Chapter XXV: Book IV: Diplomacy. 1813-1829 (2)

While Mr. Gallatin was engaged in arranging the preliminaries of negotiation and in bringing to bear on the British ministry such pressure as he was able to command, he did not neglect to act the part of diplomatic agent for the instruction of his own government. The time was long gone by when Mr. Gallatin and his party had declaimed against the diplomatic service. Mr. Madison had now sent abroad nearly every man in America whose pretensions to civil distinction were considerable. There were six full ministers between London, Holland, and Paris, and among them were included two Senators, the Speaker of the House, and the Secretary of the Treasury. The position of Mr. Gallatin in London was particularly delicate, since he was in a manner bound not to betray the confidence which Lord Castlereagh had placed in him by permitting his residence in England; but he knew little more of military movements than was known to all the world, and within these limits he might without impropriety correspond with his government. Thus his well-known despatch of June 13 was written.[127] In this letter he gave a sketch of the whole field of diplomatic and military affairs. Beginning with the announcement that England was fitting out an armament which, besides providing for Canada, would enable her to land at least 15,000 to 20,000 men on the Atlantic coast; that the capture of Washington and New York would most gratify them, and the occupation of Norfolk, Baltimore, &c., might be expected; this letter continued:

"Whatever may be the object and duration of the war, America must rely on her resources alone. From Europe no assistance can for some time be expected. British pride begins, indeed, to produce its usual effect. Seeds of dissension are not wanting. Russia and England may at the approaching Congress of Vienna be at variance on important subjects, particularly as relates to the aggrandizement of Austria. But questions of maritime rights are not yet attended to, and America is generally overlooked by the European sovereigns, or viewed with suspicion. Above all, there is nowhere any navy in existence, and years of peace must elapse before the means of resisting with effect the sea-power of Great Britain can be created. In a word, Europe wants peace, and neither will nor can at this time make war against Great Britain. The friendly disposition of the Emperor of Russia, and a just view of the subject, make him sincerely desirous that peace should be restored to the United States. He may use his endeavors for that purpose; beyond that he will not go, and in that it is not probable he will succeed. I have also the most perfect conviction that, under the existing unpropitious circumstances of the world, America cannot by a continuance of the war compel Great Britain to yield any of the maritime points in dispute, and particularly to agree to any satisfactory arrangement on the subject of impressment; and that the most favorable terms of peace that can be expected are the _status ante bellum_, and a postponement of the questions of blockade, impressment, and all other points which in time of European peace are not particularly injurious; but with firmness and perseverance those terms, though perhaps unattainable at this moment, will ultimately be obtained, provided you can stand the shock of this campaign, and provided the people will remain and show themselves united." ...

This despatch arrived in Washington only when one part of its advices had been already verified by the capture and destruction of that city. Meanwhile the other American commissioners were beginning to assemble at Ghent, and the British government showed no sign of haste in opening the negotiation. Mr. Gallatin, on the 9th June, attempted to hurry Lord Castlereagh's movements by asking when the British commissioners would be ready. He was told they would start for Ghent on the 1st July, and on the strength of this information he himself left London on June 21, and, after a rapid visit to Paris, arrived at Ghent on July 6.

Nearly three months had Mr. Gallatin thus passed in London, and, after all his efforts, little enough had been attained. His hopes of success were certainly not brighter than when he left America, more than a year before; indeed, it was not easy to deny that there had been actual loss of ground. Mr. Gallatin had undertaken a diplomatic _tour de force_, and thus far his successes had been far from brilliant; his failures had been conspicuous. Nevertheless he persisted with endless patience and with his usual resource. His residence in London could not but be unpleasant, and perhaps the brightest spot in his whole experience there was the meeting with his old friend and school-fellow Dumont, the Genevan, whom he had once half wished to tempt into the Ohio wilderness, but who had remained in Europe to float on the waves of revolution until they threw him into the arms of Jeremy Bentham, whose friend and interpreter he became. Through him Mr. Gallatin became acquainted with Bentham, but Gallatin had drifted further than his school-mate from the theorizing tastes of his youth, and he now found quite as much satisfaction in discussing finance with Alexander Baring as in reforming mankind with Bentham and Dumont.

From the 6th July till the 6th August the American commissioners waited the arrival of their British colleagues, and amused themselves as they best might. This delay was the more irritating to Mr. Gallatin because his own visit to Paris was said to have been given by Lord Castlereagh in the House of Commons, on the 20th July, as an excuse for the delay of the British commissioners. The conduct of the English government promised ill for the success of the mission, and it was natural that the Americans should believe they were a second time to be made the victims of diplomacy. This inference was not necessarily a fair one; the motives which influenced Lord Castlereagh varied from day to day, and events proved that he acted more shrewdly in the interests of peace than Mr. Gallatin imagined. There was more to be hoped from delay than from haste.

