THE British note of August 19 and the American rejoinder of August 24,
brought about a situation where Lord Castlereagh’s influence could make
itself felt. Castlereagh had signed the British instructions of July
28 and August 14,[27] and himself brought the latter to Ghent, where
he passed August 19, before going to Paris on his way to the Congress
at Vienna. He was at Ghent when Goulburn and his colleagues held their
conference and wrote their note of August 19;[28] and he could not be
supposed ignorant of their language or acts. Yet when he received at
Paris letters from Goulburn, dated August 24 and 26,[29] he expressed
annoyance that the American commissioners should have been allowed
to place England in the attitude of continuing the war for purposes
of conquest, and still more that the British commissioners should be
willing to accept that issue and break off negotiation upon it. In a
letter to Lord Bathurst, who took charge of the negotiation in his
absence, Castlereagh suggested ideas altogether different from those
till then advanced in England.[30]
“The substance of the question is,” said Castlereagh, “Are we
prepared to continue the war for territorial arrangements?
And if not, is this the best time to make our peace, saving
all our rights, and claiming the fisheries, which they do not
appear to question? In which case the territorial questions
might be reserved for ulterior discussion. Or is it desirable
to take the chance of the campaign, and then to be governed by
circumstances?... If we thought an immediate peace desirable,
as they are ready to waive all the abstract questions, perhaps
they might be prepared to sign a provisional article of Indian
peace as distinct from limits, and relinquish their pretensions
to the islands in Passamaquoddy Bay, and possibly to admit minor
adjustments of frontier, including a right of communication from
Quebec to Halifax across their territory. But while I state
this, I feel the difficulty of so much letting down the question
under present circumstances.”
At the same time Castlereagh wrote to Goulburn, directing him to wait
at Ghent for new instructions from London.[31] Lord Liverpool shared
his disapproval of the manner in which the British commissioners had
managed the case, and replied to Castlereagh, September 2, that the
Cabinet had already acted in the sense he wished:[32]--
“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 that the war would
have become quite popular in America.”
The idea that the war might become popular in America was founded
chiefly on the impossibility of an Englishman’s conceiving the
contrary; but in truth the Ministry most feared that the war might
become unpopular in England.
“It is very material to throw the rupture of the negotiation, if
it is to take place, upon the Americans,” wrote Liverpool, the
same day, to the Duke of Wellington;[33] “and not to allow them
to say that we have brought forward points as ultimata which
were only brought forward for discussion, and at the desire of
the American commissioners themselves. The American note is a
most impudent one, and, as to all its reasoning, capable of an
irresistible answer.”
New instructions were accordingly approved in Cabinet.[34] Drawn
by Bathurst, and dated September 1, they contained what Liverpool
considered an “irresistible answer” to the American note of August
24; but their force of logic was weakened by the admission that the
previous British demands, though certainly stated as a _sine qua
non_, were in reality not to be regarded as such. In private this
retreat was covered by the pretext that it was intended only to keep
the negotiation alive until better terms could be exacted.
“We cannot expect that the negotiation will proceed at present,”
continued Liverpool’s letter to Castlereagh; “but I think it
not unlikely, after our note has been delivered in, that the
American commissioners will propose to refer the subject to
their Government. In that case the negotiation may be adjourned
till the answer is received, and we shall know the result of
the campaign before it can be resumed. If our commander does
his duty, I am persuaded we shall have acquired by our arms
every point on the Canadian frontier which we ought to insist on
keeping.”
Lord Gambier and his colleagues communicated their new instructions
to the American negotiators in a long note dated September 4, and
were answered by a still longer note dated September 9, which was
also sent to London, and considered in Cabinet. Bathurst felt no
anxiety about the negotiation in its actual stage. Goulburn wrote to
him that “as long as we answer their notes, I believe that they will
be ready to give us replies,” and urged only that Sir George Prevost
should hasten his reluctant movements in Canada.[35] Bathurst wrote
more instructions, dated September 16, directing his commissioners
to abandon the demands for Indian territory and exclusive control of
the Lakes, and to ask only that the Indians should be included in
the peace.[36] The British commissioners sent their note with these
concessions to the Americans September 19; and then for the first time
the Americans began to suspect the possibility of serious negotiation.
