all his efforts, little enough had been attained. His hopes of success were certainly not brighter than when he left America, more than a year before; indeed, it was not easy to deny that there had been actual loss of ground. Mr. Gallatin had undertaken a diplomatic tour de force, and thus far his successes had been far from brilliant; his failures had been conspicuous. Nevertheless he persisted with endless patience and with his usual resource. His residence in London could not but be unpleasant, and perhaps the brightest spot in his whole experience there was the meeting with his old friend and school-fellow Dumont, the Genevan, whom he had once half wished to tempt into the Ohio wilderness, but who had remained in Europe to float on the waves of revolution until they threw him into the arms of Jeremy Bentham, whose friend and interpreter he became. Through him Mr. Gallatin became acquainted with Bentham, but Gallatin had drifted further than his school-mate from the theorizing tastes of his youth, and he now found quite as much satisfaction in discussing finance with Alexander Baring as in reforming mankind with Bentham and Dumont.
From the 6th July till the 6th August the American commissioners waited the arrival of their British colleagues, and amused themselves as they best might. This delay was the more irritating to Mr. Gallatin because his own visit to Paris was said to have been given by Lord Castlereagh in the House of Commons, on the 20th July, as an excuse for the delay of the British commissioners. The conduct of the English government promised ill for the success of the mission, and it was natural that the Americans should believe they were a second time to be made the victims of diplomacy. This inference was not necessarily a fair one; the motives which influenced Lord Castlereagh varied from day to day, and events proved that he acted more shrewdly in the interests of peace than Mr. Gallatin imagined. There was more to be hoped from delay than from haste.
At last the British commissioners arrived: Lord Gambier, Henry Goulburn, and William Adams; none of them very remarkable for genius, and still less for weight of influence; as compared with the American commissioners they were unequal to their task. This again, unpromising as it looked, was not really a misfortune, for the British commissioners, deficient as they were in ability, polish of manners, and even in an honest wish for peace, were the mere puppets of their government, and never ventured to move a hair’s-breadth without at once seeking the approval of Lord Castlereagh or Lord Liverpool. Mr. Gallatin had nothing to fear from them; singly or together he was as capable of dealing with them as Benjamin Franklin, under very similar conditions, had proved himself equal to dealing with their predecessors thirty years before. Gallatin’s great difficulty was the same with which Dr. Franklin had straggled. The American habit of negotiating by commissions may have its advantages for government, but it enormously increases the labor of the agents, for it compels each envoy to expend more effort in negotiating with his colleagues in the commission than in negotiating with his opponents. Mr. Gallatin had four associates, none of whom was easily managed, and two of whom, Mr. Adams and Mr. Clay, acted upon each other as explosives. To keep the peace between them was no easy matter, and to keep the peace between them and the Englishmen was a task almost beyond hope; indeed, Mr. Gallatin’s own temper was severely tried in his conversations with the English envoys, and perhaps a little more roughness on his part would have been better understood and better received by them than his patient forbearance. If Gallatin had a fault, it was that of using the razor when he would have done better with the axe.
If all the preliminaries were calculated to discourage, the opening of the negotiation justified something worse than discouragement. Very unwillingly and with deep mortification the President and his advisers had submitted to the inevitable and consented to offer terms of peace which settled no one principle for which they had fought. They had agreed to what was in fact an armistice; restoration of the status ante bellum; a return to the old condition of things when war was always imminent and American rights were always trampled upon. Now that Europe was again at peace, they were willing to leave the theoretical questions of belligerency undetermined, since it was clear that England preferred war to concession. To Mr. Clay, who had made the war, and to Mr. Adams, who fully sympathized with Mr. Clay in his antipathy to the English domination, these concessions seemed enormous; even to Mr. Gallatin, always the friend of peace, they seemed to reach the extreme verge of dignity; but when the English envoys unfolded their demands, the mildest of the Americans was aghast; it is a matter of surprise that there was not an outburst of indignation on the spot, and that negotiation did not end the day it began. In the first interview, which took place on August 8 and was continued the next day, the British commissioners required as a preliminary basis of discussion and a sine qua non of the treaty that the United States government should set apart forever for the Indian tribes the whole North-West Territory, as defined by the treaty of Greenville in 1795; that is to say, the whole country now represented by the States of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illinois, four-fifths of Indiana, and one-third of Ohio; so that an Indian sovereignty should be constituted in that region under the guaranty of Great Britain, for the double purpose of interposing neutral territory between Canada and the United States and curbing the progress of the latter. Mr. Gallatin suggested that there were probably one hundred thousand American citizens settled within that region, and what was to become of them? “Undoubtedly they must shift for themselves,” was the reply.
