Only a few months" experience was needed to convince the military authorities at Washington that the war must be fought mainly by volunteers. Every military consideration derived from American history warned against this policy, it is true, but neither Congress nor the people would entertain for an instant the thought of conscription. Only with great reluctance and under pressure had Congress voted to increase the regular army and to authorize the President to raise fifty thousand volunteers. The results of this legislation were disappointing, not to say humiliating. The conditions of enlistment were not such as to encourage recruiting; and even when the pay had been increased and the term of service shortened, few able-bodied citizens would respond. If any such desired to serve their country, they enrolled in the State militia which the President had been authorized to call into active service for six months.
In default of a well-disciplined regular army and an adequate volunteer force, the Administration was forced more and more to depend upon such quotas of militia as the States would supply. How precarious was the hold of the national Government upon the State forces, appeared in the first months of the war. When called upon to supply troops to relieve the regulars in the coast defenses, the governors of Ma.s.sachusetts and Connecticut flatly refused, holding that the commanders of the State militia, and not the President, had the power to decide when exigencies demanded the use of the militia in the service of the United States. In his annual message Madison termed this "a novel and unfortunate exposition" of the Const.i.tution, and he pointed out-what indeed was sufficiently obvious-that if the authority of the United States could be thus frustrated during actual war, "they are not one nation for the purpose most of all requiring it." But what was the President to do? Even if he, James Madison, author of the Virginia Resolutions of 1798, could so forget his political creed as to conceive of coercing a sovereign state, where was the army which would do his bidding? The President was the victim of his own political theory.
These bitter revelations of 1812-the disaffection of New England, the incapacity of two of his secretaries, the disasters of his staff officers on the frontier, the slow recruiting, the defiance of Ma.s.sachusetts and Connecticut-almost crushed the President. Never physically robust, he succ.u.mbed to an insidious intermittent fever in June and was confined to his bed for weeks. So serious was his condition that Mrs. Madison was in despair and scarcely left his side for five long weeks. "Even now," she wrote to Mrs. Gallatin, at the end of July, "I watch over him as I would an infant, so precarious is his convalescence." The rumor spread that he was not likely to survive, and politicians in Washington began to speculate on the succession to the Presidency.
But now and then a ray of hope shot through the gloom pervading the White House and Capitol. The stirring victory of the Const.i.tution over the Guerriere in August, 1812, had almost taken the sting out of Hull"s surrender at Detroit, and other victories at sea followed, glorious in the annals of American naval warfare, though without decisive influence on the outcome of the war. Of much greater significance was Perry"s victory on Lake Erie in September, 1813, which opened the way to the invasion of Canada. This brilliant combat followed by the Battle of the Thames cheered the President in his slow convalescence. Encouraging, too, were the exploits of American privateers in British waters, but none of these events seemed likely to hasten the end of the war. Great Britain had already declined the Russian offer of mediation.
Last day but one of the year 1813 a British schooner, the Bramble, came into the port of Annapolis bearing an important official letter from Lord Castlereagh to the Secretary of State. With what eager and anxious hands Monroe broke the seal of this letter may be readily imagined. It might contain a.s.surances of a desire for peace; it might indefinitely prolong the war. In truth the letter pointed both ways. Castlereagh had declined to accept the good offices of Russia, but he was prepared to begin direct negotiations for peace. Meantime the war must go on-with the chances favoring British arms, for the Bramble had also brought the alarming news of Napoleon"s defeat on the plains of Leipzig. Now for the first time Great Britain could concentrate all her efforts upon the campaign in North America. No wonder the President accepted Castlereagh"s offer with alacrity. To the three commissioners sent to Russia, he added Henry Clay and Jonathan Russell and bade them G.o.dspeed while he nerved himself to meet the crucial year of the war.
Had the President been fully apprized of the elaborate plans of the British War Office, his anxieties would have been multiplied many times. For what resources had the Government to meet invasion on three frontiers? The Treasury was again depleted; new loans brought in insufficient funds to meet current expenses; recruiting was slack because the Government could not compete with the larger bounties offered by the States; by summer the number of effective regular troops was only twenty-seven thousand all told. With this slender force, supplemented by State levies, the military authorities were asked to repel invasion. The Administration had not yet drunk the bitter dregs of the cup of humiliation.
