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 passport, from which it appeared that he carried two
distinguished passengers, Albert Gallatin and James A. Bayard, Envoys
Extraordinary to Russia. The passport 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 passenger, 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 God, who
admonished him daily and hourly of his obligations. No character in
American public life has unbosomed himself so completely as this son of
Massachusetts 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 amusement from his association 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
association 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 passengers 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 embarrassing 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 assurances 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 illustrates 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
assurances 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 assured. "There was Hail Columbia." Would not one of the gentlemen
be good enough to play or sing it? An embarrassing 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 scraped 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
God 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 amusements
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 assisted 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 assist 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 assured the Americans
of their earnest desire to end hostilities on terms honorable to both
parties. Adams replied that he and his associates 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 titular 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 passion 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 shores 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 anticipated 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 entitle 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 hitherto enjoyed in the
fisheries, since no further stipulation was deemed necessary to entitle
them to rights which were recognized by the treaty of 1783.
When the British reply to the American project was read, Adams noted
with quiet satisfaction that the reservation as to the fisheries was
passed over in silence--silence, he thought, gave consent--but Clay flew
into a towering passion when he learned that the old right of navigating
the Mississippi was reasserted. Adams was prepared to accept the British
proposals; Clay refused point blank; and Gallatin sided this time
with Clay. Could a compromise be effected between these stubborn
representatives of East and West? Gallatin tried once more. Why not
accept the British right of navigation--surely an unimportant point
after all--and ask for an express affirmation of fishery rights?
Clay replied hotly that if they were going to sacrifice the West to
Massachusetts, he would not sign the treaty. With infinite patience
Gallatin continued to play the role of peacemaker and finally brought
both these self-willed men to agree to offer a renewal of both rights.
Instead of accepting this eminently fair adjustment, the British
representatives proposed that the two disputed rights be left to future
negotiation. The suggestion caused another explosion in the ranks of the
Americans. Adams would not admit even by implication that the rights for
which his sire fought could be forfeited by war and become the subject
of negotiation. But all save Adams were ready to yield. Again Gallatin
came to the rescue. He penned a note rejecting the British offer,
because it seemed to imply the abandonment of a right; but in turn he
offered to omit in the treaty all reference to the fisheries and the
Mississippi or to include a general reference to further negotiation
of all matters still in dispute, in such a way as not to relinquish any
rights. To this solution of the difficulty all agreed, though Adams was
still torn by doubts and Clay believed that the treaty was bound to be
"damned bad" anyway.
An anxious week of waiting followed. On the 22d of December came the
British reply--a grudging acceptance of Gallatin's first proposal to
omit all reference to the fisheries and the Mississippi. Two days later
the treaty was signed in the refectory of the Carthusian monastery
where the British commissioners were quartered. Let the tired
seventeen-year-old boy who had been his father's scribe through these
long weary months describe the events of Christmas Day, 1814. "The
British delegates very civilly asked us to dinner," wrote James Gallatin
in his diary. "The roast beef and plum pudding was from England, and
everybody drank everybody else's health. The band played first God Save
the King, to the toast of the King, and Yankee Doodle, to the toast of
the President. Congratulations on all sides and a general atmosphere of
serenity; it was a scene to be remembered. God grant there may be always
peace between the two nations. I never saw father so cheerful; he was in
high spirits, and his witty conversation was much appreciated." *
* "A Great Peace Maker: The Dairy of James Gallatin" (1914).
p. 36.
Peace! That was the outstanding achievement of the American
commissioners at Ghent. Measured by the purposes of the war-hawks of
1812, measured by the more temperate purposes of President Madison, the
Treaty of Ghent was a confession of national weakness and humiliating
failure. Clay, whose voice had been loudest for war and whose kindling
fancy had pictured American armies dictating terms of surrender at
Quebec, set his signature to a document which redressed not a single
grievance and added not a foot of territory to the United States.
Adams, who had denounced Great Britain for the crime of "man-stealing,"
accepted a treaty of peace which contained not a syllable about
impressment. President Madison, who had reluctantly accepted war as the
last means of escape from the blockade of American ports and the ruin
of neutral trade, recommended the ratification of a convention which did
not so much as mention maritime questions and the rights of neutrals.
Peace--and nothing more? Much more, indeed, than appears in rubrics on
parchment. The Treaty of Ghent must be interpreted in the light of more
than a hundred years of peace between the two great branches of the
English-speaking race. More conscious of their differences than anything
else, no doubt, these eight peacemakers at Ghent nevertheless spoke a
common tongue and shared a common English trait: they laid firm hold on
realities. Like practical men they faced the year 1815 and not 1812. In
a pacified Europe rid of the Corsican, questions of maritime practice
seemed dead issues. Let the dead past bury its dead! To remove possible
causes of future controversy seemed wiser statesmanship than to rake
over the embers of quarrels which might never be rekindled. So it
was that in prosaic articles they provided for three commissions to
arbitrate boundary controversies at critical points in the far-flung
frontier between Canada and the United States, and thus laid the
foundations of an international accord which has survived a hundred
years.