In comparison with so enormous a pretension the smaller demands of the British government were of trifling importance, even though they included a “rectification” of the frontier and a cession of Sackett’s Harbor and Fort Niagara as a guaranty for the British control of the lakes.[128]
Under such circumstances, the path of the American commissioners was plain. They had no opportunity to disagree on so simple an issue, and they wanted no better popular argument for unanimity in support of the war than this avowed determination to dismember the United States. They had merely to draft their rejection of the British sine qua non.
The negotiation with the British commissioners was, however, much more simple than the negotiation with one another; of the first the diplomatic notes and protocols give a fair description, but of the last a far more entertaining account is given in the Diary of John Quincy Adams. The accident which placed Mr. Gallatin at the foot of the commission placed Mr. Adams at its head,—a result peculiarly unfortunate, because, even if the other commissioners had conceded respect to the age, the services, and the tact of Mr. Gallatin, they had no idea of showing any such deference to Mr. Adams. From the outset it was clear that Messrs. Bayard, Clay, and Russell meant to let Mr. Adams understand that though he might be the nominal mouth-piece he was not the autocrat of the commission, and their methods of conveying this information were such as in those days Mr. Clay was celebrated for successfully using. Mr. Adams had little of Mr. Gallatin’s capacity for pacifying strife; he was by nature as combative as Mr. Clay, and before the commission separated there were exciting and very amusing scenes of collision, in one of which Mr. Adams plainly intimated his opinion of the conduct of his colleagues, and Mr. Clay broke out upon him with: “You dare not, you cannot, you SHALL not insinuate that there has been a cabal of three members against you.”
In this affair Mr. Gallatin’s situation was delicate in the highest degree. All recognized the fact that he was properly head of the mission; his opinion carried most weight; his pen was most in demand; his voice was most patiently heard. The tact with which he steered his way between the shoals that surrounded him is the most remarkable instance in our history of perfect diplomatic skill; even Dr. Franklin, in a very similar situation, had not the same success. In no instance did Mr. Gallatin allow himself to be drawn into the conflicts of his colleagues, and yet he succeeded in sustaining Mr. Adams in every essential point without appearing to do so. When the negotiation was closed, all his four colleagues were united, at least to outward appearance, in cordiality to him, and Mr. Adams had reason to be, and seems in fact always to have been, positively grateful. If Mr. Clay felt differently, as there was afterwards reason to believe, he showed no such feeling at the time. The story as told in Mr. Adams’s Diary proves clearly enough that this delicate tact of Mr. Gallatin probably saved the treaty.
The very earliest despatch they had occasion to send showed Mr. Gallatin the delicacy of his ground. As first member of the commission, Mr. Adams drafted this despatch and gave his draft for revision to the other gentlemen, who showed it little mercy; Mr. Bayard used it merely as the foundation for an entirely new draft of his own, which was substituted by the commission for that of Mr. Adams. Mr. Bayard’s essay, however, proved to be little more satisfactory than Mr. Adams’s, and at last it was referred to Mr. Gallatin to be put in final shape. This was done, and the commissioners ended by adopting his work. The next despatch was drafted at once by him and accepted with little alteration. Henceforth the duty of drawing up all papers was regularly performed by him. Mr. Adams’s account of the characteristic criticisms of his four colleagues, as well as of his own peculiarities of thought and expression, is very amusing, and probably very exact. “On the general view of the subject [of the note in reply to the British commissioners] we are unanimous, but, in my exposition of it, one objects to the form and another to the substance of almost every paragraph. Mr. Gallatin is for striking out every expression that may be offensive to the feelings of the adverse party. Mr. Clay is displeased with figurative language, which he thinks improper for a state paper. Mr. Russell, agreeing in the objections of the two other gentlemen, will be further for amending the construction of every sentence; and Mr. Bayard, even when agreeing to say precisely the same thing, chooses to say it only in his own language.”