That some part of the invading British forces might be detailed to attack the Capital was vaguely divined by the President and his Cabinet; but no adequate measures had been taken for the defense of the city when, on a fatal August day, the British army marched upon it. The humiliating story of the battle of Bladensburg has been told elsewhere. The disorganized mob which had been hastily a.s.sembled to check the advance of the British was utterly routed almost under the eyes of the President, who with feelings not easily described found himself obliged to join the troops fleeing through the city. No personal humiliation was spared the President and his family. Dolly Madison, never once doubting that the noise of battle which reached the White House meant an American victory, stayed calmly indoors until the rush of troops warned her of danger. She and her friends were then swept along in the general rout. She was forced to leave her personal effects behind, but her presence of mind saved one treasure in the White House-a large portrait of General Washington painted by Gilbert Stuart. That priceless portrait and the plate were all that survived. The fleeing militiamen had presence of mind enough to save a large quant.i.ty of the wine by drinking it, and what was left, together with the dinner on the table, was consumed by Admiral c.o.c.kburn and his staff. By nightfall the White House, the Treasury, and the War Office were in flames, and only a severe thunderstorm checked the conflagration.*
* Before pa.s.sing judgment on the conduct of British officers and men in the capital, the reader should recall the equally indefensible outrages committed by American troops under General Dearborn in 1813, when the Houses of Parliament and other public buildings at York (Toronto) were pillaged and burned. See Kingsford"s "History of Canada," VIII, pp. 259- 61.
Heartsick and utterly weary, the President crossed the Potomac at about six o"clock in the evening and started westward in a carriage toward Montpelier. He had been in the saddle since early morning and was nearly spent. To fatigue was added humiliation, for he was forced to travel with a crowd of embittered fugitives and sleep in a forlorn house by the wayside. Next morning he overtook Mrs. Madison at an inn some sixteen miles from the Capital. Here they pa.s.sed another day of humiliation, for refugees who had followed the same line of flight reviled the President for betraying them and the city. At midnight, alarmed at a report that the British were approaching, the President fled to another miserable refuge deeper in the Virginia woods. This fear of capture was quite unfounded, however, for the British troops had already evacuated the city and were marching in the opposite direction.
Two days later the President returned to the capital to collect his Cabinet and repair his shattered Government. He found public sentiment hot against the Administration for having failed to protect the city. He had even to fear personal violence, but he remained "tranquil as usual... though much distressed by the dreadful event which had taken place." He was still more distressed, however, by the insistent popular clamor for a victim for punishment. All fingers pointed at Armstrong as the man responsible for the capture of the city. Armstrong offered to resign at once, but the President in distress would not hear of resignation. He would advise only "a temporary retirement" from the city to placate the inhabitants. So Armstrong departed, but by the time he reached Baltimore he realized the impossibility of his situation and sent his resignation to the President. The victim had been offered up. At his own request Monroe was now made Secretary of War, though he continued also to discharge the not very heavy duties of the State Department.
It was a disillusioned group of Congressmen who gathered in September, 1814, in special session at the President"s call. Among those who gazed sadly at the charred ruins of the Capitol were Calhoun, Cheves, and Grundy, whose voices had been loud for war and who had pictured their armies overrunning the British possessions. Clay was at this moment endeavoring to avert a humiliating surrender of American claims at Ghent. To the sting of defeated hopes was added physical discomfort. The only public building which had escaped the general conflagration was the Post and Patent Office. In these cramped quarters the two houses awaited the President"s message.
A visitor from another planet would have been strangely puzzled to make the President"s words tally with the havoc wrought by the enemy on every side. A series of achievements had given new l.u.s.ter to the American arms; "the pride of our naval arms had been amply supported"; the American people had "rushed with enthusiasm to the scenes where danger and duty call." Not a syllable about the disaster at Washington! Not a word about the withdrawal of the Connecticut militia from national service, and the refusal of the Governor of Vermont to call out the militia just at the moment when Sir George Prevost began his invasion of New York; not a word about the general suspension of specie payment by all banks outside of New England; not a word about the failure of the last loan and the imminent bankruptcy of the Government. Only a single sentence betrayed the anxiety which was gnawing Madison"s heart: "It is not to be disguised that the situation of our country calls for its greatest efforts." What the situation demanded, he left his secretaries to say.
