THE
SECOND ADMINISTRATION
OF
JAMES MADISON
1813–1817
HISTORY
OF THE
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
DURING THE SECOND ADMINISTRATION OF
JAMES MADISON
BY HENRY ADAMS
VOL. III.
NEW YORK:
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS.
1921
_Copyright, 1890_
BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS.
_Copyright, 1918_
BY CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS AND HORACE D. CHAPIN.
[Illustration]
CONTENTS OF VOL. III.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE MEETING AT GHENT 1
II. THE TREATY OF GHENT 24
III. CLOSE OF HOSTILITIES 54
IV. DECLINE OF MASSACHUSETTS 80
V. PEACE LEGISLATION 104
VI. RETIREMENT OF MADISON 126
VII. ECONOMICAL RESULTS 154
VIII. RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL THOUGHT 175
IX. LITERATURE AND ART 198
X. AMERICAN CHARACTER 219
LIST OF MAPS AND PLANS 243
GENERAL INDEX 245
HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES.
CHAPTER I.
DURING the spring and summer of 1814 the task of diplomacy was less
hopeful than that of arms. Brown and Izard with extreme difficulty
defended the frontier; but Gallatin and Bayard could find no
starting-point for negotiation. Allowed by Castlereagh’s courtesy to
visit England, they crossed the Channel in April, and established
themselves in London. There Gallatin remained until June 21, waiting
for the British government to act, and striving with tact, caution,
and persistency to bring both governments on common ground; but the
attempt was hopeless. England was beside herself with the intoxication
of European success.
Although the English newspapers expressed a false idea of the general
will, and were even at cross purposes with the Ministry in American
matters, their tone was in some respects an indifferent barometer
for measuring the elation or depression of the public temper, and
exercised some influence, rather apparent than real, on the momentary
attitudes of government. Had Castlereagh and his colleagues been really
controlled by the press, no American peace could have been made.
Whatever spirit of friendship for America might exist was necessarily
silent, and only extravagant enmity found expression either in the
press or in society.
Perhaps because ministers were believed to wish for peace with the
United States, the London “Times,” which was not a ministerial
journal, made itself conspicuous in demanding war. The “Times” had not
previously shown a vindictive spirit, but it represented the Wellesley
and Canning interest, which could discover no better course than
that of being more English than England, and more patriotic than the
Government. The “Times” was always ably written and well edited, but
its language toward the United States showed too strong a connection
with that of the Federalists, from whose public and private expressions
the press of England formed its estimate of American character.
The “Times” indulged to excess in the pleasure of its antipathy.
Next to Napoleon, the chief victim of English hatred was Madison.
For so mild a man Madison possessed a remarkable faculty of exciting
invective. The English press surpassed the American Federalists in
their allusions to him, and the “Times” was second to no English
newspaper in the energy of its vituperation. “The lunatic ravings
of the philosophic statesman of Washington” were in its political
category of a piece with “his spaniel-like fawning on the Emperor of
Russia.[1]... The most abject of the tools of the deposed tyrant; ...
doubtless he expected to be named Prince of the Potomack or Grand
Duke of Virginia.”[2] The “Sun” somewhat less abusively spoke of
“that contemptible wretch Madison, and his gang;”[3] but the “Times”
habitually called him liar and impostor.
“Having disposed of all our enemies in Europe,” the “Times” in the
middle of April turned its attention to the United States. “Let us have
no cant of moderation,” was its starting-point. “There is no public
feeling in the country stronger than that of indignation against the
Americans; ... conduct so base, so loathsome, so hateful.... As we
urged the principle, No peace with Bonaparte! so we must maintain
the doctrine of, No peace with James Madison!”[4] To this rule the
“Times” steadily adhered with a degree of ill-temper not easily to be
described, and with practical objects freely expressed. “Mr. Madison’s
dirty, swindling manœuvres in respect to Louisiana and the Floridas
remain to be punished,” it declared April 27; and May 17 it pursued the
idea: “He must fall a victim to the just vengeance of the Federalists.
Let us persevere. Let us unmask the impostor.... Who cares about the
impudence which they call a doctrine?... We shall demand indemnity....