At this moment, that is to say, from the 10th August to the 8th October, it was a matter of little consequence what form these personal annoyances might take, for no doubt was felt by any of the commissioners that negotiation was at an end. Even Mr. Gallatin abandoned hope. That the British government was really disposed to make peace seemed to him, as to his colleagues, too improbable to be worth discussion. On the 20th August he wrote privately to Mr. Monroe: “The negotiations at this place will have the result which I have anticipated. In one respect, however, I had been mistaken. I had supposed whilst in England that the British ministry, in continuing the war, yielded to the popular sentiment, and were only desirous of giving some éclat to the termination of hostilities, and, by predatory attacks, of inflicting gratuitous injury on the United States. It appears now certain that they have more serious and dangerous objects in view.” After dwelling at some length on the indications that pointed to New Orleans as the spot where the ultimate struggle for supremacy was to come, he concluded: “I do not expect that we can be detained more than two or three weeks longer for the purpose either of closing the negotiation, of taking every other necessary step connected with it, and of making all the arrangements for our departure.” To Mr. Dallas he wrote the same day: “Our negotiations may be considered as at an end. Some official notes may yet pass, but the nature of the demands of the British, made also as a preliminary sine qua non, to be admitted as a basis before a discussion, is such that there can be no doubt of a speedy rupture of our conferences, and that we will have no peace. Great Britain wants war in order to cripple us; she wants aggrandizement at our expense; she may have ulterior objects: no resource left but in union and vigorous prosecution of the war. When her terms are known it appears to me impossible that all America should not unite in defence of her rights, of her territory, I may say of her independence. I do not expect to be longer than three weeks in Europe.”
Nevertheless, the three weeks passed without bringing the expected rupture. None of the American envoys knew the reasons of this delay; but the letters of the British negotiators, since published, explain the steps in that backward movement which at last brought about an abandonment of every point the British government had begun by declaring essential. Mr. Goulburn, who from the first was strongly inclined to obstruct a settlement and to put forward impossible conditions,[129] announced to his chief on the 23d August: “We are still without any answer to the note which we addressed to the American plenipotentiaries on Friday last. We have, however, met them to-day at dinner at the intendants, and it is evident from their conversation that they do not mean to continue the negotiations at present. Mr. Clay, whom I sat next to at dinner, gave me clearly to understand that they had decided upon a reference to America for instructions, and that they considered our propositions equivalent to a demand for the cession of Boston or New York; and after dinner Mr. Bayard took me aside and requested that I would permit him to have a little private and confidential conversation. Upon my expressing my readiness to hear whatever he might like to say to me, he began a very long speech by saying that the present negotiation could not end in peace, and that he was desirous of privately stating (before we separated) what Great Britain did not appear to understand, viz., that, by proposing terms like those which had been offered, we were not only ruining all prospects of peace, but were sacrificing the party of which he was a member to their political adversaries. He went into a long discussion upon the views and objects of the several parties in America, the grounds upon which they had hitherto proceeded, and the effect which a hostile or conciliatory disposition on our part might have upon them. He inculcated how much it was for our interest to support the Federalists, and that to make peace was the only method of supporting them effectually; that we had nothing to fear for Canada if peace were made, be the terms what they might; that there would have been no difficulty about allegiance, impressment, &c.; but that our present demands were what America never could or would accede to. This was the general tenor of his conversation, to which I did not think it necessary to make much reply, and which I only mention to you in order to let you know at the earliest moment that the negotiation is not likely now to continue.... As I find, upon reading over what I have written, that I have drily stated what the American plenipotentiaries said to me, I cannot let it go without adding that it has made not the least impression upon me or upon my colleagues, to whom I have reported it.”