For six weeks they had dealt only with the question whether they should
negotiate at all.
The demand that the Indians should be included in the treaty was one
that under favorable circumstances the Americans would have rejected;
but none of them seriously thought of rejecting it as their affairs
then stood. When the American commissioners discussed the subject among
themselves, September 20, Adams proposed to break off the negotiation
on that issue; but Gallatin good-naturedly overruled him, and Adams
would not himself, on cool reflection, have ventured to take such
responsibility. Indeed, he suggested an article for an Indian amnesty,
practically accepting the British demand.[37] He also yielded to
Gallatin the ungrateful task of drafting the answers to the British
notes; and thus Gallatin became in effect the head of the commission.
All Gallatin’s abilities were needed to fill the place. In his entire
public life he had never been required to manage so unruly a set of
men. The British commissioners were trying, and especially Goulburn was
aggressive in temper and domineering in tone; but with them Gallatin
had little trouble. Adams and Clay were persons of a different type, as
far removed from British heaviness as they were from the Virginian ease
of temper which marked the Cabinet of Jefferson, or the incompetence
which characterized that of Madison. Gallatin was obliged to exert all
his faculties to control his colleagues; but whenever he succeeded,
he enjoyed the satisfaction of feeling that he had colleagues worth
controlling. They were bent on combat, if not with the British, at
all events with each other; and Gallatin was partly amused and partly
annoyed by the unnecessary energy of their attitude.
The first divergence occurred in framing the reply to the British note
of September 19, which while yielding essentials made a series of
complaints against the United States,--and among the rest reproached
them for their attempt to conquer Canada, and their actual seizure
of Florida. Adams, who knew little about the secrets of Jefferson’s
and Madison’s Administrations, insisted on resenting the British
charges, and especially on justifying the United States government in
its attacks upon Florida. Bayard protested that he could not support
such a view, because he had himself publicly in Congress denounced the
Government on the subject of Florida; and Gallatin was almost equally
committed, for, as he frankly said, he had opposed in Cabinet for
a whole year what had been done in Florida before he could succeed
in stopping it.[38] Clay said nothing, but he had strong reasons for
wishing that the British negotiators should not be challenged to quote
his notorious speeches on the conquest of Canada. Adams produced
Monroe’s instructions, and in the end compelled his colleagues to
yield. His mistake in pressing such an issue was obvious to every
one but himself, and would have been evident to him had he not been
blinded by irritation at the British note. His colleagues retaliated by
summarily rejecting as cant his argument that moral and religious duty
required the Americans to take and settle the land of the Indians.[39]
After much discussion their note was completed and sent, September 26,
to the British commissioners,[40] who forwarded it as usual to London,
with a letter from Goulburn of the same date, written in the worst
possible temper, and charging the American commissioners with making
a variety of false and fraudulent statements.[41] While the British
Cabinet detained it longer than usual for consideration, the Americans
at Ghent felt their position grow weaker day by day.
Nothing warranted a serious hope of peace. Goulburn and his colleagues
showed no thought of yielding acceptable conditions. The London
“Courier” of September 29 announced what might be taken for a
semi-official expression of the Ministry:--
“Peace they [the Americans] may make, but it must be on
condition that America has not a foot of land on the waters of
the St. Lawrence, ... no settlement on the Lakes, ... no renewal
of the treaties of 1783 and 1794; ... and they must explicitly
abandon their newfangled principles of the law of nations.”
