For Honour's Sake (52 page)

An incredulous Macdonough reported to Washington: “The Almighty has been pleased to grant us a signal victory on Lake Champlain.” To which Macomb added that Prevost's great army was “now retreating precipitately.”
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As Prevost drew away, the last hopes of an overwhelming victory cowing the Americans into peace on British terms were dashed. The season of campaigning was through. Whether the war continued into 1815 now rested on discussions between eight men in Ghent.

H
ow the North American battlefront influenced the faltering discussions at Ghent depended entirely on the vagaries of Atlantic winds, currents, and weather. For the Americans there was the added complication of deciding the best moment for releasing
John Adams,
which stood in port at Helder awaiting orders to bear their final dispatch to Washington. It was already late August. If they delayed longer there would be scarce chance of receiving a reply before winter storms prohibited cross-Atlantic travel. It was therefore decided after the August 19 debacle that secretary George Dallas would return to Washington with the expected British document and various public and private reports they had written either collectively or individually to James Monroe. Only if their response to the British proved quickly written would they delay his departure until it was finished.

Aware of the urgent need to submit the written position, during a marathon session that carried on far into the night, Henry Goulburn scribbled a precisely worded summary of Castlereagh's instructions to the British commissioners. In the morning, the other commissioners and the foreign secretary studied the result. Although the tone was more confrontational than Castlereagh liked, he approved the document, while perhaps not reading it carefully. He and his retinue then boarded a caravan of coaches and continued their journey to Vienna.

Goulburn's note reiterated Britain's dismay that the Americans lacked instructions regarding including the Indians in the peace and setting boundaries for their territories. If they had a “sincere desire for the
restoration of peace,” then surely they would enter into a provisional agreement subject to the United States government's approval. Despite Castlereagh's admonitions against prohibiting the right to acquire territory through conquest, Goulburn inserted the requirement that neither Britain nor the United States would “acquire by purchase, or otherwise, any territory.” The natural military frontier should run from Lake Ontario to Lake Superior, and the Americans must maintain no military presence along the shores of the lakes or on their waters. Finally, Goulburn warned that if the Americans decided they could not consent to provisional agreements, Britain could not “be precluded, by anything that has passed, from varying the terms now proposed, in such a manner, as the state of the war, at the time of resuming the conference, may, in their judgement, render advisable.”
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The ultimatum was clear. Treat now, or face tougher terms later.

While waiting for delivery of the British note, Albert Gallatin had drafted a joint communiqué detailing the concessions demanded and remarking upon “the forcible manner” of their delivery. “We need hardly say, that the demands … will receive from us an unanimous and decided negative. We do not deem it necessary to detain the
John Adams,
for the purpose of transiting to you the official notes which may pass on the subject, and close the negotiation; and we felt it our duty immediately to apprise you, by this hasty but correct sketch of our last conference that there is not, at present, any hope of peace.”
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The British note delivered later that morning contained nothing that dispelled this conclusion. That evening, Dallas left for Washington.

With grim resolve the Americans began responding to the British note. John Quincy Adams prepared a first draft. “I found, as usual,” Adams confided to his diary, “the draft was not satisfactory to my colleagues. On the general view … we are unanimous, but in my exposition of it, one objects to the form and another to the substance of almost every paragraph.” Ever moderate, Gallatin sought to strike anything that might offend. Henry Clay thought the language too figurative and unsuitable to a state paper. Jonathan Russell proposed amendments to virtually every sentence. While agreeing with Adams on what needed to be said, James Bayard chose “to say it only in his own language.” Everyone but Adams thought the draft overly long and argumentative regarding the Indian issues. He was to try again.

Two days later the document was still in contention. Gallatin had shredded Adams's second draft, inserting dozens of corrections and alterations. Clay added a couple of paragraphs. Bayard started his own version but failed to complete it. Unable to agree, they finally threw “the shreds and patches” in secretary Christopher Hughes's lap to fashion into something workable.
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That evening they ended sitting at a Ghent dignitary's table with their British counterparts. Adams found Goulburn's wife charming company, but could not say the same for her husband.