If the notes and conversation of the American commissioners made no impression on Mr. Goulburn and his colleagues, the case was very different with their chiefs. A few days before Mr. Goulburn’s letter was written, Lord Castlereagh passed through Ghent on his way to Vienna. He found that Goulburn had made a series of blunders, and was obliged to check him abruptly,[130] writing at the same time to Lord Liverpool, advising a considerable “letting down of the question.”[131] Lord Liverpool replied on the 2d September, saying that his advice had already been followed: “Our commissioners had certainly taken a very erroneous view of our policy. If the negotiation had been allowed to break off upon the two notes already presented, or upon such an answer as they were disposed to return, I am satisfied the war would have become quite popular in America.”[132] Mr. Goulburn himself became a little nervous; he wrote on the 2d September of the American Commissioners: “Their only anxiety appears to me to get back to America. Whenever we meet them they always enter into unofficial discussions, much of the same nature as the conversation with which Mr. Bayard indulged me; but we have given no encouragement to such conversations, thinking that they are liable to much misrepresentation and cannot lead to any good purpose. All that I think I have learnt from them is this: that Mr. Adams is a very bad arguer, and that the Federalists are quite as inveterate enemies to us as the Madisonians. Those who know anything of America or Americans probably knew this before. We await with some anxiety your note.”[133] On the 5th September, only three days afterwards, Mr. Goulburn’s temper, in view of the awkward position he was in, had become irritable; the American commissioners had never, he thought, had any intention of making peace: “They gave it out all over the town (previously even to sending their note) that the negotiations would end in nothing, and I have never met them anywhere without hearing their complaints at being detained here, and their wish to leave the place on the 1st of October at the latest. Some days since they gave their landlord notice that they meant to quit their house, and two of their private secretaries set out to make a tour in England before their note was written, one of whom openly stated to me that, as they were on the point of returning to America, he wished, first of all, to see London.”[134]
The result of the first round in this encounter was clearly in favor of the American champions. The unfortunate Goulburn was worsted, and forced, with very bad grace, to accept the admonitions of his chiefs and to endure the triumph of his opponents.
Lord Bathurst accordingly undertook to correct the mistakes of his envoys, and forwarded on the 1st September an argumentative note calculated to persuade the Americans that nothing could be more becoming in them than to surrender the lakes to Great Britain and the North-West Territory to the Indians. The long reply of the American commissioners, delivered on the 9th September, was mostly written by Mr. Gallatin, and Mr. Adams candidly says in his Diary: “I struck out the greatest part of my own previous draft, preferring that of Mr. Gallatin upon the same points.” Its contents were briefly characterized in a short note from the Foreign Office to the Duke of Wellington, dated September 13: “It rejects all our proposals respecting the boundary and the military flag on the lakes, and refuses even to refer them to their government, offering at the same time to pursue the negotiation on the other points;” and on the 16th the Duke was notified that: “We mean in our reply to admit that we do not intend to make the exclusive military possession of the lakes a sine qua non of the negotiation.” This was, however, not the only concession; the new ground which Lord Bathurst now marked out for his negotiators was still further in the rear of Mr. Goulburn’s first position, and abandoned not only the lakes but also the attempt to create an Indian sovereignty. The British note was sent in on the 19th September, and Mr. Adams gives in his Diary a graphic account of the conflicting feelings it aroused: “The effect of these notes upon us when they first come is to deject us all. We so fondly cling to the vain hope of peace that every new proof of its impossibility operates upon us as a disappointment. We had a desultory and general conversation upon this note, in which I thought both Mr. Gallatin and Mr. Bayard showed symptoms of despondency. In discussing with them I cannot always restrain the irritability of my temper. Mr. Bayard meets it with more of accommodation than heretofore, and sometimes with more compliance than I expect. Mr. Gallatin, having more pliability of character and more playfulness of disposition, throws off my heat with a joke. Mr. Clay and Mr. Russell are perfectly firm themselves, but sometimes partake of the staggers of the two other gentlemen. Mr. Gallatin said this day that the sine qua non now presented—that the Indians should be positively included in the peace, and placed in the state they were in before the war—would undoubtedly be rejected by our government if it was now presented to them, but that it was a bad point for us to break off the negotiation upon; that the difficulty of carrying on the war might compel us to admit the principle at last, for now the British had so committed themselves with regard to the Indians that it was impossible for them further to retreat. Mr. Bayard was of the same opinion, and recurred to the fundamental idea of breaking off upon some point which shall unite our own people in the support of the war.... I said ... that if the point of the Indians was a bad point to break upon, I was very sure we should never find a good one; if that would not unite our people, it was a hopeless pursuit. Mr. Gallatin repeated, with a very earnest look, that it was a bad point to break upon. ‘Then,’ said I, with a movement of impatience and an angry tone, ‘it is a good point to admit the British as the sovereigns and protectors of our Indians.’ Gallatin’s countenance brightened, and he said in a tone of perfect good humor, ‘That’s a non-sequitur.’ This turned the edge of the argument into mere jocularity. I laughed, and insisted that it was a sequitur, and the conversation easily changed to another point.”