Liverpool, writing to Castlereagh September 23,[42] said that in his
opinion the Cabinet had “now gone to the utmost justifiable point in
concession, and if they [the Americans] are so unreasonable as to
reject our proposals, we have nothing to do but to fight it out. The
military accounts from America are on the whole satisfactory.” The news
of the cruel humiliation at Bladensburg and the burning of Washington
arrived at Ghent October 1, and caused British and Americans alike to
expect a long series of British triumphs, especially on Lake Champlain,
where they knew the British force to be overwhelming.
Goulburn exerted himself to produce a rupture. His letter of September
26 to Bathurst treated the American offer of an Indian amnesty as
a rejection of the British ultimatum. Again Lord Bathurst set him
right by sending him, October 5, the draft of a reciprocal article
replacing the Indians in their situation before the war; and the
British commissioners in a note dated October 8, 1814, communicated
this article once more as an ultimatum.[43] Harrison’s treaty of July
22 with the Wyandots, Delawares, Shawanees, and other tribes, binding
them to take up arms against the British, had then arrived, and this
news lessened the interest of both parties in the Indian question. None
of the American negotiators were prepared to break off negotiations on
that point at such a time, and Clay was so earnest to settle the matter
that he took from Gallatin and Adams the task of writing the necessary
acceptance of the British ultimatum. Gallatin and Clay decided to
receive the British article as according entirely with the American
offer of amnesty, and the note was so written.[44]
With this cordial admission of the British ultimatum the Americans
coupled an intimation that the time had come when an exchange of
general projects for the proposed treaty should be made. More than two
months of discussion had then resulted only in eliminating the Indians
from the dispute, and in agreeing to maintain silence in regard to
the Lakes. Another great difficulty which had been insuperable was
voluntarily removed by President Madison and his Cabinet, who after
long and obstinate resistance at last authorized the commissioners,
by instructions dated June 27, to omit impressment from the treaty.
Considering the frequent positive declarations of the United States
government, besides the rejection of Monroe’s treaty in 1807 and of
Admiral Warren’s and Sir George Prevost’s armistice of 1812 for want
of an explicit concession on that point, Monroe’s letter of June 27
was only to be excused as an act of common-sense or of necessity.
The President preferred to represent it as an act of common-sense,
warranted by the peace in Europe, which promised to offer no further
occasion for the claim or the denial of the British right. On the same
principle the subject of blockades was withdrawn from discussion; and
these concessions, balanced by the British withdrawal from the Indian
ultimatum and the Lake armaments, relieved the American commissioners
of all their insuperable difficulties.
The British commissioners were not so easily rescued from their
untenable positions. The American note of October 13, sent as usual to
London, was answered by Bathurst October 18 and 20,[45] in instructions
revealing the true British terms more completely than had yet been
ventured. Bathurst at length came to the cardinal point of the
negotiation. As the American commissioners had said in their note of
August 24, the British government must choose between the two ordinary
bases of treaties of peace,--the state before the war, or _status
ante bellum_; and the state of possession, or _uti possidetis_.
Until the middle of October, 1814, the _uti possidetis_, as
a basis of negotiation, included whatever country might have been
occupied by Sir George Prevost in his September campaign. Bathurst
from the first intended to insist on the state of possession, but had
not thought proper to avow it. His instructions of October 18 and 20
directed the British commissioners to come to the point, and to claim
the basis of _uti possidetis_ from the American negotiators:--
“On their admitting this to be the basis on which they are
ready to negotiate, but not before they have admitted it, you
will proceed to state the mutual accommodations which may be
entered into in conformity with this basis. The British occupy
Fort Michillimackinaw, Fort Niagara, and all the country east
of the Penobscot. On the other hand the forces of the United
States occupy Fort Erie and Fort Amherstburg [Malden]. On the
government of the United States consenting to restore these two
forts, Great Britain is ready to restore the forts of Castine
and Machias, retaining Fort Niagara and Fort Michillimackinaw.”
