For Honour's Sake (44 page)

In an April 20 letter, Bayard echoed Gallatin's concern. The “great augmentation of their disposable force presents an added temptation to prosecute the war. You must also know that the temper of the country is highly excited against us and decidedly expressed in favor of the continuance of hostilities.”
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“The numerous English forces in France, Italy, Holland, and Portugal,” warned Gallatin, “ready for immediate service, and for which there is no further employment in Europe, afford to this government the means of sending both to Canada and to the United States a very formidable army, which we are not prepared to meet with any regular, well-organized force; and they will also turn against us as much of their superabundant naval forces as they may think adequate to any object they have in view.”
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Bayard and Gallatin expressed these anxieties in a joint letter to James Monroe on May 6. Requiring that the British agree to end impressment would assure failure, they insisted. “We think that … for our government the alternative only remains either to resolve on a vigorous prosecution of the war under an expectation of probable success or to forego for the present the assertion of our rights on what was the principal
remaining object of the war.” They urged Washington to agree to negotiate in England or, if that was unacceptable, somewhere in Holland.
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Gallatin was uneasy over the seeming lack of urgency that prevailed among Liverpool's cabinet members. Even when dining privately with Gallatin, Bathurst remained “stiff and formal.” On April 30, a Saturday, he and James dined with Liverpool, but the prime minister never allowed the discussion to stray toward business.
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“Unfortunately, whilst the greater part of the civilized world rejoices at the restoration of a general peace, the United States alone remains at war, and are placed in a more critical situation than ever they were since the first years of their revolution. Pride, avarice, and ambition will throw here great obstacles to an accommodation for which there has ever been, on our part, the sincerest disposition,” Gallatin wrote his friend the Marquis de Lafayette.
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He could imagine that the British deliberately stalled in anticipation of military successes over the summer campaign. Each day passed could reduce the American commissioner.' negotiating power.

Clay responded from Gothenburg. Russell was in Stockholm presenting credentials to the Swedish court. He had no news of John Quincy Adams's whereabouts save that he was en route from St. Petersburg to Stockholm and expected in early May. About the change of venue, Clay would agree to relocate to Holland only if the Swedish government were notified that this was “at the instance of Great Britain.” As to negotiating in London, Clay refused “to submit to further condescension, especially when we have yet to see in British history the example of their haughty people having been conciliated by the condescension of their enemy … we shall best promote the objects of our mission and acquit ourselves of our duty by preserving a firm and undismayed countenance.”
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Clay forwarded papers officially accrediting the five American commissioners, which Gallatin and Bayard presented to Bathurst on May 16 along with a proposal that the negotiations transpire either at Amsterdam or The Hague. Bathurst countered with the old Flemish capital of Ghent. Recently liberated from French rule, the Flemish provinces were about to unite with Holland. The two men
replied that Ghent was acceptable to them as Gothenburg had been. They would advise the other commissioners “to repair immediately to Ghent.” Bathurst assured them that the Prince Regent would promptly appoint his commissioners.
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When Adams, prevented from sailing from Reval, Estonia, to Stockholm for two weeks by unfavourable winds, arrived on May 25 and learned of this change, he was infuriated. He thought the journey to Sweden from Russia a wasted effort. On May 28, he wrote Monroe from Stockholm: “I cannot entertain a doubt that our conferences, wherever held, will be arrested at the threshold by an utter impossibility of agreement upon the basis of negotiation.”
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Resigned to going through the motions, Adams hastened to Gothenburg, where on June 6 he found Clay had departed for Ghent five days earlier via coastal packet to Copenhagen and then overland coach. Clay had left
John Adams
to transport Adams and Russell, who reached the city four days later. In the early hours of June 12, the ship sailed on a fair breeze.
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From London, Gallatin reported to Monroe that Bayard had left London on May 23 with plans to visit Paris before proceeding to Ghent. Gallatin remained, fretfully waiting for word from Castlereagh as to when the British commissioners would travel to Ghent. Although the Prince Regent had confirmed three commissioners proposed by the foreign secretary, there was no sign they were going to depart any time soon. On June 9, Gallatin advised Castlereagh that Clay had departed Gothenburg, Adams and Russell would soon leave Sweden, Bayard was gone. All that held him in London was a desire to know when the British commissioners would repair to Ghent. The note languished at the Foreign Office for more than a week before one of Castlereagh's undersecretaries replied that he expected the British commissioners to depart London about the first of July. Satisfied that he had done all possible to hurry the British along, Gallatin and James left for Paris on June 21 with plans to remain there a week.