The new Secretary of War seemed to be the one member of the Administration who was prepared to grapple with reality and who had the courage of his convictions. While Jefferson was warning him that it was nonsense to talk about a regular army, Monroe told Congress flatly that no reliance could be pled in the militia and that a permanent force of one hundred thousand men must be raised-raised by conscription if necessary. Throwing Virginian and Jeffersonian principles to the winds, he affirmed the const.i.tutional right of Congress to draft citizens. The educational value of war must have been very great to bring Monroe to this conclusion, but Congress had not traveled so far. One by one Monroe"s alternative plans were laid aside; and the country, like a rudderless ship, drifted on.
An insuperable obstacle, indeed, prevented the establishment of any efficient national army at this time. Every plan encountered ultimately the inexorable fact that the Treasury was practically empty and the credit of the Government gone. Secretary Campbell"s report was a confession of failure to sustain public credit. Some seventy-four millions would be needed to carry the existing civil and military establishments for another year, and of this sum, vast indeed in those days, only twenty-four millions were in sight. Where the remaining fifty millions were to be found, the Secretary could not say. With this admission of incompetence Campbell resigned from office. On the 9th of November his successor, A. J. Dallas, notified holders of government securities at Boston that the Treasury could not meet its obligations.
It was at this crisis, when bankruptcy stared the Government in the face, that the Legislature of Ma.s.sachusetts appointed delegates to confer with delegates from other New England legislatures on their common grievances and dangers and to devise means of security and defense. The Legislatures of Connecticut and Rhode Island responded promptly by appointing delegates to meet at Hartford on the 15th of December; and the proposed convention seemed to receive popular indors.e.m.e.nt in the congressional elections, for with but two exceptions all the Congressmen chosen were Federalists. Hot-heads were discussing without any attempt at concealment the possibility of reconstructing the Federal Union. A new union of the good old Thirteen States on terms set by New England was believed to be well within the bounds of possibility. News-sheets referred enthusiastically to the erection of a new Federal edifice which should exclude the Western States. Little wonder that the hara.s.sed President in distant Washington was obsessed with the idea that New England was on the verge of secession.
William Wirt who visited Washington at this time has left a vivid picture of ruin and desolation:
"I went to look at the ruins of the President"s house. The rooms which you saw so richly furnished, exhibited nothing but unroofed naked walls, cracked, defaced, and blackened with fire. I cannot tell you what I felt as I walked amongst them.... I called on the President. He looks miserably shattered and wobegone. In short, he looked heartbroken. His mind is full of the New England sedition. He introduced the subject, and continued to press it-painful as it obviously was to him. I denied the probability, even the possibility that the yeomanry of the North could be induced to place themselves under the power and protection of England, and diverted the conversation to another topic; but he took the first opportunity to return to it, and convinced me that his heart and mind were painfully full of the subject."
What added to the President"s misgivings was the secrecy in which the members of the Hartford Convention shrouded their deliberations. An atmosphere of conspiracy seemed to envelop all their proceedings. That the "deliverance of New England" was at hand was loudly proclaimed by the Federalist press. A reputable Boston news-sheet advised the President to procure a faster horse than he had mounted at Bladensburg, if he would escape the swift vengeance of New England.
The report of the Hartford Convention seemed hardly commensurate with the fears of the President or with the windy boasts of the Federalist press. It arraigned the Administration in scathing language, to be sure, but it did not advise secession. "The multiplied abuses of bad administrations" did not yet justify a severance of the Union, especially in a time of war. The manifest defects of the Const.i.tution were not incurable; yet the infractions of the Const.i.tution by the National Government had been so deliberate, dangerous, and palpable as to put the liberties of the people in jeopardy and to constrain the several States to interpose their authority to protect their citizens. The legislatures of the several States were advised to adopt measures to protect their citizens against such unconst.i.tutional acts of Congress as conscription and to concert some arrangement with the Government at Washington, whereby they jointly or separately might undertake their own defense, and retain a reasonable share of the proceeds of Federal taxation for that purpose. To remedy the defects of the Const.i.tution seven amendments were proposed, all of which had their origin in sectional hostility to the ascendancy of Virginia and to the growing power of the New West. The last of these proposals was a shot at Madison and Virginia: "nor shall the President be elected from the same State two terms in succession." And finally, should these applications of the States for permission to arm in their own defense be ignored, then and in the event that peace should not be concluded, another convention should be summoned "with such powers and instructions as the exigency of a crisis so momentous may require."