Thus the British demand, which had till then been intended to include
half of Maine and the whole south bank of the St. Lawrence River from
Plattsburg to Sackett’s Harbor, suddenly fell to a demand for Moose
Island, a right of way across the northern angle of Maine, Fort Niagara
with five miles circuit, and the Island of Mackinaw. The reason for
the new spirit of moderation was not far to seek. On the afternoon of
October 17, while the British Cabinet was still deliberating on the
basis of _uti possidetis_, news reached London that the British
invasion of northern New York, from which so much had been expected,
had totally failed, and that Prevost’s large army had precipitately
retreated into Canada. The London “Times” of October 19 was frank in
its expressions of disappointment:--
“This is a lamentable event to the civilized world.... The
subversion of that system of fraud and malignity which
constitutes the whole policy of the Jeffersonian school ... was
an event to which we should have bent and yet must bend all our
energies. The present American government must be displaced, or
it will sooner or later plant its poisoned dagger in the heart
of the parent State.”
The failure of the attempt on Baltimore and Drummond’s bloody repulse
at Fort Erie became known at the same time, and coming together at a
critical moment threw confusion into the Ministry and their agents in
the press and the diplomatic service throughout Europe. The “Courier”
of October 25 declared that “peace with America is neither practicable
nor desirable till we have wiped away this late disaster;” but the
“Morning Chronicle” of October 21–24 openly intimated that the game of
war was at an end. October 31, the Paris correspondent of the London
“Times” told of the cheers that rose from the crowds in the Palais
Royal gardens at each recital of the Plattsburg defeat; and October 21
Goulburn wrote from Ghent to Bathurst,[46]--
“The news from America is very far from satisfactory. Even our
brilliant success at Baltimore, as it did not terminate in the
capture of the town, will be considered by the Americans as a
victory and not as an escape.... If it were not for the want of
fuel in Boston, I should be quite in despair.”
In truth the blockade was the single advantage held by England; and
even in that advantage the Americans had a share as long as their
cruisers surrounded the British Islands.
Liverpool wrote to Castlereagh, October 21,[47] commenting severely on
Prevost’s failure, and finding consolation only in the thought that the
Americans showed themselves even less patriotic than he had supposed
them to be:--
“The capture and destruction of Washington has not united the
Americans: quite the contrary. We have gained more credit
with them by saving private property than we have lost by the
destruction of their public works and buildings. Madison clings
to office, and I am strongly inclined to think that the best
thing for us is that he should remain there.”
Castlereagh at Vienna found himself unable to make the full influence
of England felt, so long as such mortifying disasters by land and sea
proved her inability to deal with an enemy she persisted in calling
contemptible.
On the American commissioners the news came, October 21, with the
effect of a reprieve from execution. Gallatin was deeply moved; Adams
could not believe the magnitude of the success; but as far as regarded
their joint action, the overthrow of England’s scheme produced no
change. Their tone had always been high, and they saw no advantage
to be gained by altering it. The British commissioners sent to them,
October 21, the substance of the new instructions, offering the
basis of _uti possidetis_, subject to modifications for mutual
convenience.[48] The Americans by common consent, October 23, declined
to treat on that basis, or on any other than the mutual restoration
of territory.[49] They thought that the British government was still
playing with them, when in truth Lord Bathurst had yielded the chief
part of the original British demand, and had come to what the whole
British empire regarded as essentials,--the right of way to Quebec, and
the exclusion of American fishermen from British shores and waters.
The American note of October 24, bluntly rejecting the basis of _uti
possidetis_, created a feeling akin to consternation in the British
Cabinet. At first, ministers assumed that the war must go on, and
deliberated only on the point to be preferred for a rupture. “We still
think it desirable to gain a little more time before the negotiation
is brought to a close,” wrote Liverpool to the Duke of Wellington,[50]
October 28; and on the same day he wrote to Castlereagh at Vienna to
warn him that the American war “will probably now be of some duration,”
and treating of its embarrassments without disguise.[51] The Czar’s
conduct at Vienna had annoyed and alarmed all the great Powers, and
the American war gave him a decisive advantage over England; but even
without the Russian complication, the prospect for ministers was not
cheering.
