For Honour's Sake (41 page)

Not dissuading Rumyantsev from further Russian overtures, Gallatin advanced the discussion with Castlereagh through Baring.
While ostensibly the letters exchanged were purely private correspondence, the British banker's thoughts seemed at times to come almost directly from Castlereagh's hand. Gallatin's were more formal, a result of being drafted in committee by the three Americans. The first hurdle Gallatin raised was that the three Americans were empowered by their government only to participate in mediation. Direct negotiation had not been authorized. For this reason alone mediation might be the best course.

While raising this problem with Baring, Gallatin began the laborious process of trying to get the commission's powers expanded to include direct negotiation. Though it would be months before a response arrived from Washington, he set the wheels in motion for the president to expand their role by reporting Baring's approach to Secretary of State James Monroe. If mediation was bluntly refused or accepted, he said, the envoys would either return home or enter into mediation. But what if the British response was ambiguous? “It is for the President to decide what should be done in that case,” Gallatin decided.
¹⁷

Summer drained away into autumn and the fitful correspondence between Baring and Gallatin continued while no decision was forthcoming from London on the mediation proposal. In fact, Prime Minister Liverpool's cabinet considered the renewed offer in mid-October and again rejected it. Baring hinted at the finality of this decision in an October 12 letter. This time the language of the letter sounded even more like Castlereagh. “We wish for peace. The pressure of the war upon our commerce and manufactures is over; they have ample relief in other quarters; and, indeed the dependence of the two countries on each other was, as it usually is, overrated. But the war has no object; it is expensive, and we want to carry our efforts elsewhere. Our desire of peace, therefore, cannot be doubted and you can rely on it.” A possible resolution to the maritime issue was proposed without setting out specifics, but if Gallatin considered the commissioners empowered to negotiate directly, Baring wrote, “I think you would soon complete the work of peace without the help or hindrance of any mediator.”
¹⁸

That decided Gallatin. Summoning private secretary George Dallas on October 18, Gallatin told him to pack his bags and leave that very day
for London. Once there he was to discreetly, through Baring and the Russian ambassador Count Lieven, determine whether either direct negotiation or mediation was remotely possible.

Gallatin wanted to go himself, but could not without the president's blessing—something he hoped to attain once his letter to Monroe reached Washington. But the day after Dallas left St. Petersburg came news from Monroe that struck Gallatin like “a thunderclap. Letters from Washington; one announcing officially that the Senate had rejected father's nomination as head of the Commission by one vote,” young James Gallatin scribbled in his diary.
¹⁹
A distraught Rumyantsev begged Gallatin to remain in St. Petersburg. Surely the American Senate would reverse this inane decision. Gallatin considered rushing home to confront his political enemies, but confessed more to being “strongly impressed with the idea that he ought to resume the negotiations.”
²⁰
Peace was what America needed most; was it not his duty to try to achieve that?

On the last day of October further bad news arrived in the form of Lord Walpole, the new British ambassador to Russia. Ignorant and coarse, Walpole told the Americans “he never heard from his government, he never wrote to them, he never read newspapers excepting articles about murders, could not bear to look at births or marriages, he never wore boots, never walked, hated music and dancing.”
²¹
And, by the by, the cabinet had scotched any idea of mediation. They should not be further misled by Rumyantsev's “intrigues.”

The count must have already known the news, for only the day before he had told Gallatin that once the American mission to St. Petersburg was closed it was his intention to retire from office. November 1 brought ice to the Neva River, precluding any chance of leaving Russia by sea. The weeks dragged by, snow lay thick upon the land, and no further news reached the Americans in St. Petersburg. Tsar Alexander seemed to have forgotten them, not notifying them whether the mediation offer was withdrawn or to be renewed. Gallatin finally decided there was no further point in waiting. On January 12, he informed Rumyantsev that he and Bayard were leaving St. Petersburg. Adams would remain, continuing to represent America in the Russian court.

Two weeks later the two envoys and their secretaries climbed into horse-drawn sledges and set out on a long journey to Amsterdam. There they would await word from Washington on whether to try negotiating directly with the British. The journey took two months. March 5 brought them to Amsterdam, where James Gallatin—having abandoned his diary entirely during the long trip—entered a single sentence. “After a terrible, cold, and weary journey we arrived here last night.”
²²

T
he correspondence between Albert Gallatin and Alexander Baring encouraged Castlereagh to approach James Monroe with an offer of direct negotiations. His letter, written on November 4, 1813, was carried to America by the British schooner
Bramble.
After its arrival under flag of truce at Annapolis on December 30, a courier galloped through the dark night and placed the message in Monroe's hands just as the clock struck midnight.