Ma.s.sachusetts, under Federalist control, acted promptly upon these suggestions. Three commissioners were dispatched to Washington to effect the desired arrangements for the defense of the State. The progress of these "three amba.s.sadors," as they styled themselves, was followed with curiosity if not with apprehension. In Federalist circles there was a general belief that an explosion was at hand. A disaster at New Orleans, which was now threatened by a British fleet and army, would force Madison to resign or to conclude peace. But on the road to Washington, the amba.s.sadors learned to their surprise that General Andrew Jackson had decisively repulsed the British before New Orleans, on the 8th of January, and on reaching the Capital they were met by the news that a treaty of peace had been signed at Ghent. Their cause was not only discredited but made ridiculous. They and their mission were forgotten as the tension of war times relaxed. The Virginia Dynasty was not to end with James Madison.
CHAPTER XII. THE PEACEMAKERS
On a May afternoon in the year 1813, a little three-hundred-ton ship, the Neptune, put out from New Castle down Delaware Bay. Before she could clear the Capes she fell in with a British frigate, one of the blockading squadron which was already drawing its fatal cordon around the seaboard States. The captain of the Neptune boarded the frigate and presented his pa.s.sport, from which it appeared that he carried two distinguished pa.s.sengers, Albert Gallatin and James A. Bayard, Envoys Extraordinary to Russia. The pa.s.sport duly viseed, the Neptune resumed her course out into the open sea, by grace of the British navy.
One of these envoys watched the coast disappear in the haze of evening with mingled feelings of regret and relief. For twelve weary years Gallatin had labored disinterestedly for the land of his adoption and now he was recrossing the ocean to the home of his ancestors with the taunts of his enemies ringing in his ears. Would the Federalists never forget that he was a "foreigner"? He reflected with a sad, ironic smile that as a "foreigner with a French accent" he would have distinct advantages in the world of European diplomacy upon which he was entering. He counted many distinguished personages among his friends, from Madame de Stael to Alexander Baring of the famous London banking house. Unlike many native Americans he did not need to learn the ways of European courts, because he was to the manner born: he had no provincial habits which he must slough off or conceal. Also he knew himself and the happy qualities with which Nature had endowed him-patience, philosophic composure, unfailing good humor. All these qualities were to be laid under heavy requisition in the work ahead of him.
James Bayard, Gallatin"s fellow pa.s.senger, had never been taunted as a foreigner, because several generations had intervened since the first of his family had come to New Amsterdam with Peter Stuyvesant. Nothing but his name could ever suggest that he was not of that stock commonly referred to as native American. Bayard had graduated at Princeton, studied law in Philadelphia, and had just opened a law office in Wilmington when he was elected to represent Delaware in Congress. As the sole representative of his State in the House of Representatives and as a Federalist, he had exerted a powerful influence in the disputed election of 1800, and he was credited with having finally made possible the election of Jefferson over Burr. Subsequently he was sent to the Senate, where he was serving when he was asked by President Madison to accompany Gallatin on this mission to the court of the Czar. Granting that a Federalist must be selected, Gallatin could not have found a colleague more to his liking, for Bayard was a good companion and perhaps the least partisan of the Federalist leaders.
It was midsummer when the Neptune dropped anchor in the harbor of Kronstadt. There Gallatin and Bayard were joined by John Quincy Adams, Minister to Russia, who had been appointed the third member of the commission. Here was a pureblooded American by all the accepted canons. John Quincy Adams was the son of his father and gloried secretly in his lineage: a Puritan of the Puritans in his outlook upon human life and destiny. Something of the rigid quality of rock-bound New England entered into his composition. He was a foe to all compromise-even with himself; to him Duty was the stern daughter of the voice of G.o.d, who admonished him daily and hourly of his obligations. No character in American public life has unbosomed himself so completely as this son of Ma.s.sachusetts in the pages of his diary. There are no half tones in the pictures which he has drawn of himself, no winsome graces of mind or heart, only the rigid outlines of a soul buffeted by Destiny. Gallatin-the urbane, cosmopolitan Gallatin-must have derived much quiet amus.e.m.e.nt from his a.s.sociation with this robust New Englander who took himself so seriously. Two natures could not have been more unlike, yet the superior flexibility of Gallatin"s temperament made their a.s.sociation not only possible but exceedingly profitable. We may not call their intimacy a friendship-Adams had few, if any friendships; but it contained the essential foundation for friendship-complete mutual confidence.