“Looking to a continuance of the American war, our financial
state is far from satisfactory,” wrote Lord Liverpool; “... 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.”
A week passed without bringing encouragement to the British Cabinet.
On the contrary the Ministry learned that a vigorous prosecution of
hostilities would cost much more than ten million pounds, and when
Liverpool next wrote to Castlereagh, November 2,[52] although he could
still see “little prospect for our negotiations at Ghent ending in
peace,” he added that “the continuance of the American war will entail
upon us a prodigious expense, much more than we had any idea of.” A
Cabinet meeting was to be held the next day, November 3, to review the
whole course of policy as to America.
Throughout the American difficulties, from first to last, the most
striking quality shown by the British government was the want of
intelligence which caused the war, and marked the conduct of both
the war and the negotiations. If the foreign relations of every
government were marked by the same character, politics could be no
more than rivalry in the race to blunder; but in October, 1814,
another quality almost equally striking became evident. The weakness
of British councils was as remarkable as their want of intelligence.
The government of England had exasperated the Americans to an animosity
that could not forget or forgive, and every dictate of self-interest
required that it should carry out its policy to the end. Even domestic
politics in Parliament might have been more easily managed by drawing
public criticism to America, while in no event could taxes be reduced
to satisfy the public demand.[53] Another year of war was the
consistent and natural course for ministers to prefer.
So the Cabinet evidently thought; but instead of making a decision,
the Cabinet council of November 3 resorted to the expedient of
shifting responsibility upon the Duke of Wellington. The Duke was then
Ambassador at Paris. His life had been threatened by angry officers of
Napoleon, who could not forgive his victories at Vittoria and Toulouse.
For his own security he might be sent to Canada, and if he went, he
should go with full powers to close the war as he pleased.
The next day, November 4, Liverpool wrote to Wellington, explaining
the wishes of the Cabinet, and inviting him to take the entire command
in Canada, in order to bring the war to an honorable conclusion.[54]
Wellington replied November 9,--and his words were the more interesting
because, after inviting and receiving so decided an opinion from
so high an authority, the Government could not easily reject it.
Wellington began by reviewing the military situation, and closed by
expressing his opinion on the diplomatic contest:[55]--
“I have already told you and Lord Bathurst that I feel no
objection to going to America, though I don’t promise to myself
much success there. I believe there are troops enough there for
the defence of Canada forever, and even for the accomplishment
of any reasonable offensive plan that could be formed from the
Canadian frontier. I am quite sure that all the American armies
of which I have ever read would not beat out of a field of
battle the troops that went from Bordeaux last summer, if common
precautions and care were taken of them. That which appears
to me to be wanting in America is not a general, or a general
officer and troops, but a naval superiority on the Lakes.”
These views did not altogether accord with those of Americans, who
could not see that the British generals made use of the Lakes even
when controlling them, but who saw the troops of Wellington retire
from one field of battle after another,--at Plattsburg, Baltimore, and
New Orleans,--while taking more than common precautions. Wellington’s
military comments showed little interest in American affairs, and
evidently he saw nothing to be gained by going to Canada. His
diplomatic ideas betrayed the same bias:--
“In regard to your present negotiations, I confess that I think
you have no right, from the state of the war, to demand any
concession of territory 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 entitle you to demand any.”
After such an opinion from the first military authority of England, the
British Ministry had no choice but to abandon its claim for territory.
Wellington’s letter reached London about November 13, and was duly
considered in the Cabinet. Liverpool wrote to Castlereagh, November 18,
that the Ministry had made its decision; the claim for territory was
to be abandoned. For this retreat he alleged various excuses,--such
as the unsatisfactory state of the negotiations at Vienna, and the
alarming condition of France; the finances, the depression of rents,
and the temper of Parliament.[56] Such reasoning would have counted for
nothing in the previous month of May, but six months wrought a change
in public feeling. The war had lost public favor. Even the colonial and
shipping interests and the navy were weary of it, while the army had
little to expect from it but hard service and no increase of credit.
