T

CHAPTER IX

PEACE AT ANY PRICE

HE war having once begun must run its course. The irritation and astonishment over American victories at sea merely roused the English to greater stubbornness. Three frigates and 500 merchant ships on the list of captures called loudly for revenge. The blockade of the Chesapeake and the Delaware was no more eloquent of British purpose than the exemption of Boston and New England from military inconvenience. Great Britain imitated General Hull's appeal to Canada by inviting disaffection in New England. The Northeast she treated in all respects as neutral, purchased supplies at rates advantageous to the natives, and, to the intense indignation of the Federal Government, by a system of licenses threw open to New England the commerce of the West Indies. Just as the extent of Napoleon's defeat stood revealed, the determination of Great Britain for a finish fight was evident.

In 1813, therefore, it appeared that peace at almost any price was the alternative to a war of indefinite duration, which would throw the United States back into the anarchy of the Confederation, to bankruptcy and secession. But the road to peace was winding. The best approach lay through the Tsar.

PEACE PRELIMINARIES

Alexander I in spite of close alliance with England in their joint war on Napoleon could not forget that he was fighting for the freedom of the seas. His minister, Roumanzoff, long favorable to the interests of Napoleon, was slow to adopt the British point of view. Hence John Quincy Adams, whose position was logically impossible at a court which could not fail to look upon the American war as the

betrayal of a friend, found his position more endurable than there was reason to expect.1

When Alexander inquired of the American minister whether mediation would be welcome, Adams was prompt in the affirmative. Similar inquiries through Lord Cathcart, British ambassador at St. Petersburg, met with a less favorable response. Nevertheless the British did not wish to offend their powerful ally. Lord Castlereagh, foreign secretary in the war-time ministry, preferred to shift the responsibility to the supposed reluctance of America.

In America, meanwhile, discussion turned on personnel. Adams was competent to act alone. It was thought, however, that a commission would contribute greater weight, especially with a Federalist representative. James A. Bayard, of Delaware, was the choice for second member. The third member, Albert Gallatin, though brilliant, betrayed the depth of the emergency. The demoralization of war finance called for the utmost talents of Gallatin. To abandon the Treasury for the uncertainties of diplomacy meant, in the last analysis, that in Gallatin's opinion the only hope of treasury or government itself lay in the speedy negotiation of a peace.

Personal reasons contributed to Gallatin's acceptance. Dissension had entered the cabinet in the person of General Armstrong, erstwhile minister at Paris, now Secretary of War. The General and Monroe became enemies at once because of Armstrong's evident intention to direct military operations in person rather than allow Monroe an opportunity for glory. And Gallatin, whose aspirations were far from military, took mortal umbrage at the appointment of one of the few men whom he utterly despised, William Duane, editor of the Philadelphia Aurora, to the position of adjutant-general. Accordingly with some degree of satisfaction, Gallatin put through the business of a $16,000,000

1 Adams, Henry, History of the United States of America, vol. V, p. 410.

2 Ibid. VI, 426-427.

The appointment of editors to military commissions by Jefferson and Madison may be compared to the appointment to peerages by Lloyd George. Both had political objectives. Both created scandals.

loan, distributed the proceeds to the army and the navy, and set forth, May 9, 1813, to the Baltic and his mission. From the start, however, his hands were tied by his instructions. America would go far toward meeting objections to the use of British seamen in her mercantile marine. But on the formal issue of impressment, she would not yield.

The Senate in a captious mood refused to confirm the nomination of Gallatin to Russia, or of Jonathan Russell to Sweden. But this was not determined till the former had been many weeks at the scene of his new duties. Action in the case of Sweden reflected little credit on Federalists or their Republican allies. Fortunately it did not deprive the country of Gallatin's high services.

Arriving at St. Petersburg, the commissioners pursued their labors amid divided counsels. After his great triumph in ridding Russia of the foe, a period of doubt ensued for Alexander. Napoleon hastily recruited another army, well nigh the equal of the one destroyed in 1812, and with a show of old-time vigor defeated the allies at Lutzen and Bautzen in May, at Dresden in August. Amid these uncertainties of war, and pending the great Battle of the Nations at Leipzig in October, Alexander carried on a doublethreaded diplomacy. At St. Petersburg he maintained Roumanzoff as chancellor. Foreign relations centered officially in him. Roumanzoff was still pro-French in sympathy. He included the Americans in his patronage. Success for himself and the commissioners as well depended in his estimation on the ability of Napoleon to hold his enemies at bay.