We shall insist on security for Canada.... We shall inquire a little
into the American title to Louisiana; and we shall not permit the base
attack on Florida to go unpunished.” May 18 it declared that Madison
had put himself on record as a liar in the cause of his Corsican
master. “He has lived an impostor, and he deserves to meet the fate of
a traitor. That fate now stares him in the face.” May 24 the “Times”
resumed the topic: “They are struck to the heart with terror for their
impending punishment; and oh may no false liberality, no mistaken
lenity, no weak and cowardly policy, interpose to save them from the
blow! Strike! chastise the savages, for such they are!... With Madison
and his perjured set no treaty can be made, for no oath can bind them.”
When British commissioners were at last announced as ready to depart
for Ghent to negotiate for peace with the United States, June 2, the
“Times” gave them instructions: “Our demands may be couched in a single
word,--Submission!”
The “Morning Post,” a newspaper then carrying higher authority than the
“Times,” used language if possible more abusive, and even discovered,
Jan. 18, 1814, “a new trait in the character of the American
government. Enjoying the reputation of being the most unprincipled
and the most contemptible on the face of the earth, they were already
known to be impervious to any noble sentiment; but it is only of late
that we find them insensible of the shame of defeat, destitute even of
the brutish quality of being beaten into a sense of their unworthiness
and their incapacity.” Of Madison the “Morning Post” held the lowest
opinion. He was “a despot in disguise; a miniature imitation” and
miserable tool of Bonaparte, who wrote his Annual Message; a senseless
betrayer of his country.[5]
The “Times” and “Morning Post” were independent newspapers, and spoke
only for themselves; but the “Courier” was supposed to draw inspiration
from the Government, and commonly received the first knowledge of
ministers’ intentions. In temper the “Courier” seemed obliged to vie
with its less favored rivals. The President’s Annual Message of 1813
resembled in its opinion “all the productions of that vain and vulgar
Cabinet;” it was “a compound of canting and hypocrisy, of exaggeration
and falsehood, of coarseness without strength, of assertions without
proof, of the meanest prejudices, and of the most malignant passions;
of undisguised hatred of Great Britain, and of ill-concealed partiality
and servility toward France.”[6] “We know of no man for whom we feel
greater contempt than for Mr. Madison,” said the “Courier” of May 24.
These illustrations of what the “Courier” called “exaggeration and
falsehood, of coarseness without strength, of assertions without proof,
of the meanest prejudices, and of the most malignant passions” were
probably in some degree a form as used by the “Courier,” which would
at a hint from the Ministry adopt a different tone; but announcements
of official acts and intentions were more serious, and claimed more
careful attention.
Immediately after the capitulation of Paris, March 31, the Ministry
turned its attention to the United States, and the “Courier” announced,
April 15, that twenty thousand men were to go from the Garonne to
America. Mr. Madison, the “Courier” added, had “made a pretty kettle of
fish of it.” Twenty thousand men were about two thirds of Wellington’s
English force, and their arrival in America would, as every Englishman
believed, insure the success of the campaign. Not until these troops
were embarked would the Ministry begin to negotiate; but in the middle
of May the military measures were complete, and then the “Courier”
began to prepare the public mind for terms of peace.
These terms were the same as those announced by the “Times,” except
that the “Courier” did not object to treating with Madison. The United
States were to be interdicted the fisheries; Spain was to be supported
in recovering Louisiana; the right of impressment must be expressly
conceded,--anything short of this would be unwise and a disappointment.
“There are points which must be conceded by America before we can put
an end to the contest.”[7] Such language offered no apparent hope of
peace; yet whatever hope existed lay in Castlereagh, who inspired
it. Extravagant as the demands were, they fell short of the common
expectation. The “Courier” admitted the propriety of negotiation; it
insisted neither on Madison’s retirement nor on a division of the
Union, and it refrained from asserting the whole British demand, or
making it an ultimatum.