Every Englishman who came in contact with Americans seemed to suffer.
Broke, the only victor by sea, was a lifelong invalid; and Brock and
Ross, the only victors on land, had paid for their success with their
lives. Incessant disappointment made the war an unpleasant thought
with Englishmen. The burning of Washington was an exploit of which
they could not boast. The rate of marine insurance was a daily and
intolerable annoyance. So rapidly did the war decline in favor, that in
the first half of December it was declared to be decidedly unpopular by
one of the most judicious English liberals, Francis Horner; although
Horner held that the Americans, as the dispute then stood, were the
aggressors.[57] The tone of the press showed the same popular tendency,
for while the “Times” grumbled loudly over the Canada campaign, the
“Morning Chronicle” no longer concealed its hostility to the war, and
ventured to sneer at it, talking of “the entire defeat and destruction
of the last British fleet but one; for it has become necessary to
particularize them now.”[58]
While the Cabinet still waited, the first instalment of Ghent
correspondence to August 20, published in America October 10, returned
to England November 18, and received no flattering attention. “We
cannot compliment our negotiators,” remarked the “Morning Chronicle;”
and the “Times” was still less pleased. “The British government has
been tricked into bringing forward demands which it had not the power
to enforce.... Why treat at all with Mr. Madison?” In Parliament,
November 19, the liberal opposition attacked the Government for
setting up novel pretensions. Ministers needed no more urging, and
Bathurst thenceforward could not be charged with waste of time.
During this interval of more than three weeks the negotiators at
Ghent were left to follow their own devices. In order to provide the
Americans with occupation, the British commissioners sent them a note
dated October 31 calling for a counter-project, since the basis of
_uti possidetis_ was refused.[59] This note, with all the others
since August 20, was sent by the Americans to Washington on the same
day, October 31; and then Gallatin and Adams began the task of drafting
the formal project of a treaty. Immediately the internal discords of
the commission broke into earnest dispute. A struggle began between the
East and the West over the fisheries and the Mississippi.
The treaty of 1783 coupled the American right of fishing in British
waters and curing fish on British shores with the British right of
navigating the Mississippi River. For that arrangement the elder Adams
was responsible. The fisheries were a Massachusetts interest. At Paris
in 1783 John Adams, in season and out of season, with his colleagues
and with the British negotiators, insisted, with the intensity of
conviction, that the fishing rights which the New England people held
while subjects of the British crown were theirs by no grant or treaty,
but as a natural right, which could not be extinguished by war; and
that where British subjects had a right to fish, whether on coasts or
shores, in bays, inlets, creeks, or harbors, Americans had the same
right, to be exercised wherever and whenever they pleased. John Adams’s
persistence secured the article of the definitive treaty, which,
without expressly admitting a natural right, coupled the in-shore
fisheries and the navigation of the Mississippi with the recognition
of independence. In 1814 as in 1783 John Adams clung to his trophies,
and his son would have waged indefinite war rather than break his
father’s heart by sacrificing what he had won; but at Ghent the son
stood in isolation which the father in the worst times had never known.
Massachusetts left him to struggle alone for a principle that needed
not only argument but force to make it victorious. Governor Strong did
not even write to him as he did to Pickering, that Massachusetts would
give an equivalent in territory for the fisheries. As far as the State
could influence the result, the fisheries were to be lost by default.
Had Adams encountered only British opposition he might have overborne
it as his father had done; but since 1783 the West had become a
political power, and Louisiana had been brought into the Union. If the
fisheries were recognized as an indefeasible right by the treaty of
1783, the British liberty of navigating the Mississippi was another
indefeasible right, which must revive with peace. The Western people
naturally objected to such a proposition. Neither they nor the
Canadians could be blamed for unwillingness to impose a mischievous
servitude forever upon their shores, and Clay believed his popularity
to depend on preventing an express recognition of the British right
to navigate the Mississippi. Either Clay or Adams was sure to refuse
signing any treaty which expressly sacrificed the local interests of
either.