Adams brought disheartening news to the travel-weary pa.s.sengers on the Neptune: England had declined the offer of mediation. Yes; he had the information from the lips of Count Roumanzoff, the Chancellor and Minister of Foreign Affairs. Apparently, said Adams with pursed lips, England regarded the differences with America as a sort of family quarrel in which it would not allow an outside neutral nation to interfere. Roumanzoff, however, had renewed the offer of mediation. What the motives of the Count were, he would not presume to say: Russian diplomacy was unfathomable.
The American commissioners were in a most embarra.s.sing position. Courtesy required that they should make no move until they knew what response the second offer of mediation would evoke. The Czar was their only friend in all Europe, so far as they knew, and they were none too sure of him. They were condemned to anxious inactivity, while in middle Europe the fortunes of the Czar rose and fell. In August the combined armies of Russia, Austria, and Prussia were beaten by the fresh levies of Napoleon; in September, the fighting favored the allies; in October, Napoleon was brought to bay on the plains of Leipzig. Yet the imminent fall of the Napoleonic Empire only deepened the anxiety of the forlorn American envoys, for it was likely to multiply the difficulties of securing reasonable terms from his conqueror.
At the same time with news of the Battle of Leipzig came letters from home which informed Gallatin that his nomination as envoy had been rejected by the Senate. This was the last straw. To remain inactive as an envoy was bad enough; to stay on unaccredited seemed impossible. He determined to take advantage of a hint dropped by his friend Baring that the British Ministry, while declining mediation, was not unwilling to treat directly with the American commissioners. He would go to London in an unofficial capacity and smooth the way to negotiations. But Adams and Bayard demurred and persuaded him to defer his departure. A month later came a.s.surances that Lord Castlereagh had offered to negotiate with the Americans either at London or at Gothenburg.
Late in January, 1814, Gallatin and Bayard set off for Amsterdam: the one to bide his chance to visit London, the other to await further instructions. There they learned that in response to Castlereagh"s overtures, the President had appointed a new commission, on which Gallatin"s name did not appear. Notwithstanding this disappointment, Gallatin secured the desired permission to visit London through the friendly offices of Alexander Baring. Hardly had the Americans established themselves in London when word came that the two new commissioners, Henry Clay and Jonathan Russell, had landed at Gothenburg bearing a commission for Gallatin. It seems that Gallatin was believed to be on his way home and had therefore been left off the commission; on learning of his whereabouts, the President had immediately added his name. So it happened that Gallatin stood last on the list when every consideration dictated his choice as head of the commission. The incident ill.u.s.trates the difficulties that beset communication one hundred years ago. Diplomacy was a game of chance in which wind and waves often turned the score. Here were five American envoys duly accredited, one keeping his stern vigil in Russia, two on the coast of Sweden, and two in hostile London. Where would they meet? With whom were they to negotiate?
After vexatious delays Ghent was fixed upon as the place where peace negotiations should begin, and there the Americans rendezvoused during the first week in July. Further delay followed, for in spite of the a.s.surances of Lord Castlereagh the British representatives did not make their appearance for a month. Meantime the American commissioners made themselves at home among the hospitable Flemish townspeople, with whom they became prime favorites. In the concert halls they were always greeted with enthusiasm. The musicians soon discovered that British tunes were not in favor and endeavored to learn some American airs. Had the Americans no national airs of their own, they asked. "Oh, yes!" they were a.s.sured. "There was Hail Columbia." Would not one of the gentlemen be good enough to play or sing it? An embarra.s.sing request, for musical talent was not conspicuous in the delegation; but Peter, Gallatin"s black servant, rose to the occasion. He whistled the air; and then one of the attaches sc.r.a.ped out the melody on a fiddle, so that the quick-witted orchestra speedily composed l"air national des Americains a grand orchestre, and thereafter always played it as a counterbalance to G.o.d save the King.