Gallatin reported to Monroe that the commissioners were finally gathering. “This does not bespeak any wish [by the British] to hasten the negotiations.”
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In past letters he had reported continuing naval and
army reinforcements being sent to North America and predicted that between 15,000 and 20,000 troops could soon be landed on the nation's Atlantic coast. A confidant had informed Gallatin that Castlereagh and other ministers now agreed with the national sentiment that they should “inflict on America a chastisement that will teach her that war is not to be declared against Great Britain with impunity.”
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Gallatin was not far off the mark. While Castlereagh truly desired an end to the war in North America and so hoped the negotiations bore fruit, he also believed the tide ran against the Americans. So while the British government inched through the early summer toward the talks, it simultaneously sped the flow of troops and ships across the Atlantic and urged its commanders there to carry the war to American soil.

In a secret dispatch sent on June 2 to Governor Prevost, Bathurst advised that before year-end more than 13,000 troops would arrive in Quebec. “His Majesty's Government conceive that the Canadas will not only be protected for the time against any attack which the enemy may have the means of making, but it will enable you to commence offensive operations on the Enemy's Frontier before the close of this Campaign …. The object of your operations will be; first, to give immediate protection: secondly, to obtain if possible ultimate security to His Majesty's Possessions in America.”

To fulfill the first object, Bathurst ordered the “entire destruction of Sackets harbour and the Naval Establishments on Lake Erie and Lake Champlain.” Fort Niagara was to be retained and Detroit and Michigan Territory occupied as part of the second object. Success on this front would restore “Detroit and the whole of the Michigan Country to the Indians,” rendering “the British Frontier … materially improved.” Prevost should also extend the British lines south to gain as much country around Lake Champlain as possible, but with the proviso that he not extend his line of advance so far that his troops were exposed to being cut off. To secure the St. Lawrence River from Halifax to Quebec, Bathurst ordered Lt. Gen. Sir John Sherbrooke, commanding the British army in Nova Scotia, to occupy a corridor of the District of Maine—part of Massachusetts State—paralleling the shoreline.

While these operations were conducted in the north, four regiments from Europe would assault America's coastline. The government also planned to collect “a considerable force … at Cork without delay” that would “make a more serious attack on some part of the Coasts of the United States.”
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This rapid escalation of British strength in North America would not, of course, happen overnight. Ten thousand troops bound for Quebec would be moved in three convoys spaced several weeks apart because of difficulties assembling sufficient ships. But even to the defensively minded Prevost the intention was clear. He was to seize the initiative from the Americans and occupy territory that the British government would retain either for the Indians or as part of an expanded British North America. The adjustment of boundaries enabling this would be imposed on the Americans as a condition of peace.

Bathurst held no illusions that the negotiations would proceed smoothly, with the British commissioners simply submitting the government's settlement to the Americans and having it confirmed. There must be some give and take. Compromises were likely. Demands would necessarily require adjustment and clarification. He and Castlereagh concurred that they must approve any changes in the British position. The commissioners, therefore, were selected to ensure they would do nothing intemperate that might commit Britain to an unapproved course.