“To avoid an unnecessary continuance of the calamities of war … I can assure you that the British government is willing to enter into discussion with the Government of America for the conciliatory adjustment of the differences subsisting between the two States, with an earnest desire on their part to bring them to a favourable issue, upon principles of perfect reciprocity, not inconsistent with the established maxims of public law, and with the maritime rights of the British empire,” Castlereagh wrote. He guaranteed for the American commissioners safe passage to wherever in Europe was agreed for the talks.
¹

While maintaining the impression that the United States remained determined to continue the war, Monroe and President James Madison leapt at the offer. On January 5, the secretary of state sent a reply back to London on
Bramble.
Although he regretted Britain's refusal of mediation through Tsar Alexander, Monroe imagined that the Russian emperor would recognize that direct negotiation “affords the best prospect of attaining speedily what was the object of his interposition. I am accordingly instructed to make known to your
lordship … that the President accedes to his proposition.” Madison suggested Gothenburg, Sweden, thinking the Swedish king would “readily acquiesce in the choice of a place for their pacific negotiations within his dominions.”
²

Madison reported the news to Congress on January 7, 1814, and forwarded for Senate approval John Quincy Adams, James Bayard, Henry Clay, and Jonathan Russell as envoys. Under the mistaken impression that Albert Gallatin was somewhere on the high seas bound for home, Madison did not advance his name. Instead, Adams was proposed as the commission's chairman. Gallatin was added to the list on February 8, but Adams retained the chair. Madison emphasized that Gallatin would not continue as secretary of the treasury. Mollified, the Senate endorsed his appointment the next day. The appointment of Adams and Bayard passed unopposed. Clay's nomination alarmed Federalists, who thought the congressional Speaker too fervent in his desire to annex Canada, and that insistence on this point would defeat the negotiations. Bayard, however, was presented as sufficient counterweight to keep the commission balanced toward a spirit of compromise. Because Russell's appointment was once again tied to his also being America's minister to Sweden, it initially met Senate resistance. In the end, the Senate capitulated because the discussions were likely to occur in that country, making a diplomatic presence there necessary. Russell's approval squeaked through.
³

Federalist concerns over Clay were valid. Support for the Kentuckian in Republican and western circles was anchored on the certainty that he would never sign any treaty that failed to uphold American honour or prohibited Canada's annexation. Although there remained almost no support for the war in New England, in the west the war's purpose was perceived as necessary to end British influence over the Indians—considered the only cause of their uprisings against American settlers. This meant that Canada must be taken.

While the Federalists correctly divined the mood of the western frontier, they misjudged Clay's commitment to peace. Having brought about the war, he now equally and without apology was determined to hold centre stage in negotiating an armistice that achieved the goals for which so much blood had been spilled. The ink was barely dry on the
papers confirming the appointments than Clay departed for New York City to hasten across the sea to begin proceedings.

Clay wrote Monroe from a New York hotel on February 13 to express his “satisfaction that … our mission has acquired the benefit of Mr. Gallatin's services, th.' I confess I am sometimes afraid that we shall find neither him nor Bayard at Gothenburg.”
⁴
The possibility that Gallatin and Bayard might pass the ship bearing Clay and Russell to Europe was an anxiety for Clay and Madison's executive. It was imperative that the Europe-bound Americans reach their destination with news of the reconstituted commission before the other two abandoned hope and caught a ship homeward.

The corvette
John Adams
stood in harbour, its captain had in hand a safe-passage passport from Vice-Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane, Clay was present with bags packed. But there was no word of Russell. By the 18th, Monroe instructed Clay to sail alone if Russell had not appeared by the time his letter was received. Clay stalled, and finally reported on February 23 that Russell had arrived. The ship would sail later that day.
⁵
It would, however, take until April 13 for
John Adams
to reach Gothenburg.

While hoping that negotiations would bear fruit, Madison positioned the government in an awkward middle ground aimed at preventing the deep schisms that existed over the war from crippling the nation. The war would continue, he assured the House and the Senate, while at the same time the effort to negotiate a peace treaty would receive equal attention. He therefore rejected calls from the seaboard states to suspend further military action pending outcome of the talks. Yet his vision of waging the war was judged insufficiently fervent by John Armstrong. Under increasing criticism for the failures of 1813, Armstrong demanded a vast increase in forces dedicated to conquering Canada: expanded fleets on Lake Ontario and Lake Champlain, the launching of vessels on the St. Lawrence River to gain control of Lake St. Francis, 55,000 men added to the army through classification whereby the nation was divided into sections with each required to provide a specific number for military service.

The army faced a manpower crisis. Most five-year enlistments would expire in a few months, as would the twelve-and eighteen-month enlistments of men who had joined in 1812 or 1813. This convinced Armstrong
of the necessity for classification, but the plan was little more than thinly veiled conscription—something akin to slavery to average Americans. Faced with congressional opposition, Armstrong compromised: introduce classification or offer increased premium payments to those who enlisted. One way or the other, the army must be stronger to conquer Canada in 1814.

The fact the British had laid waste to the Niagara River country in December added urgency to Armstrong's calls for an all-out campaign against Canada. But the devastation in this area also hobbled his efforts, for the Republican majority insisted that regaining control of the Niagara Peninsula must be the priority. This left Armstrong precisely where he had been in 1812 and 1813, waging a war of limited strategic value in western Upper Canada. Kingston, Montreal, and Quebec City were where British power was concentrated, yet there was little support for concerted efforts against these objectives.