Mr. Gallatin was right, and he drafted the reply to the British note accordingly. There was a somewhat warm discussion over his draft, but his influence was now so decisive that Mr. Adams declares opposition useless; unless Gallatin voluntarily abandoned his point, he was uniformly sustained. This note, while refusing to admit the Indians into the treaty in any manner that would recognize them as independent nations, offered a stipulation that they should retain all their old rights, privileges, and possessions. It was signed and sent on the 26th September; on October 1 the news of the capture of Washington arrived.
The following letters give some conception of what was passing in the United States while the American commissioners were forcing Great Britain to abandon one position after another:
MRS. MADISON TO MRS. GALLATIN.
28th July, 1814.
... We have been in a state of perturbation here for a long time. The depredations of the enemy approaching within twenty miles of the city, and the disaffected making incessant difficulties for the government. Such a place as this has become! I cannot describe it. I wish for my own part we were at Philadelphia. The people here do not deserve that I should prefer it. Among other exclamations and threats, they say, if Mr. M. attempts to move from this house, in case of an attack, they will stop him, and that he shall fall with it. I am not the least alarmed at these things, but entirely disgusted, and determined to stay with him. Our preparation for defence, by some means or other, is constantly retarded, but the small force the British have on the bay will never venture nearer than at present, twenty-three miles....
JOSEPH H. NICHOLSON TO MRS. GALLATIN.
Baltimore, 4th September, 1814.
My dear Madam,—...You have of course heard of and grieved over our disasters at Washington. You have heard, too, of the disgraceful capitulation of Alexandria. Baltimore was at one time certainly prepared to pursue the baneful example, but the arrival of Rodgers, Porter, and Perry, the manly language which they held to our generals, and the great number of troops which are now here, have inspired more confidence. If the enemy had acted wisely they would have marched directly from Washington to this place, and would have found it an easy prey. If they come now, which we look for daily, or rather nightly, they will have a fight, but I am not quite sure that it will be a hard one. Our militia are so raw and so totally undisciplined, and our commanding generals so entirely unqualified to organize them, that I have very little confidence of success. The command has been taken from General Winder and given to General Smith. The latter assumed it in the first instance without authority at the request of some of our citizens, and the usurpation has since been confirmed at Washington. There is some derangement of the Administration which I do not understand. General Armstrong is here, and says he is no longer Secretary of War; but every one who comes from the city says he is still considered so there. He explained the thing to me in this way. Mr. Madison had been waited on by a deputation from Georgetown, of whom A. C. Hanson was one, who told him that they would not agree to defend the place or to make any resistance if General Armstrong was to have any control over them. That Mr. Madison, in consequence of this and much other remonstrance of a similar nature, proposed to Armstrong that he should do all the business of the War Department except that which related to the District; that Armstrong immediately answered that he must do the whole business or none, and tendered his resignation, which was not accepted. He added, however, in his conversation with me: “I am here, and the President is in Washington.” He said, too, he was going immediately to New York; but he has remained several days, and is here yet. I had thought it probable he was waiting for a recall, but he said yesterday he should go to-day, and expressed some satisfaction at being again in private life. This seemed to relate altogether to his pecuniary concerns. He speaks with no irritation of the Administration, and it is certain that either he or Mr. Madison, or possibly both, have yielded to a contemptible faction in a contemptible village, at a most critical moment for our country. This is the precise language in which I expressed myself to him, but he said he washed his hands of it.
The loan is taken in part only at $80 for $100, and, I believe, a small part. If Congress do not act immediately with vigor, the nation, I fear, is lost.
Did you feel very, very sorry at hearing that your old house was burnt? I did, really, I had spent so many happy hours in it.
A short correspondence with Mme. de Staël, then a power in diplomacy, claims also a place here.
MADAME DE STAËL TO GALLATIN.
Ce 31 juillet, 1814.
Coppet, Suisse, Pays de Vaud.