The chief pressure on the Ministry came from Canada, and could not
be ignored. The Canadian government returned to its old complaint
that Canadian interests had been ignorantly and wantonly sacrificed
by the treaty of 1783, and that the opportunity to correct the wrong
should not be lost. The Canadian official “Gazette” insisted that the
United States should be required to surrender the northern part of the
State of New York, and that both banks of the St. Lawrence should be
Canadian property.[8] A line from Plattsburg to Sackett’s Harbor would
satisfy this necessity; but to secure Canadian interests, the British
government should further insist on acquiring the east bank of the
Niagara River, and on a guaranty of the Indian Territory from Sandusky
to Kaskaskias, with the withdrawal of American military posts in the
Northwest. A pamphlet was published in May to explain the subject
for the use of the British negotiators, and the required territorial
cessions were marked on a map.[9] The control of the Lakes, the Ohio
River as the Indian boundary, and the restitution of Louisiana were
the chief sacrifices wished from the United States. The cession of a
part of Maine was rather assumed than claimed, and the fisheries were
to be treated as wholly English. A memorial from Newfoundland, dated
Nov. 8, 1813,[10] pointed out the advantages which the war had already
brought to British trade and fisheries by the exclusion of American
competition, to the result of doubling the number of men employed on
the Labrador shores; and the memorialists added,--
“They cannot too often urge the important policy ... of wholly
excluding foreigners from sharing again in the advantages of
a fishery from which a large proportion of our best national
defence will be derived.”
British confidence was at its highest point when the Emperor of Russia
and the King of Prussia visited London, June 7, and received an
enthusiastic welcome. Gallatin obtained an interview with the Czar,
June 17, and hoped that Russian influence might moderate British
demands; but the Czar could give him no encouragement.[11] Gallatin
wrote home an often-quoted despatch, dated June 13, warning the
President that fifteen or twenty thousand men were on their way to
America, and that the United States could expect no assistance from
Europe.
“I have also the most perfect conviction,” Gallatin continued,
“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_.”
Even these terms, Gallatin added, depended on American success in
withstanding the shock of the campaign. He did not say that at the time
he wrote, the _status ante bellum_ would be scouted by public
opinion in England as favorable to the United States; but his estimate
of the situation was more nearly exact than though he had consulted
only the apparent passions of the British press.
“Lord Castlereagh,” wrote Gallatin to Clay,[12] “is, according to the
best information I can collect, the best disposed man in the Cabinet.”
Yet Castlereagh did not venture at that stage to show a disposition for
peace. He delayed the negotiation, perhaps wisely, six weeks after the
American negotiators had assembled at Ghent; and his instructions[13]
to the British commissioners, dated July 28, reflected the demands of
the press. They offered, not the _status ante bellum_, but the
_uti possidetis_, as the starting-point of negotiation. “The state
of possession must be considered as the territorial arrangement which
would revive upon a peace, except so far as the same may be modified by
any new treaty.” The state of possession, in view of the orders that
had then been given, or were to be given, for the invasion of the
United States, was likely to cost the Americans half of Maine, between
the Penobscot and the Passamaquoddy; Plattsburg, and the northern
part of New York, Vermont, and New Hampshire; Fort Niagara, Mackinaw,
and possibly New Orleans and Mobile. Besides this concession of the
_uti possidetis_, or military occupation at the date of peace,
the Americans were required at the outset to admit as a _sine qua
non_, or condition precedent to any negotiation, that England’s
Indian allies, the tribes of the Northwestern Territory, should be
included in the pacification, and that a definite boundary should be
assigned to them under a mutual guaranty of both Powers. Eastport,
or Moose Island, and the fishing privileges were to be regarded as
British. With these instructions of July 28, the British commissioners,
early in August, started for Ghent.
Between Castlereagh’s ideas and those of Madison no relation existed.
Gallatin and his colleagues at Ghent were provided with two sets of
instructions. The first set had been written in 1813, for the expected
negotiation at Petersburg. The second set was written in January, 1814,
and was brought to Europe by Clay. Neither authorized the American
commissioners to discuss such conditions as Castlereagh proposed.
The President gave his negotiators authority to deal with questions
of maritime law; but even there they were allowed to exercise no
discretion on the chief issue in dispute. Monroe’s latest letter,
dated January 28, was emphatic. “On impressment, as to the right of
the United States to be exempted from it, I have nothing to add,” said
the secretary;[14] “the sentiments of the President have undergone no
change on that important subject. This degrading practice must cease;
our flag must protect the crew, or the United States cannot consider
themselves an independent nation.” The President would consent to
exclude all British seamen, except those already naturalized, from
American vessels, and to stipulate the surrender of British deserters;
but the express abandonment of impressment was a _sine qua non_
of treaty. “If this encroachment of Great Britain is not provided
against,” said Monroe, “the United States have appealed to arms in
vain. If your efforts to accomplish it should fail, all further
negotiations will cease, and you will return home without delay.”
On territorial questions the two governments were equally wide apart.