The diversions of Ghent, however, were not numerous, and time hung heavy on the hands of the Americans while they waited for the British commissioners. "We dine together at four," Adams records, "and sit usually at table until six. We then disperse to our several amus.e.m.e.nts and avocations." Clay preferred cards or billiards and the mild excitement of rather high stakes. Gallatin and his young son James preferred the theater; and all but Adams became intimately acquainted with the members of a French troupe of players whom Adams describes as the worst he ever saw. As for Adams himself, his diversion was a solitary walk of two or three hours, and then to bed.
On the 6th of August the British commissioners arrived in Ghent-Admiral Lord Gambier, Henry Goulburn, Esq., and Dr. William Adams. They were not an impressive trio. Gambier was an elderly man whom a writer in the Morning Chronicle described as a man "who slumbered for some time as a Junior Lord of Admiralty; who sung psalms, said prayers, and a.s.sisted in the burning of Copenhagen, for which he was made a lord." Goulburn was a young man who had served as an undersecretary of state. Adams was a doctor of laws who was expected perhaps to a.s.sist negotiations by his legal lore. Gallatin described them not unfairly as "men who have not made any mark, puppets of Lords Castlereagh and Liverpool." Perhaps, in justification of this choice of representatives, it should be said that the best diplomatic talent had been drafted into service at Vienna and that the British Ministry expected in this smaller conference to keep the threads of diplomacy in its own hands.
The first meeting of the negotiators was amicable enough. The Americans found their opponents courteous and well-bred; and both sides evinced a desire to avoid in word and manner, as Bayard put it, "everything of an inflammable nature." Throughout this memorable meeting at Ghent, indeed, even when difficult situations arose and nerves became taut, personal relations continued friendly. "We still keep personally upon eating and drinking terms with them," Adams wrote at a tense moment. Speaking for his superiors and his colleagues, Admiral Gambier a.s.sured the Americans of their earnest desire to end hostilities on terms honorable to both parties. Adams replied that he and his a.s.sociates reciprocated this sentiment. And then, without further formalities, Goulburn stated in blunt and business-like fashion the matters on which they had been instructed: impressment, fisheries, boundaries, the pacification of the Indians, and the demarkation of an Indian territory. The last was to be regarded as a sine qua non for the conclusion of any treaty. Would the Americans be good enough to state the purport of their instructions?
The American commissioners seem to have been startled out of their composure by this sine qua non. They had no instructions on this latter point nor on the fisheries; they could only ask for a more specific statement. What had His Majesty"s Government in mind when it referred to an Indian territory? With evident reluctance the British commissioners admitted that the proposed Indian territory was to serve as a buffer state between the United States and Canada. Pressed for more details, they intimated that this area thus neutralized might include the entire Northwest.
A second conference only served to show the want of any common basis for negotiation. The Americans had come to Ghent to settle two outstanding problems-blockades and indemnities for attacks on neutral commerce-and to insist on the abandonment of impressments as a sine qua non. Both commissions then agreed to appeal to their respective Governments for further instructions. Within a week, Lord Castlereagh sent precise instructions which confirmed the worst fears of the Americans. The Indian boundary line was to follow the line of the Treaty of Greenville and beyond it neither nation was to acquire land. The United States was asked, in short, to set apart for the Indians in perpetuity an area which comprised the present States of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illinois, four-fifths of Indiana, and a third of Ohio. But, remonstrated Gallatin, this area included States and Territories settled by more than a hundred thousand American citizens. What was to be done with them? "They must look after themselves," was the blunt answer.
In comparison with this astounding proposal, Lord Castlereagh"s further suggestion of a "rectification" of the frontier by the cession of Fort Niagara and Sackett"s Harbor and by the exclusion of the Americans from the Lakes, seemed of little importance. The purpose of His Majesty"s Government, the commissioners hastened to add, was not aggrandizement but the protection of the North American provinces. In view of the avowed aim of the United States to conquer Canada, the control of the Lakes must rest with Great Britain. Indeed, taking the weakness of Canada into account, His Majesty"s Government might have reasonably demanded the cession of the lands adjacent to the Lakes; and should these moderate terms not be accepted, His Majesty"s Government would feel itself at liberty to enlarge its demands, if the war continued to favor British arms. The American commissioners asked if these proposals relating to the control of the Lakes were also a sine qua non. "We have given you one sine qua non already," was the reply, "and we should suppose one sine qua non at a time was enough."