Vous m’avez permis de vous demander si nous avons quelque succès heureux à espérer de votre mission. Mandez-moi à cet égard, my dear sir, tout ce qu’il vous est permis de me dire. Je suis inquiète d’un mot de Lord Castlereagh sur la durée de la guerre, et je ne m’explique pas pourquoi il a dit qu’il était de l’intérêt de l’Angleterre que le congrès de Vienne s’ouvrît plus tard. C’est vous Amérique qui m’intéressez avant tout maintenant, à part de mes affaires pécuniaires. Je vous trouve à présent les opprimés du parti de la liberté et je vois en vous la cause qui m’attachait à l’Angleterre il y a un an. On souhaite beaucoup de vous voir à Genève et vous y trouverez la république telle que vous l’avez laissée, seulement elle est moins libérale, car la mode est ainsi maintenant en Suisse. Aussi les vieux aristocrates se relèvent et se remettent à combattre, en oubliant, comme les géants de l’Arioste, qu’ils sont déjà morts. J’espère que la raison triomphera, et quand on vous connaît, on trouve cette raison si spirituelle qu’elle semble la plus forte. Soyez pacifique cependant et sacrifiez aux circonstances. Vous devez vous ennuyer à Gand, et je voudrais profiter pour causer avec vous de tout le temps que vous y perdez. Avez-vous quelques commissions à faire à Genève et voulez-vous me donner le plaisir de vous y être utile en quelque chose?
Mille compliments empressés.
Vous savez que M. Sismondi vous a loué dans son discours à St Pierre.
MADAME DE STAËL TO GALLATIN.
Ce 30 septembre.
Paris, Rue de Grenelle St. Germain, No. 105.
Je vous ai écrit de Coppet, my dear sir, et je n’ai point eu de réponse de vous. Je crains que ma lettre ne vous soit pas parvenue. Soyez assez bon pour me dire ce que vous pouvez me dire sur la vente de mes fonds en Amérique. Je suis si inquiète que l’idée me venait d’envoyer mon fils en Amérique pour tirer ma fortune de là. Songez qu’elle y est presque toute entière, c’est à dire que j’y ai quinze cents mille francs, soit en terres, soit en fonds publics, soit chez les banquiers. Soyez aussi assez bon pour me dire si vous restez à Gand. Mon fils en allant en Angleterre pourrait passer par chez vous et vous donner des nouvelles de Paris. Enfin je vous prie de m’accorder quelques lignes sur tout ce qui m’intéresse. Vous pouvez compter sur ma discrétion et sur ma reconnaissance,—et je mérite peut-être quelque bienveillance par mes efforts pour vous servir. Lord Wellington prétend que je ne le vois jamais sans le prêcher sur l’Amérique. Vous savez de quelle haute considération je suis pénétrée pour votre esprit et votre caractère.
Mille compliments.
GALLATIN TO MADAME DE STAËL-HOLSTEIN.
Gand, 4 octobre, 1814.
Ce n’est que hier, my dear madam, que j’ai reçu votre lettre du 23 septembre; celle que vous m’aviez fait le plaisir de m’écrire de Coppet m’était bien parvenue; mais malgré la parfaite confiance que vous m’avez inspirée, il était de mon devoir de ne rien laisser transpirer de nos négociations; et j’espérais tous les jours pouvoir vous annoncer le lendemain quelque chose de positif. Nous sommes toujours dans le même état d’incertitude, mais il me paraît impossible que cela puisse durer longtemps, et je vous promets que vous serez la première instruite du résultat. Malgré les fâcheux auspices sous lesquels nous avions commencé à traiter, je n’avais point perdu l’espérance de pouvoir réussir. Il faut cependant convenir que ce qui s’est passé à la prise de Washington peut faire naître de nouveaux obstacles à la paix. Une incursion momentanée et la destruction d’un arsenal et d’une frégate ne sont qu’une bagatelle; mais faire sauter ou brûler les palais du Congrès et du Président, et les bureaux des différente départements, c’est un acte de vandalisme dont la guerre de vingt ans en Europe, depuis les frontières de la Russie jusques à Paris et de celles du Danemarc jusqu’à Naples, n’offre aucun exemple, et qui doit nécessairement exaspérer les esprits. Est-ce parceque à l’exception de quelques cathédrales, l’Angleterre n’avoit aucun édifice public qui pût leur être comparé? Ou serait-ce pour consoler la populace de la cité de Londres de ce que Paris n’a été ni pillé ni brûlé?