At last the British commissioners arrived: Lord Gambier, Henry Goulburn, and William Adams; none of them very remarkable for genius, and still less for weight of influence; as compared with the American commissioners they were unequal to their task. This again, unpromising as it looked, was not really a misfortune, for the British commissioners, deficient as they were in ability, polish of manners, and even in an honest wish for peace, were the mere puppets of their government, and never ventured to move a hair's-breadth without at once seeking the approval of Lord Castlereagh or Lord Liverpool. Mr. Gallatin had nothing to fear from them; singly or together he was as capable of dealing with them as Benjamin Franklin, under very similar conditions, had proved himself equal to dealing with their predecessors thirty years before. Gallatin's great difficulty was the same with which Dr. Franklin had straggled. The American habit of negotiating by commissions may have its advantages for government, but it enormously increases the labor of the agents, for it compels each envoy to expend more effort in negotiating with his colleagues in the commission than in negotiating with his opponents. Mr. Gallatin had four associates, none of whom was easily managed, and two of whom, Mr. Adams and Mr. Clay, acted upon each other as explosives. To keep the peace between them was no easy matter, and to keep the peace between them and the Englishmen was a task almost beyond hope; indeed, Mr. Gallatin's own temper was severely tried in his conversations with the English envoys, and perhaps a little more roughness on his part would have been better understood and better received by them than his patient forbearance. If Gallatin had a fault, it was that of using the razor when he would have done better with the axe.

If all the preliminaries were calculated to discourage, the opening of the negotiation justified something worse than discouragement. Very unwillingly and with deep mortification the President and his advisers had submitted to the inevitable and consented to offer terms of peace which settled no one principle for which they had fought. They had agreed to what was in fact an armistice; restoration of the _status ante bellum_; a return to the old condition of things when war was always imminent and American rights were always trampled upon. Now that Europe was again at peace, they were willing to leave the theoretical questions of belligerency undetermined, since it was clear that England preferred war to concession. To Mr. Clay, who had made the war, and to Mr. Adams, who fully sympathized with Mr. Clay in his antipathy to the English domination, these concessions seemed enormous; even to Mr. Gallatin, always the friend of peace, they seemed to reach the extreme verge of dignity; but when the English envoys unfolded their demands, the mildest of the Americans was aghast; it is a matter of surprise that there was not an outburst of indignation on the spot, and that negotiation did not end the day it began. In the first interview, which took place on August 8 and was continued the next day, the British commissioners required as a preliminary basis of discussion and a _sine qua non_ of the treaty that the United States government should set apart forever for the Indian tribes the whole North-West Territory, as defined by the treaty of Greenville in 1795; that is to say, the whole country now represented by the States of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illinois, four-fifths of Indiana, and one-third of Ohio; so that an Indian sovereignty should be constituted in that region under the guaranty of Great Britain, for the double purpose of interposing neutral territory between Canada and the United States and curbing the progress of the latter. Mr. Gallatin suggested that there were probably one hundred thousand American citizens settled within that region, and what was to become of them? "Undoubtedly they must shift for themselves," was the reply.

In comparison with so enormous a pretension the smaller demands of the British government were of trifling importance, even though they included a "rectification" of the frontier and a cession of Sackett's Harbor and Fort Niagara as a guaranty for the British control of the lakes.[128]

Under such circumstances, the path of the American commissioners was plain. They had no opportunity to disagree on so simple an issue, and they wanted no better popular argument for unanimity in support of the war than this avowed determination to dismember the United States. They had merely to draft their rejection of the British _sine qua non_.

The negotiation with the British commissioners was, however, much more simple than the negotiation with one another; of the first the diplomatic notes and protocols give a fair description, but of the last a far more entertaining account is given in the Diary of John Quincy Adams. The accident which placed Mr. Gallatin at the foot of the commission placed Mr. Adams at its head,--a result peculiarly unfortunate, because, even if the other commissioners had conceded respect to the age, the services, and the tact of Mr. Gallatin, they had no idea of showing any such deference to Mr. Adams. From the outset it was clear that Messrs. Bayard, Clay, and Russell meant to let Mr. Adams understand that though he might be the nominal mouth-piece he was not the autocrat of the commission, and their methods of conveying this information were such as in those days Mr. Clay was celebrated for successfully using. Mr. Adams had little of Mr. Gallatin's capacity for pacifying strife; he was by nature as combative as Mr. Clay, and before the commission separated there were exciting and very amusing scenes of collision, in one of which Mr. Adams plainly intimated his opinion of the conduct of his colleagues, and Mr. Clay broke out upon him with: "You _dare_ not, you _cannot_, you SHALL not insinuate that there has been a cabal of three members against you."