Meanwhile at the camp with Alexander the influences favorable to England prevailed. Count Nesselrode, the rising light in the counsels of his master, was to England what Roumanzoff was to France. Between the Tsar and his conflicting ministers and opinions, the Russian ambassador at London was frequently perplexed.

The inconsistency lay in repeated offers of mediation, advanced by the Tsar through Roumanzoff, and repeated expressions of indifference to mediation and of approval of the British determination to treat the American issue as

her sole concern, advanced by the Tsar through Nesselrode. To both types of suggestion, Lord Castlereagh returned an answer, courteous of necessity, but inflexible. England, he said, was willing to negotiate with the commissioners directly, at Gothenburg or elsewhere, but the good offices of other nations could not possibly be accepted.*

This attitude of England's was made known to Gallatin before he entered Russia. His old friend Alexander Baring acted as an intermediary with the Foreign Secretary. In communicating his information to Gallatin, he made it very clear, moreover, that if the American instructions made impressment a sine qua non, only a deadlock could result. On this issue of all others Great Britain would never yield.

The time spent by the commissioners in Russia was lost. To have turned aside from their purpose because of Baring's information would have slighted the good offices of Russia upon which the mission was first founded, and might have cost a friend when friends were few. Nevertheless, the time seemed lost to the commissioners, and Roumanzoff shared their feeling. The Tsar received the latter's resignation after Leipzig. British influences were paramount.

British popular opinion, could it have influenced the conduct of the ministry, would have heightened the difficulty of negotiation, and made it quite impossible. So distasteful were Americans and their ways, that they were rarely mentioned, and only with contempt, a race inferior, unworthy of consideration, save now and then when some victory like Perry's on Lake Erie, the taking of Niagara, or the recovery of Detroit, provided unwelcome evidences of courage. By a strange juxtaposition of events the news of Perry's victory reached London on November 4, 1813, the very day the bells peeled forth for Leipzig. By a further coincidence Lord Castlereagh's official note to Monroe offering a direct negotiation bore the same date. The offer was at once accepted. Clay and Russell were added to the mission, and finally on February 8, 1814, the appointment of Albert Gallatin was confirmed."

4 Adams, Henry, Op. Cit. VII, 340-346. 5 Ibid. VII, 371.

THE NEGOTIATIONS AT GHENT

The American commissioners were settled at Ghent and ready for negotiation in June of 1814. But Lord Castlereagh postponed action until August. In deference partly to the fierce temper of the British press, and partly to the results expected from large forces released by victories on the continent for campaigns in America, the British government preferred delay. One principle on which it proposed to act was uti possidetis. Hence, the larger the conquests, the greater the advantage."

In addition to the principle enunciated, Great Britain meant to advance other ideas not pleasing to America. Insistence must be made on a new boundary for Maine, Vermont, and New York. The fisheries on the Newfoundland banks required relief from the unfortunate concessions in the Peace of 1783. The Great Lakes must on all accounts be secured to Britain, while the region between them and the Ohio, at whatever cost to Americans already settled there, must be erected into a buffer state for His Majesty's Indian allies. The title of America to Florida and even to Louisiana might bear investigation. Above all, impressment must be conceded as an indefeasible right.

Claims as vast as these betokened a British interpretation of the two years' war differing in important respects from that of the United States. Far from acknowledging the principle of uti possidetis the Americans regarded even status ante bellum as an unwarranted concession. Not only must the Great Lakes be safeguarded for America, but Canada itself was none too extravagant a demand. A buffer state for Indians was unthinkable. Rights in the fisheries had never been impaired. Above all the abandonment of impressment must be deemed a sine qua non."

To impose conditions-for it was not suspected that America could reject them-Castlereagh named three commissioners, of talents the most moderate. Lord Gambier

• Mahan, A. T., "The Negotiations at Ghent in 1814," in Am. Hist. Rev., XI, 80, 81.

Ibid. The entire article is important, XI, 68-87.