Tout en vous disant cela, je ne me plains point de la conduite des Anglais, qui, si la guerre continue, loin de nous nuire, n’aura servi qu’à unir et animer la nation. Sous ce point de vue, la manière dont on nous fait la guerre doit pleinement rassurer ceux qui avaient des craintes mal fondées sur la permanence de notre union et de notre gouvernement fédératif. Et il n’y a qu’une dissolution totale qui puisse renverser nos finances et nous faire manquer à nos engagements. Je comprends cependant fort bien que lorsqu’on n’est pas Américain, l’on désirerait dans ce moment avoir sa fortune ailleurs que dans ce pays là; je puis avoir des préjugés trop favorables et ne voudrais aucunement vous induire en erreur. Mais il me semble que vendre vos fonds à 15 ou 20 pour cent de perte serait un sacrifice inutile. Ils tomberont probablement encore plus si la guerre continue, mais les intérêts seront toujours fidèlement payés et le capital sera au pair six mois après la paix. Nous nous sommes tirés d’une bien plus mauvaise situation. À la fin de la guerre de l’indépendance nous n’avions ni finances ni gouvernement; notre population ne s’élevait qu’à environ trois millions et demi, la nation était extrêmement pauvre, la dette publique était presqu’égale à ce qu’elle est actuellement; les fonds perdaient de 80 à 85 pour cent. Nous n’avons cependant pas fait faillite; nous n’avons pas réduit la dette à un tiers par un trait de plume; avec de l’économie et surtout de la probité, nous avons fait face à tout, remis tout au pair, et pendant les dix années qui avaient précédé la guerre actuelle nous avions payé la moitié du capital de notre ancienne dette. Au milieu de toutes nos factions, n’importe quel parti ait gouverné, le même esprit les a toujours animés à cet égard. Le même esprit règne encore; nous sommes très-riches; nous étions huit millions d’âmes au commencement de la guerre, et la population augmente de deux cent cinquante mille âmes par an. Si je n’ai pas entièrement méconnu l’Amérique, ses ressources et la moralité de sa politique, je ne me trompe pas en croyant ses fonds publics plus solides que ceux de toutes les puissances européennes.
Si cependant vous avez peur, attendez du moins la conclusion de nos négociations; vous n’avez pas le temps de faire vendre avant cette époque. Je serai au reste encore quinze jours au moins à Grand et donnerai avec grand plaisir à M. votre fils tous les renseignements en mon pouvoir s’il passe par ici en allant en Angleterre. Je suis très-sensible à tout ce que vous avez fait pour être utile à l’Amérique; je sens encore plus combien je vous dois; vous m’avez reçu et accueilli comme si j’eusse été une ancienne connaissance. Avant de vous connaître je respectais en vous Madame de Staël et la fille de Madame Necker, aux écrits et à l’exemple de qui j’ai plus d’obligation que je ne puis exprimer. Mais je vous avouerai que j’avais grand peur de vous; une femme très élégante et aimable et le premier génie de son sexe; l’on tremblerait à moins; vous eûtes à peine ouvert les lèvres que je fus rassuré, et en moins de cinq minutes je me sentis auprès de vous comme avec une amie de vingt ans. Je n’aurais fait que vous admirer, mais votre bonté égale vos talents et c’est pour cela que je vous aime. Agréez-en, je vous prie, l’assurance et soyez sûre du plaisir que me procurerait l’occasion de pouvoir vous être bon à quelque chose.
Mr. Goulburn, meanwhile, under the instructions of his government, was condescending to what had some remote resemblance to diplomacy. On the 23d September he wrote to Lord Bathurst acknowledging the receipt of two private letters, and adding: “You may depend upon our governing ourselves entirely by the instructions which they contain, and upon my continuing to represent to the Americans, as I always have done whenever an opportunity has offered, the very strong opinion which prevails in England against an unsatisfactory peace with America. Of this Mr. Gallatin appears to be the only American in any degree sensible, and this perhaps arises from his being less like an American than any of his colleagues.”[135]
Evidently Mr. Gallatin was doing his utmost to keep the peace, and all he could do was hardly enough. When the American note of September 26 was received, Mr. Goulburn wrote to his government that he considered it a rejection of their proposition sine qua non, and that to admit the American offer would be to abandon the principle on which the whole argument had been founded. He accused the American commissioners of irritating and unfounded accusations, of falsehood, of misstatement, and of fraud.[136] Lord Liverpool, however, was in a better temper, and, after consultation with his colleague, Earl Bathurst, framed an article which, in effect, accepted the offer of Indian amnesty proposed by the American envoys; yet so curiously ungracious was the mode of this concession that the Americans were by no means reassured. Instead of pacifying Mr. Adams, it irritated him. Mr. Gallatin had still to act as peacemaker. “The tone of all the British notes,” says Mr. Adams, “is arrogant, overbearing, and offensive. The tone of ours is neither so bold nor so spirited as I think it should be. It is too much on the defensive, and too excessive in the caution to say nothing irritating. I have seldom been able to prevail upon my colleagues to insert anything in the style of retort upon the harsh and reproachful matter which we receive.” The candid reader of these papers must admit that there is no apparent want of tartness in the American notes, and occasionally the retort is perhaps a little too much in the British style; but in any case the moment when England had yielded, however ungraciously, was justly thought by all Mr. Adams’s colleagues to be not the most appropriate occasion for reproach. Even Mr. Clay was earnest on this point, and insisted upon drafting the American reply himself, and thus disposing of the Indian question. This done, the next step was to call for the projet of a treaty.
