History of the Second War Between the United States of America and Great Britain

British surprised by War - Unprepared-Seek Peace-Foster, from Halifax, proposes an Armistice-Accepted by Dearborn - Rejected by Madison - Admiral Warren renews Pacific Overtures - Rejected by Madison -American Terms of Peace-Rejected by Britain-British War Manifesto Embittered Hostilities - Congress exclude British Seamen, after War, from American Vessels-Cartel, from England, offers to treatClay and Russell commissioned-Original Instructions-British triumph in Europe-Instructions, changing Terms-Ghent substituted for Gottenburg, as Place of Conference - First Conference - British DemandsIndian Basis sine qua non-Second Meeting of Commissioners-No Maritime Topic - Altogether Territorial - Castlereagh at Ghent - British Demands increased-Rupture threatened-Suspension of ConferencesCorrespondence-American Terms proposed 24th of August - British Terms 13th of October - Uti possidetis - Rejected by the Americans Effect of the British Defeats at Plattsburg and Baltimore - Change of Tone-Adoption of American Terms-Congress of Vienna — Its Distractions Maritime European Inclinations - Dissentiment at Ghent between Adams and Clay - Fisheries- Navigation of the Mississippi Further Negotiations-Final Settlement-Subsequent Treaties, Offspring of the Negotiations at Ghent-Indemnity for Spoliations - For Slaves Boundaries - Oregon — Louisiana - Congress of Vienna - Project of Treaty Dispute in the American Mission-Posterior Treaties - Fisheries-Mississippi - Final Conferences-Treaty Signed-Its European Effect- American Welcome of Peace-Effects and Character.

SURPRISED by the American declaration of war, enacted by a weak power quite unprepared, against a strong power completely armed and formidable, but without sufficient forces in America, because made to believe that the United States dared not venture such a conflict, the British government held off hostilities, and tried to pacify the United States, during several months after they feebly essayed war, disastrously by land for conquest, gloriously for defence at sea. The British minister at Washington, who assured his government that there would be no war, nor any thing worse than angry complaints, stopped at Halifax, on his way home, to try and make peace. Within

a week of the declaration of war, the offensive Orders in Council being repealed, nothing remained to fight about but impressment. Foster, the plenipotentiary, therefore induced Prevost, the Canadian governor-general, to despatch his adjutant-general, Baynes, with terms, which misled General Dearborn to subscribe an armistice, rejected by the President in August, 1812. With the first British forces arrived in America, Admiral Warren, in September, 1812, more of pacificator than combatant, repeated pacific overtures, which the President again rejected. Beside repeal of the obnoxious Orders. in Council, involving only the commercial question, Madison and Monroe, solitary and alone, constituting nearly the whole government in the desert capital when Congress were not in session, firmly and fortunately required that the Orders in Council should not be repeated; and, in addition to removal of that commercial cause of war, that the personal question of impressment must be settled, by not only cessation of its practice and liberation of its American victims, but also some settlement of the principle in conflict. Those terms were scouted by Great Britain, and probably would never have been submitted to by a nation much more unanimous and powerful to assert the right, than the United States were the wrong, of impressment. Surprised by unlooked-for war, and provoked by reiterated rejection of their terms of accommodation, the ministerial successor of Pitt's insuperable anti-Gallican policy, long after his death, at last marvellously successful, and elated by Napoleon's reverses of 1813 m Saxony, following those of 1812 in Russia, met Parliament in 1814, in haughty exasperation against an insolent and despised transatlantic assailant. Their long-deferred manifesto, fabricated by the admiralty judge Scott, afterwards Lord Stowell, was pointed with the common British malediction, denouncing to British abhorrence American subserviency to the French jacobin usurper, the defeated Emperor, and to the Irish Americanized traitors who contaminated American politics. Embittered hostilities began, with ruthless retaliation. Notwithstanding a few precious unlooked-for naval victories, universal defeat by land, want of funds, dread of taxes, inaptitude of the executive for war, and

legislative fear to vote its exigencies, co-operated with British power and determination avowed to punish and crush their unnatural American offspring.

The Congress which declared war, without voting adequate means for waging it, hoping with the executive to escape its hardships, by one of their last expedients, on the the 3d of March, 1813, excluded, from and after the war, all British persons-not only seamen, but all British persons - from all American vessels, private and public; in the vain hope, by the removal of the subjects of impressment, that its odious practice might expire in the mere assertion of a harmless principle, against which we need not contend in arms. That unavailing concession then became, as I believe it yet remains, a dead letter on our code; discriminating, contrary to the American Declaration of Independence, between native and naturalized citizens, and by repression mostly inoperative, since discountenanced by the doctrines of that declaration, vainly attempting to domiciliate seafaring people, and overcome their habitual propensity to rove and serve without much regard to birth or allegiance. That concession to power enacted, however, a striking refutation of the most common British apology for their surprising naval defeats, by excluding altogether from American vessels the supposed British seamen, to whom British national prejudice attributed American naval victories. There were very few of them in our vessels, and those few very inferior to our mariners. The instructions to our peaceministers, dwelling on that act of Congress, stated that, for the supply of our ships-of-war and merchant-service, we ought to depend on our own population, which experience had shown to be an abundant resource.

England, refusing the Russian mediation, despatched, without notice to Russia, or to our minister there, but probably less to propitiate the United States than Russia, and separate our negotiations from all the powers of the armed neutrality and assertors of neutral sea-rights, the cartel brig Bramble, which arrived at Annapolis the last day of December, 1813, with an offer to treat for peace at London or elsewhere, but without any mediation. Mr. Clay and Mr. Russell were thereupon.

added to Mr. Adams, Mr. Bayard, and Mr. Gallatin, as the legation; and Gottenburg, in Sweden, designated as the place of meeting. The British government suggested London, ours Washington, as the place; to which Ghent, in Flanders, was preferred. The original instructions, dated 15th of April, 1813, taken by Mr. Gallatin and Mr. Bayard to Mr. Adams, were copiously reargued by others, dated 8th and 28th of January, 1814, without material alteration, and sent by Mr. Clay and Mr. Russell, who sailed from New York in February, and arrived at Gottenburg in April, 1814. Impressment and blockades, the principal causes of the war, were the topics of all these instructions; abiding by Mr. Russell's proposition in London to the British government as soon as war was declared, and Mr. Monroe's answer to Admiral Warren from Washington, when he offered terms soon afterwards, as the grounds on which alone the United States would adjust the conflict for impressment; with the modifications afforded by the Act of Congress of March, 1813, excluding after the war all Britons. from American vessels. Express relinquishment of illegal blockades was required, and indemnity for losses. But the peace-mission were instructed not to let that claim defeat the primary object entrusted to them.

Such were in substance our terms of peace, viz., relinquishment of impressment, both in practice and principle, together with liberation of its victims; for which we engaged never to suffer Englishmen to navigate our vessels after the war; and some arrangement of blockades, which two were cardinal and originally indispensable conditions. Indemnity for losses, though demanded, was not to be insisted on to the detriment of the chief terms. None of these conditions were even taken into consideration. Before the commissioners met at Ghent, in August, 1814, Great Britain, with her allies, conquered peace in Europe, and resenting American hostilities, insisted on degrading terms of peace, mutilating our territories, restricting our commerce, punishing, reducing, and humbling the United States. Our original demands were exclusively maritime, concerning blockade and impressment alone. Never foresceing that boundaries, fisheries, Indians, the lakes, or other

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History of the Second War Between the United States of America and ..., Volume 2