So far from authorizing a cession of territorial rights, Monroe
instructed the American commissioners, both at St. Petersburg and
at Ghent, “to bring to view the advantage to both countries which
is promised by a transfer of the upper parts and even the whole of
Canada to the United States.”[15] The instructions of January 1 and
January 28, 1814, reiterated the reasoning which should decide England
voluntarily to cede Canada. “Experience has shown that Great Britain
cannot participate in the dominion and navigation of the Lakes without
incurring the danger of an early renewal of the war.”[16]
These instructions were subsequently omitted from the published
documents, probably because the Ghent commissioners decided not to act
upon them;[17] but when the American negotiators met their British
antagonists at Ghent, each party was under orders to exclude the other,
if possible, from the Lakes, and the same divergence of opinion in
regard to the results of two years’ war extended over the whole field
of negotiation. The British were ordered to begin by a _sine qua
non_ in regard to the Indians, which the Americans had no authority
to consider. The Americans were ordered to impose a _sine qua
non_ in regard to impressments, which the British were forbidden to
concede. The British were obliged to claim the basis of possession; the
Americans were not even authorized to admit the status existing before
the war. The Americans were required to negotiate about blockades,
contraband and maritime rights of neutrals; the British could not admit
such subjects into dispute. The British regarded their concessions
of fishing-rights as terminated by the war; the Americans could not
entertain the idea.
The diplomacy that should produce a treaty from such discordant
material must show no ordinary excellence; yet even from that point of
view the prospect was not encouraging. The British government made a
peculiar choice of negotiators. The chief British commissioner, Lord
Gambier, was unknown in diplomacy, or indeed in foreign affairs. A
writer in the London “Morning Chronicle” of August 9 expressed the
general surprise that Government could make no better selection for
the chief of its commission than Lord Gambier, “who was a post-captain
in 1794, and happened to fight the ‘Defence’ decently in Lord Howe’s
action; who slumbered for some time as a Junior Lord of the Admiralty;
who sung psalms, said prayers, and assisted in the burning of
Copenhagen, for which he was made a lord.”
Gambier showed no greater fitness for his difficult task than was to be
expected from his training; and the second member of the commission,
Henry Goulburn, could not supply Gambler’s deficiencies. Goulburn was
Under-Secretary of State to Lord Bathurst; he was a very young man, but
a typical under-secretary, combining some of Francis James Jackson’s
temper with the fixed opinions of the elder Rose, and he had as little
idea of diplomacy as was to be expected from an Under-Secretary of
State for the colonies. The third and last member was William Adams,
Doctor of Civil Law, whose professional knowledge was doubtless
supposed to be valuable to the commission, but who was an unknown man,
and remained one.
Experience had not convinced the British government that in dealing
with the United States it required the best ability it could command.
The mistake made by Lord Shelburne in 1783 was repeated by Lord
Castlereagh in 1814. The miscalculation of relative ability which led
the Foreign Office to assume that Gambier, Goulburn, and William Adams
were competent to deal with Gallatin, J. Q. Adams, J. A. Bayard, Clay,
and Russell was not reasonable. Probably the whole British public
service, including Lords and Commons, could not at that day have
produced four men competent to meet Gallatin, J. Q. Adams, Bayard, and
Clay on the ground of American interests; and when Castlereagh opposed
to them Gambier, Goulburn, and Dr. Adams, he sacrificed whatever
advantage diplomacy offered; for in diplomacy as in generalship, the
individual commanded success.
The only serious difficulty in the American commission was its excess
of strength. By a natural reaction against the attempt to abolish
diplomatic offices, the United States government sent into diplomacy
its most vigorous men. Under favorable conditions, four minds and
wills of so decided a character could not easily work together; but
in the Ghent commission an additional difficulty was created by the
unfortunate interference of the Senate. Originally Gallatin, as
was due to his age, services, and ability, had been the head of the
St. Petersburg commission; but the Senate refused to confirm the
appointment. The President at last removed Gallatin from the Treasury,
and renominated him as a member of the Ghent commission after the
other members had been nominated and confirmed. The Senate then gave
its approval,--thus making Gallatin the last member of the commission
instead of the first, and placing J. Q. Adams above them all.
Gallatin was peculiarly fitted to moderate a discordant body like the
negotiators, while Adams was by temperament little suited to the post
of moderator, and by circumstances ill-qualified to appear as a proper
representative of the commission in the eyes of its other members.