The Americans returned to their hotel of one mind: they could view the proposals just made no other light than as a deliberate attempt to dismember the United States. They could differ only as to the form in which they should couch their positive rejection. As t.i.tular head of the commission, Adams set promptly to work upon a draft of an answer which he soon set before his colleagues. At once all appearance of unanimity vanished. To the enemy they could present a united front; in the privacy of their apartment, they were five headstrong men. They promptly fell upon Adams"s draft tooth and nail. Adams described the scene with pardonable resentment.
"Mr. Gallatin is for striking out any 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."
Sharp encounters took place between Adams and Clay. "You dare not," shouted Clay in a pa.s.sion on one occasion, "you CANNOT, you SHALL not insinuate that there has been a cabal of three members against you!" "Gentlemen! Gentlemen!" Gallatin would expostulate with a twinkle in his eye, "We must remain united or we will fail." It was his good temper and tact that saved this and many similar situations. When Bayard had essayed a draft of his own and had failed to win support, it was Gallatin who took up Adams"s draft and put it into acceptable form. On the third day, after hours of "sifting, erasing, patching, and amending, until we were all wearied, though none of us satisfied," Gallatin"s revision was accepted. From this moment, Gallatin"s virtual leadership was unquestioned.
The American note of the 24th of August was a vigorous but even-tempered protest against the British demands as contrary to precedent and dishonorable to the United States. The American States would never consent "to abandon territory and a portion of their citizens, to admit a foreign interference in their domestic concerns, and to cease to exercise their natural rights on their own sh.o.r.es and in their own waters." "A treaty concluded on such terms would be but an armistice." But after the note had been prepared and dispatched, profound discouragement reigned in the American hotel. Even Gallatin, usually hopeful and philosophically serene, grew despondent. "Our negotiations may be considered at an end," he wrote to Monroe; "Great Britain wants war in order to cripple us. She wants aggrandizement at our expense.... I do not expect to be longer than three weeks in Europe." The commissioners notified their landlord that they would give up their quarters on the 1st of October; yet they lingered on week after week, waiting for the word which would close negotiations and send them home.
Meantime the British Ministry was quite as little pleased at the prospect. It would not do to let the impression go abroad that Great Britain was prepared to continue the war for territorial gains. If a rupture of the negotiations must come, Lord Castlereagh preferred to let the Americans shoulder the responsibility. He therefore instructed Gambier not to insist on the independent Indian territory and the control of the Lakes. These points were no longer to be "ultimata" but only matters for discussion. The British commissioners were to insist, however, on articles providing for the pacification of the Indians.
Should the Americans yield this sine qua non, now that the first had been withdrawn? Adams thought not, decidedly not; he would rather break off negotiations than admit the right of Great Britain to interfere with the Indians dwelling within the limits of the United States. Gallatin remarked that after all it was a very small point to insist on, when a slight concession would win much more important points. "Then, said I [Adams], 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 face brightened, and he said in a tone of perfect good-humor, "That"s a non-sequitur." This turned the edge of the argument into jocularity. I laughed, and insisted that it was a sequitur, and the conversation easily changed to another point." Gallatin had his way with the rest of the commission and drafted the note of the 26th of September, which, while refusing to recognize the Indians as sovereign nations in the treaty, proposed a stipulation that would leave them in possession of their former lands and rights. This solution of a perplexing problem was finally accepted after another exchange of notes and another earnest discussion at the American hotel, where Gallatin again poured oil on the troubled waters. Concession begat concession. New instructions from President Madison now permitted the commissioners to drop the demand for the abolition of impressments and blockades; and, with these difficult matters swept away, the path to peace was much easier to travel.
Such was the outlook for peace when news reached Ghent of the humiliating rout at Bladensburg. The British newspapers were full of jubilant comments; the five crestfallen American envoys took what cold comfort they could out of the very general condemnation of the burning of the Capitol. Then, on the heels of this intelligence, came rumors that the British invasion of New York had failed and that Prevost"s army was in full retreat to Canada. The Americans could hardly grasp the full significance of this British reversal: it was too good to be true. But true it was, and their spirits rebounded.
It was at this juncture that the British commissioners presented a note, on the 21st of October, which for the first time went to the heart of the negotiations. War had been waged; territory had been overrun; conquests had been made-not the antic.i.p.ated conquests on either side, to be sure, but conquests nevertheless. These were the plain facts. Now the practical question was this: Was the treaty to be drafted on the basis of the existing state of possession or on the basis of the status before the war? The British note stated their case in plain unvarnished fashion; it insisted on the status uti possidetis-the possession of territory won by arms.