The next day, while the Americans continued labouring over their response, Goulburn wrote to Lord Bathurst. His discussions with various American commissioners had convinced him “that they do not mean to continue the negotiations.” Sitting next to him the night before, Clay had bluntly stated that they would seek instructions from Washington because the British demands were equivalent to asking “for the cession of Boston or New York.” After dinner, Bayard had taken him aside and warned at length that the negotiations “could not end in peace” because the British terms not only ruined such prospects “but were sacrificing the Party of which he was a member to their political adversaries.” He then plunged into a long lesson in American party politics intended to convince Goulburn that Britain's hopes rested with the Federalists, and a peace treaty on less onerous terms would assure that party ascended to power. Goulburn could think of nothing to say to this, so barely offered Bayard the courtesy of a reply. In a postscript, Goulburn noted that “the question of acquiring Indian Territory by conquest can hardly come under discussion.”
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On August 24, four days after receipt of the British note, the Americans finalized a reply shortly before midnight. All were weary and irritable, displeased with the result. Two-thirds of what Adams had written was jettisoned. “The remnant left,” Adams grumbled, “is patched with scraps from Mr. Gallatin, and scraps from Mr. Bayard, and scraps from Mr. Clay, all of who are dissatisfied with the paper as finally constructed.” Next morning, the document was signed and Hughes delivered it. Expecting the result to be a rapid closure of the negotiations, Adams began to make plans to return to St. Petersburg,
possibly by
way
of Vienna, where he might attempt a direct discussion with Viscount Castlereagh.
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Although only a fifth the length of Adams's original draft, the document set in Hughes's fluid script ran to fifteen pages. The war, it declared, was rooted entirely in maritime issues, so the demand that America surrender “one-third of the territorial dominions of the United States” to “perhaps 20,000 Indians” was both unforeseeable and certain to be rejected. As for unilaterally demilitarizing the Great Lakes and surrendering territory to enable a British road link from Quebec to Halifax, the commissioners said they had no authority “to cede any part of the United States.” The terms proposed by Britain “would inflict the most vital injury on the United States, by dismembering their territory, by arresting their natural growth and increase of population, by leaving their northern and western frontier equally exposed to British invasion, and to Indian aggression; they are, above all, DISHONORABLE to the United States, in demanding from them 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.”

America no longer desired “to continue [the war] in defence of abstract principles, which have, for the present, ceased to have any practical effect.” The commissioners had been instructed “to agree to its termination, both parties restoring whatever territory they may have taken, and both reserving all their rights, in relation to their respective seamen.” To ensure lasting peace, they were empowered to discuss all issues over which either nation felt “differences or uncertainty had existed” and might “interrupt the harmony of the two countries.” But concluding the peace should not depend on these issues being settled. The demands made by Britain were “NEW and unexpected pretensions” that raised “an insuperable obstacle to a pacification.” In conclusion, the commissioners did not need to look to their government for instruction on these points because they would only be “a fit subject of deliberation, when it becomes necessary to decide upon the expediency of an absolute surrender of national independence.”
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On reading the American response, the British commissioners concluded they required instruction from London. Goulburn advised Bathurst that the American.' refusal to enter into any provisional
agreements was an outcome “not provided for in our instructions” and wanted to ensure cabinet agreed that the negotiations should be broken off. He suggested replying “that their proceeding throughout this part of the negotiation has been nothing more nor less than a dictation to Great Britain that Although America declared War for the sake of annexing our dominions yet she will cede nothing which can contribute to increase their security or difficulty of annexation at a future time.” Goulburn thought the Americans sought to blame the rupture of negotiations on Britain. All he desired from Bathurst was a “single line informing us whether [to] break off or not.”
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The American response startled the British cabinet. From Paris, Castlereagh warned Goulburn against any written reply until briefed by the government on its intention. Writing to Lord Liverpool, the foreign secretary suggested the commissioners had stated the proposition regarding Indian boundaries too “peremptorily.” In more muddied language than in previous written instructions, he again argued against Britain being drawn into a territorial war over the Indian question. Against all reason, he suggested, the Americans could be drawn into provisional agreement to the British demands before confessing that the result would just be rejection by Madison's government. As he was leaving Paris within the hour and so lacked time to generate anything but this hasty note, Castlereagh left it up to Liverpool, Bathurst, and the foreign secretary's staff to decide the ultimate response.
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Along with the American reply and his personal letter to Bathurst, Goulburn had included a draft response for consideration. While approving its general outline, Liverpool thought the 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 the war would have become quite popular in America.” If there was to be a rupture in the negotiations, blame for it “should be thrown upon the American commissioners, and not upon us.”

He therefore wanted a more conciliatory tone adopted while offering no significant change of course because there remained no military
justification for compromise. “If the campaign in Canada should be as successful as our military preparations would lead us to expect, I do not think we should be justified in conceding more at present than we have done, especially after the demands already made,” Liverpool wrote Castlereagh. He expected that the negotiation was unlikely to proceed further; the Americans would likely consult their government and that would necessitate a long adjournment during which time “the result of the campaign” would become known. “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.”
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So the British would soften their language while maintaining a tough stance.

As Liverpool and Bathurst massaged Goulburn's reply into something deemed more palatable for American consumption, relations between the commissioners in Ghent remained tense. Despite this they went through the pretense of civility, even dining again at the monastery. Everyone but William Adams and James Bayard made a show of being overly polite and courteous. Under the guise of rough joviality, the naval lawyer and Delaware senator exchanged veiled insults over the value and quality of their respective fowling guns. John Quincy Adams noted how pleased Gallatin was to see Bayard, the Federalist, mocked by the pompous, coarse Englishman. Bayard proclaimed to the other Americans that his adversary was “a man of no breeding.”
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