Unless Gallatin were one of the loftiest characters and most loyal
natures ever seen in American politics, Adams’s chance of success in
controlling the board was not within reasonable hope. Gallatin was six
years the senior, and represented the President, with the authority
of close and continuous personal friendship. The board, including
Adams himself, instinctively bowed to Gallatin’s authority; but they
were deferential to no one else, least of all to their nominal head.
Bayard, whose age was the same as that of Adams, was still in name a
Federalist; and although his party trusted him little more than it
trusted Adams or William Pinkney, who had avowedly become Republicans,
he was not the more disposed to follow Adams’s leadership. Clay,
though ten years their junior, was the most difficult of all to
control; and Jonathan Russell, though a New Englander, preferred Clay’s
social charm, and perhaps also his political prospects, to the somewhat
repellent temper and more than doubtful popularity of Adams.
Personal rivalry and jealousies counted for much in such a group; but
these were not the only obstacles to Adams’s influence. By a misfortune
commonly reserved for men of the strongest wills, he represented no
one but himself and a powerless minority. His State repudiated and, in
a manner, ostracized him. Massachusetts gave him no support, even in
defending her own rights; by every means in her power she deprived him
of influence, and loaded him with the burden of her own unpopularity.
Adams represented a community not only hostile to the war, but avowedly
laboring to produce peace by means opposed to those employed at Ghent.
If the Ghent commission should succeed in making a treaty, it could
do so only by some sacrifice of Massachusetts which would ruin Adams
at home. If the Ghent commission should fail, Adams must be equally
ruined by any peace produced through the treasonable intrigues or overt
rebellion of his State.
Such a head to a commission so constituted needed all the force of
character which Adams had, and some qualities he did not possess, in
order to retain enough influence to shape any project into a treaty
that he could consent to sign; while Gallatin’s singular tact and
nobility of character were never more likely to fail than in the effort
to make allowance for the difficulties of his chief’s position. Had
Castlereagh improved the opportunity by sending to Ghent one competent
diplomatist, or even a well-informed and intelligent man of business,
like Alexander Baring, he might probably have succeeded in isolating
Adams, and in negotiating with the other four commissioners a treaty
sacrificing Massachusetts.
The five American commissioners were ready to negotiate in June; but
Castlereagh, for obvious reasons, wished delay, and deferred action
until August, doubtless intending to prevent the signature of a treaty
on the basis of _uti possidetis_ until after September, when
Sherbrooke and Prevost should have occupied the territory intended to
be held. In May and June no one in England, unless it were Cobbett,
entertained more than a passing doubt of British success on land and
water; least of all did the three British commissioners expect to yield
British demands. They came to impose terms, or to break negotiation.
They were not sent to yield any point in dispute, or to seek a
cessation of arms.
At one o’clock on the afternoon of August 8, the first conference took
place in the Hotel des Pays Bas at Ghent. After the usual civilities
and forms had passed, Goulburn took the lead, and presented the
points which he and his colleagues were authorized to discuss,--(1)
Impressment and allegiance; (2) the Indians and their boundary, a
_sine qua non_; (3) the Canadian boundary; (4) the privilege of
landing and drying fish within British jurisdiction. Goulburn declared
that it was not intended to contest the right of the United States to
the fisheries, by which he probably meant the deep-sea fisheries; and
he was understood to disavow the intention of acquiring territory by
the revision of the Canada boundary; but he urged an immediate answer
upon the question whether the Americans were instructed on the point
made a _sine qua non_ by the British government.
The Americans, seeing as yet only a small part of the British demands,
were not so much surprised at Goulburn’s points as unable to answer
them. The next day they replied in conference that they had no
authority to admit either Indian boundary or fisheries into question,
being without instructions on these points; and in their turn presented
subjects of discussion,--Blockades and Indemnities; but professed
themselves willing to discuss everything.
In the conversation following this reply, the British commissioners,
with some apparent unwillingness, avowed the intention of erecting the
Indian Territory into a barrier between the British possessions and the
United States; and the American commissioners declined even to retire
for consultation on the possibility of agreeing to such an article. The
British commissioners then proposed to suspend conferences until they
could receive further instructions, and their wish was followed. Both
parties sent despatches to their Governments.