In the minds of the Americans, buoyed up by the victory at Plattsburg, there was not the shadow of doubt as to what their answer should be; they declined for an instant to consider any other basis for peace than the restoration of gains on both sides. Their note was prompt, emphatic, even blunt, and it nearly shattered the nerves of the gentlemen in Downing Street. Had these stiffnecked Yankees no sense? Could they not perceive the studied moderation of the terms proposed-an island or two and a small strip of Maine-when half of Maine and the south bank of the St. Lawrence from Plattsburg to Sackett"s Harbor might have been demanded as the price of peace?
The prospect of another year of war simply to secure a frontier which nine out of ten Englishmen could not have identified was most disquieting, especially in view of the prodigious cost of military operations in North America. The Ministry was both hot and cold. At one moment it favored continued war; at another it shrank from the consequences; and in the end it confessed its own want of decision by appealing to the Duke of Wellington and trying to shift the responsibility to his broad shoulders. Would the Duke take command of the forces in Canada? He should be invested with full diplomatic and military powers to bring the war to an honorable conclusion.
The reply of the Iron Duke gave the Ministry another shock. He would go to America, but he did not promise himself much success there, and he was reluctant to leave Europe at this critical time. To speak frankly, he had no high opinion of the diplomatic game which the Ministry was playing at Ghent. "I confess," said he, "that I think you have no right from the state of the war to demand any concession from America... You have not been able to carry it into the enemy"s territory, notwithstanding your military success, and now undoubted military superiority, and have not even cleared your own territory on the point of attack. You cannot on any principle of equality in negotiation claim a cession of territory excepting in exchange for other advantages which you have in your power.... Then if this reasoning be true, why stipulate for the uti possidetis? You can get no territory; indeed, the state of your military operations, however creditable, does not ent.i.tle you to demand any."
As Lord Liverpool perused this dispatch, the will to conquer oozed away. "I think we have determined," he wrote a few days later to Castlereagh, "if all other points can be satisfactorily settled, not to continue the war for the purpose of obtaining or securing any acquisition of territory." He set forth his reasons for this decision succinctly: the unsatisfactory state of the negotiations at Vienna, the alarming condition of France, the deplorable financial outlook in England. But Lord Liverpool omitted to mention a still more potent factor in his calculations-the growing impatience of the country. The American war had ceased to be popular; it had become the graveyard of military reputations; it promised no glory to either sailor or soldier. Now that the correspondence of the negotiators at Ghent was made public, the reading public might very easily draw the conclusion that the Ministry was prolonging the war by setting up pretensions which it could not sustain. No Ministry could afford to continue a war out of mere stubbornness.
Meantime, wholly in the dark as to the forces which were working in their favor, the American commissioners set to work upon a draft of a treaty which should be their answer to the British offer of peace on the basis of uti possidetis. Almost at once dissensions occurred. Protracted negotiations and enforced idleness had set their nerves on edge, and old personal and sectional differences appeared. The two matters which caused most trouble were the fisheries and the navigation of the Mississippi. Adams could not forget how stubbornly his father had fought for that article in the treaty of 1783 which had conceded to New England fishermen, as a natural right, freedom to fish in British waters. To a certain extent this concession had been offset by yielding to the British the right of navigation of the Mississippi, but the latter right seemed unimportant in the days when the Alleghanies marked the limit of western settlement. In the quarter of a century which had elapsed, however, the West had come into its own. It was now a powerful section with an intensely alert consciousness of its rights and wrongs; and among its rights it counted the exclusive control of the Father of Waters. Feeling himself as much the champion of Western interests as Adams did of New England fisheries, Clay refused indignantly to consent to a renewal of the treaty provisions of 1783. But when the matter came to a vote, he found himself with Russell in a minority. Very reluctantly he then agreed to Gallatin"s proposal, to insert in a note, rather than in the draft itself, a paragraph to the effect that the commissioners were not instructed to discuss the rights. .h.i.therto enjoyed in the fisheries, since no further stipulation was deemed necessary to ent.i.tle them to rights which were recognized by the treaty of 1783.