In this delicate situation only the authority and skill of Gallatin
saved the treaty. At the outset of the discussion, October 30, Gallatin
quietly took the lead from Adams’s hands, and assumed the championship
of the fisheries by proposing to renew both privileges, making the one
an equivalent for the other. Clay resisted obstinately, while Gallatin
gently and patiently overbore him. When Gallatin’s proposal was put
to the vote November 5, Clay and Russell alone opposed it,--and the
support then given by Russell to Clay was never forgotten by Adams.
Clay still refusing to sign the offer, Gallatin continued his pressure,
until at last, November 10, Clay consented to insert, not in the
project of treaty, but in the note which accompanied it, a paragraph
declaring that the commissioners were not authorized to bring into
discussion any of the rights hitherto enjoyed in the fisheries; “From
their nature, and from the peculiar character of the treaty of 1783
by which they were recognized, no further stipulation has been deemed
necessary by the Government of the United States to entitle them to
the full enjoyment of all of them.”
Clay signed the note,[60] though unwillingly; and it was sent,
November 10, with the treaty project, to the British commissioners,
who forwarded it to London, where it arrived at the time when the
British Cabinet had at last decided on peace. Bathurst sent his reply
in due course; and Goulburn’s disgust was great to find that instead of
breaking negotiation on the point of the fisheries as he wished,[61]
he was required once more to give way. “You know that I was never much
inclined to give way to the Americans,” he wrote, November 25.[62] “I
am still less inclined to do so after the statement of our demands with
which the negotiation opened, and which has in every point of view
proved most unfortunate.”
The British reply, dated November 26,[63] took no notice of the
American reservation as to the fisheries, but inserted in the project
the old right of navigating the Mississippi. Both Bathurst and Goulburn
thought that their silence, after the American declaration, practically
conceded the American right to the fisheries, though Gambier and Dr.
Adams thought differently.[64] In either case the British note of
November 26, though satisfactory to Adams, was far from agreeable
to Clay, who was obliged to endanger the peace in order to save the
Mississippi. Adams strongly inclined to take the British project
precisely as it was offered,[65] but Gallatin overruled him, and Clay
would certainly have refused to sign. In discussing the subject,
November 28, Gallatin proposed to accept the article on the navigation
of the Mississippi if the British would add a provision recognizing the
fishing rights. Clay lost his temper, and intimated something more than
willingness to let Massachusetts pay for the pleasure of peace;[66]
but during the whole day of November 28, and with the same patience
November 29, Gallatin continued urging Clay and restraining Adams,
until at last on the third day he brought the matter to the point he
wished.
The result of this long struggle saved not indeed the fisheries, but
the peace. Clay made no further protest when, in conference with the
British commissioners December 1, the Americans offered to renew both
the disputed rights.[67] Their proposal was sent to London, and was
answered by Bathurst December 6, in a letter offering to set aside
for future negotiation the terms under which the old fishing liberty
and the navigation of the Mississippi should be continued for fair
equivalents.[68] The British commissioners communicated this suggestion
in conference December 10, and threw new dissension among the Americans.
The British offer to reserve both disputed rights for future
negotiation implied that both rights were forfeited, or subject to
forfeit, by war,--an admission which Adams could not make, but which
the other commissioners could not reject. At that point Adams found
himself alone. Even Gallatin admitted that the claim to the natural
right of catching and curing fish on British shores was untenable, and
could never be supported. Adams’s difficulties were the greater because
the question of peace and war was reduced to two points,--the fisheries
and Moose Island,--both interesting to Massachusetts alone. Yet the
Americans were unwilling to yield without another struggle, and decided
still to resist the British claim as inconsistent with the admitted
basis of the _status ante bellum_.