Lord Castlereagh was prompt. As soon as was reasonably possible he sent
more precise instructions. Dated August 14,[18] these supplementary
instructions gave to those of July 28 a distinct outline. They proposed
the Indian boundary fixed by the Treaty of Greenville for the permanent
barrier between British and American dominion, beyond which neither
government should acquire land. They claimed also a “rectification” of
the Canadian frontier, and the cession of Fort Niagara and Sackett’s
Harbor, besides a permanent prohibition on the United States from
keeping either naval forces or land fortifications on the Lakes. Beyond
these demands the British commissioners were not for the present to go,
nor were they to ask for a direct cession of territory for Canada “with
any view to an acquisition of territory as such, but for the purpose
of securing her possessions and preventing future disputes;”[19] yet a
small cession of land in Maine was necessary for a road from Halifax to
Quebec, and an arrangement of the Northwestern boundary was required to
coincide with the free navigation of the Mississippi.
As soon as the new instructions reached Ghent the British commissioners
summoned the Americans to another conference, August 19; and Goulburn,
reading from Castlereagh’s despatch, gave to the Americans a clear
version of its contents.[20] When he had finished, Gallatin asked
what was to be done with the American citizens--perhaps one hundred
thousand in number--already settled beyond the Greenville line, in
Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan? Goulburn and Dr. Adams replied
that these people must shift for themselves. They added also that
Moose Island and Eastport belonged to Great Britain as indisputably
as the county of Northamptonshire, and were not a subject for
discussion; but they would not then make a _sine qua non_ of the
proposition regarding the Lakes. The conference ended, leaving the
Americans convinced that their answer to these demands would close the
negotiation. Clay alone, whose knowledge of the Western game of brag
stood him in good stead, insisted that the British would recede.[21]
The British commissioners the next day, August 20, sent an official
note containing their demands, and the Americans before sending their
reply forwarded the note to America, with despatches dated August
19 and 20, announcing that they intended to return “a unanimous and
decided negative.”[22] They then undertook the task of drawing up their
reply. Upon Adams as head of the commission fell the duty of drafting
formal papers,--a duty which, without common consent, no other member
could assume. His draft met with little mercy, and the five gentlemen
sat until eleven o’clock of August 24, “sifting, erasing, patching, and
amending until we were all wearied, though none of us was yet satiated
with amendment.” At the moment when they gave final shape to the note
which they believed would render peace impossible, the army of General
Ross was setting fire to the Capitol at Washington, and President
Madison was seeking safety in the Virginia woods.
Only to persons acquainted with the difficulties of its composition did
the American note of August 24 show signs of its diverse origin.[23] In
dignified temper, with reasoning creditable to its authors and decisive
on its issues, it assured the British negotiators that any such
arrangement as they required for the Indians was contrary to precedent
in public law, was not founded on reciprocity, and was unnecessary for
its professed object in regard to the Indians. The other demands were
equally inadmissible:--
“They are founded neither on reciprocity, nor on any of
the usual bases of negotiation, neither on that of _uti
possidetis_ nor of _status ante bellum_. They are above
all dishonorable to the United States in demanding from them 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 shores and in their
own waters. A treaty concluded on such terms would be but an
armistice.”
The negotiators were ready to terminate the war, both parties restoring
whatever territory might have been taken, and reserving their rights
over their respective seamen; but such demands as were made by the
British government could not be admitted even for reference.
The American reply was sent to the British commissioners August 25,
“and will bring the negotiation,” remarked J. Q. Adams, “very shortly
to a close.”[24] The American commissioners prepared to quit Ghent
and return to their several posts, while the British commissioners
waited for instructions from London. Even Gallatin, who had clung to
the hope that he could effect an arrangement, abandoned the idea, and
believing that the British government had adopted a system of conquest,
prepared for an immediate return to America.[25] Goulburn also notified
his Government that the negotiation was not likely to continue, and
reported some confidential warnings from Bayard that such conditions
of peace would not only insure war, but would sacrifice the Federalist
party. “It has not made the least impression upon me or upon my
colleagues,” reported Goulburn to Bathurst.[26]
At that point the negotiation remained stationary for two months,
kept alive by Liverpool, Castlereagh, and Bathurst, while they waited
for the result of their American campaign. The despatch of August 20
crossed the Atlantic, and was communicated to Congress October 10,
together with all other papers connected with the negotiation; but not
until October 25 did the American commissioners write again to their
Government.