As the alleged causes of the war primarily regarded maritime issues, it was deemed that the commission's head should not only be a member of the House of Lords but also a senior ranking officer of the Royal Navy. Vice-Admiral James Gambier was appointed to this role. Also included was an expert in maritime and naval law, William Adams, who would be responsible for drafting the treaty's clauses. Gambier and Adams, however, were not expected to lead negotiations. That fell to the third member, War and Colonial Office Undersecretary Henry Goulburn. Trustworthy and loyal, he could be relied on to resolutely advance the British position with clarity and precision. He would also maintain strict lines of communication through Bathurst with Castlereagh and other senior cabinet members.

Despite Goulburn's being junior to Gambier and Adams in both age and social position, neither man was likely to protest his degree of influence over the proceedings. The forty-two-year-old Adams was noted for his mastery of legal details, but had no diplomatic experience. Like Goulburn, he was a graduate of Trinity College and had begun to practise law in 1800. His foray into naval law had come in 1811, when he was appointed by the Admiralty to a commission charged with regulating how vice-admiralty courts were conducted at stations abroad.
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Gambier's forty-seven-year career had concluded in 1811, when his term as commander of the Channel fleet expired and the Admiralty offered no other posting. Born on October 13, 1756, in Bermuda, where his father served as the colony's lieutenant governor, Gambier had been signed on as a midshipman aboard
Yarmouth
when he was eleven. Fifteen years later he gained command of the frigate
Raleigh
and fought several small engagements against French and American ships until 1781, when he asked to be relieved of command because of illness. By now Gambier had grown into a spare-framed man with a square face, his expression seemingly fixed in thought, his hairline receding. He was noted as a humourless soul who tended to tilt his head in a manner that some thought concealed a sinful measure of pride.

This observation would have horrified the devoutly religious Gambier. In the early 1800s he penned a tract defending the Church of England's right to impose tithes, and he insisted on the Sabbath services being properly conducted aboard ship at a time when such observances were normally perfunctory. In another departure from the norm, he denied women from coming aboard unless they could prove they were seamen's wives. Until a sailor was injured by the practice, anyone overheard swearing had to wear a wooden collar to which two 32-pound balls of round shot were attached by short lengths of chain. Such practices earned Gambier the nickname Dismal Jimmie.

On June 1, 1794, Gambier distinguished himself during a battle with the French near Ushant. At the helm of the 74-gun
Defence,
Gambier charged the French line with such dash that fleet commander Lord Howe cried, “Look at the
Defence,
see how nobly she goes into action!” Soon all
Defence's
masts were shot away, her decks running with blood,
but Gambier refused to strike the colours while the superior 100-gun
Républican
pummelled her. When the French ship turned to meet another threat,
Defence
was towed to safety. Gambier's casualties totalled 17 killed and 36 wounded, but his fellow officers lauded this resolute stand. A fellow captain remarked jokingly, “Jemmy, whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth!”

On the first anniversary of the battle Gambier was promoted to rear admiral and four years later to vice-admiral. In 1802, he undertook a two-year posting as governor of Newfoundland and then returned to serve as First Lord of the Admiralty. Three years later he assumed command of the 98-gun
Prince of Wales.

When France entered into a secret treaty with Russia that would bar British ships from using the ports of Portugal, Denmark, and Sweden and hand the fleets of each nation to the French, the Admiralty was ordered to either capture or destroy the Danish fleet. Gambier sailed from Yarmouth on July 26, 1807, with seventeen ships of the line. Copenhagen was subjected to a long siege that included a three-day bombardment that resulted in the Danish surrender on September 7. Gambier's performance brought him a peerage. Given command of the Channel fleet in May 1808, he led it in one major battle off Isle d'Aix near Lorient. Aided by fireships under command of Lord Cochrane, the British ships of the line either destroyed the French ships or drove them aground. Gambier, however, was not accorded the glory that would normally be his for such an achievement because of accusations by Cochrane that the entire fleet could have been destroyed had the admiral shown more vigour. A court martial convened at Gambier's request exonerated him. Cochrane's career was ruined while Gambier returned to command the Channel fleet until his term expired. But his reputation remained sufficiently clouded to ensure that he would not again see active service.
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