The struggle with the British commissioners then became warm. A long
conference, December 12, brought no conclusion. The treaty of 1783
could neither be followed nor ignored, and perplexed the Englishmen
as much as the Americans. During December 13 and December 14, Adams
continued to press his colleagues to assert the natural right to the
fisheries, and to insist on the permanent character of the treaty of
1783; but Gallatin would not consent to make that point an ultimatum.
All the commissioners except Adams resigned themselves to the sacrifice
of the fisheries; but Gallatin decided to make one more effort before
abandoning the struggle, and with that object drew up a note rejecting
the British stipulation because it implied the abandonment of a right,
but offering either to be silent as to both the fisheries and the
Mississippi, or to admit a general reference to further negotiation of
all subjects in dispute, so expressed as to imply no abandonment of
right.
The note was signed and sent December 14,[69] and the Americans waited
another week for the answer. Successful as they had been in driving
their British antagonists from one position after another, they were
not satisfied. Adams still feared that he might not be able to sign,
and Clay was little better pleased. “He said we should make a damned
bad treaty, and he did not know whether he would sign it or not.”[70]
Whatever Adams thought of the treaty, his respect for at least two of
his colleagues was expressed in terms of praise rarely used by him.
Writing to his wife, September 27,[71] Adams said: “Mr. Gallatin
keeps and increases his influence over us all. It would have been an
irreparable loss if our country had been deprived of the benefit of his
talents in this negotiation.” At the moment of final suspense he wrote
again, December 16:--
“Of the five members of the American mission, the Chevalier
[Bayard] has the most perfect control of his temper, the most
deliberate coolness; and it is the more meritorious because it
is real self-command. His feelings are as quick and his spirits
as high as those of any one among us, but he certainly has them
more under government. I can scarcely express to you how much
both he and Mr. Gallatin have risen in my esteem since we have
been here living together. Gallatin has not quite so constant
a supremacy over his own emotions; yet he seldom yields to an
ebullition of temper, and recovers from it immediately. He has a
faculty, when discussion grows too warm, of turning off its edge
by a joke, which I envy him more than all his other talents;
and he has in his character one of the most extraordinary
combinations of stubbornness and of flexibility that I ever
met with in man. His greatest fault I think to be an ingenuity
sometimes trenching upon ingenuousness.”
Gallatin’s opinion of Adams was not so enthusiastic as Adams’s
admiration for him. He thought Adams’s chief fault to be that he lacked
judgment “to a deplorable degree.”[72] Of Clay, whether in his merits
or his faults, only one opinion was possible. Clay’s character belonged
to the simple Southern or Virginia type, somewhat affected, but not
rendered more complex, by Western influence,--and transparent beyond
need of description or criticism.
The extraordinary patience and judgment of Gallatin, aided by the
steady support of Bayard, carried all the American points without
sacrificing either Adams or Clay, and with no quarrel of serious
importance on any side. When Lord Bathurst received the American note
of December 14, he replied December 19, yielding the last advantage he
possessed:[73] “The Prince Regent regrets to find that there does not
appear any prospect of being able to arrive at such an arrangement with
regard to the fisheries as would have the effect of coming to a full
and satisfactory explanation on that subject;” but since this was the
case, the disputed article might be altogether omitted.
Thus the treaty became simply a cessation of hostilities, leaving
every claim on either side open for future settlement. The formality
of signature was completed December 24, and closed an era of American
history. In substance, the treaty sacrificed much on both sides for
peace. The Americans lost their claims for British spoliations, and
were obliged to admit question of their right to Eastport and their
fisheries in British waters; the British failed to establish their
principles of impressment and blockade, and admitted question of their
right to navigate the Mississippi and trade with the Indians. Perhaps
at the moment the Americans were the chief losers; but they gained
their greatest triumph in referring all their disputes to be settled by
time, the final negotiator, whose decision they could safely trust.