On the 18th October, Lord Bathurst accordingly sent the sketch for such a projet to Mr. Goulburn. Its most important point was an offer to treat in regard to boundaries on the basis of uti possidetis, an offer not in itself unfair, but startling in the application which Lord Bathurst gave to it. He proposed to exchange Castine and Machias, which were held by the British, for Forts Erie and Amherstburg, held by the Americans, while Michilimackinac, Fort Niagara with five miles circuit, and the northern angle of Maine were to become British territory.[137] The details of this cession were, however, not to be put forward until the American commissioners had admitted the basis of uti possidetis, and accordingly the British commissioners, on the 21st October, sent a note to the Americans offering to treat on this ground, and adding that “they trust that the American plenipotentiaries will show, by their ready acceptance of this basis, that they duly appreciate the moderation of His Majesty’s government in so far consulting the honor and fair pretensions of the United States, as, in the relative situation of the two countries, to authorize such a proposition.”
Three days later, on the 24th October, the Americans sent back a very brief note bluntly refusing to treat on the basis of uti possidetis, or on any other basis than the status quo ante bellum in respect to territory, and calling for the British projet.
Of all the notes sent by the American negotiators, this, which they seem to have considered a matter of course and to which they gave not even a second thought, produced the liveliest emotions in the British government. Lord Liverpool, on receiving it, wrote at once to the Duke of Wellington: “The last note of the American plenipotentiaries puts an end, I think, to any hopes we might have entertained of our being able to bring the war with America at this time to a conclusion.... The doctrine of the American government is a very convenient one; that they will always be ready to keep what they acquire, but never to give up what they lose.... We still think it desirable to gain a little more time before the negotiation is brought to a close, and we shall therefore call upon them to deliver in a full projet of all the conditions on which they are ready to make peace before we enter into discussion on any of the points contained in our last note.”[138] Mr. Goulburn assumed that everything was over, and merely wished to know whether they had best break off on this point or on that of the fisheries, and he showed almost his only trace of common sense by advising government to select the fisheries.[139] On the British side it was formally, though secretly, announced through the interior official circle, that the American war was to go on, and for a time the only apparent question was how to carry it on most effectively.
Unluckily, however, the more the British government looked at the subject from this point of view the less satisfaction they found in it. Mr. Vansittart, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was very uncomfortable. Lord Liverpool was quite as uneasy as Mr. Vansittart. On the 28th October, the same day on which he wrote to the Duke of Wellington, he sent a letter to Lord Castlereagh, at Vienna: “I think it very material that we should likewise consider that our war with America will probably now be of some duration. We owe it therefore to ourselves not to make enemies in other quarters, if we can avoid it, for I cannot but feel apprehensive that some of our European allies will not be indisposed to favor the Americans; and if the Emperor of Russia should be desirous of taking up their cause, we are well aware, from some of Lord Walpole’s late communications, that there is a most powerful party in Russia to support him.... Looking to a continuance of the American war, our financial state is far from satisfactory. Without taking into the account any compensation to foreign powers on the subject of the slave-trade, we shall want a loan for the service of the year of £27,000,000 or £28,000,000. The American war will not cost us less than £10,000,000 in addition to our peace establishment and other expenses. We must expect, therefore, to hear it said that the property tax is continued for the purpose of securing a better frontier for Canada.”[140] A week later Lord Liverpool wrote again to Lord Castlereagh in a still lower tone: “I see little prospect of our negotiations at Ghent ending in peace.... The continuance of the American war will entail upon us a prodigious expense, much more than we had any idea of.... All our colleagues are coming to town, and we are to have a Cabinet on the speech to-morrow. Many of them have not yet seen the American correspondence; but we have got the question into that state that the government is not absolutely committed, and there will be an opportunity therefore of reviewing in a full Cabinet the whole course of our policy as to America.”[141]