In this affair Mr. Gallatin's situation was delicate in the highest degree. All recognized the fact that he was properly head of the mission; his opinion carried most weight; his pen was most in demand; his voice was most patiently heard. The tact with which he steered his way between the shoals that surrounded him is the most remarkable instance in our history of perfect diplomatic skill; even Dr. Franklin, in a very similar situation, had not the same success. In no instance did Mr. Gallatin allow himself to be drawn into the conflicts of his colleagues, and yet he succeeded in sustaining Mr. Adams in every essential point without appearing to do so. When the negotiation was closed, all his four colleagues were united, at least to outward appearance, in cordiality to him, and Mr. Adams had reason to be, and seems in fact always to have been, positively grateful. If Mr. Clay felt differently, as there was afterwards reason to believe, he showed no such feeling at the time. The story as told in Mr. Adams's Diary proves clearly enough that this delicate tact of Mr. Gallatin probably saved the treaty.

The very earliest despatch they had occasion to send showed Mr. Gallatin the delicacy of his ground. As first member of the commission, Mr. Adams drafted this despatch and gave his draft for revision to the other gentlemen, who showed it little mercy; Mr. Bayard used it merely as the foundation for an entirely new draft of his own, which was substituted by the commission for that of Mr. Adams. Mr. Bayard's essay, however, proved to be little more satisfactory than Mr. Adams's, and at last it was referred to Mr. Gallatin to be put in final shape. This was done, and the commissioners ended by adopting his work. The next despatch was drafted at once by him and accepted with little alteration. Henceforth the duty of drawing up all papers was regularly performed by him. Mr. Adams's account of the characteristic criticisms of his four colleagues, as well as of his own peculiarities of thought and expression, is very amusing, and probably very exact. "On the general view of the subject [of the note in reply to the British commissioners] we are unanimous, but, in my exposition of it, one objects to the form and another to the substance of almost every paragraph. Mr. Gallatin is for striking out every expression that may be offensive to the feelings of the adverse party. Mr. Clay is displeased with figurative language, which he thinks improper for a state paper. Mr. Russell, agreeing in the objections of the two other gentlemen, will be further for amending the construction of every sentence; and Mr. Bayard, even when agreeing to say precisely the same thing, chooses to say it only in his own language."

At this moment, that is to say, from the 10th August to the 8th October, it was a matter of little consequence what form these personal annoyances might take, for no doubt was felt by any of the commissioners that negotiation was at an end. Even Mr. Gallatin abandoned hope. That the British government was really disposed to make peace seemed to him, as to his colleagues, too improbable to be worth discussion. On the 20th August he wrote privately to Mr. Monroe: "The negotiations at this place will have the result which I have anticipated. In one respect, however, I had been mistaken. I had supposed whilst in England that the British ministry, in continuing the war, yielded to the popular sentiment, and were only desirous of giving some éclat to the termination of hostilities, and, by predatory attacks, of inflicting gratuitous injury on the United States. It appears now certain that they have more serious and dangerous objects in view." After dwelling at some length on the indications that pointed to New Orleans as the spot where the ultimate struggle for supremacy was to come, he concluded: "I do not expect that we can be detained more than two or three weeks longer for the purpose either of closing the negotiation, of taking every other necessary step connected with it, and of making all the arrangements for our departure." To Mr. Dallas he wrote the same day: "Our negotiations may be considered as at an end. Some official notes may yet pass, but the nature of the demands of the British, made also as a preliminary _sine qua non_, to be admitted as a basis before a discussion, is such that there can be no doubt of a speedy rupture of our conferences, and that we will have no peace. Great Britain wants war in order to cripple us; she wants aggrandizement at our expense; she may have ulterior objects: no resource left but in union and vigorous prosecution of the war. When her terms are known it appears to me impossible that all America should not unite in defence of her rights, of her territory, I may say of her independence. I do not expect to be longer than three weeks in Europe."

Nevertheless, the three weeks passed without bringing the expected rupture. None of the American envoys knew the reasons of this delay; but the letters of the British negotiators, since published, explain the steps in that backward movement which at last brought about an abandonment of every point the British government had begun by declaring essential. Mr. Goulburn, who from the first was strongly inclined to obstruct a settlement and to put forward impossible conditions,[129] announced to his chief on the 23d August: "We are still without any answer to the note which we addressed to the American plenipotentiaries on Friday last. We have, however, met them to-day at dinner at the intendants, and it is evident from their conversation that they do not mean to continue the negotiations at present. Mr. Clay, whom I sat next to at dinner, gave me clearly to understand that they had decided upon a reference to America for instructions, and that they considered our propositions equivalent to a demand for the cession of Boston or New York; and after dinner Mr. Bayard took me aside and requested that I would permit him to have a little private and confidential conversation. Upon my expressing my readiness to hear whatever he might like to say to me, he began a very long speech by saying that the present negotiation could not end in peace, and that he was desirous of privately stating (before we separated) what Great Britain did not appear to understand, viz., that, by proposing terms like those which had been offered, we were not only ruining all prospects of peace, but were sacrificing the party of which he was a member to their political adversaries. He went into a long discussion upon the views and objects of the several parties in America, the grounds upon which they had hitherto proceeded, and the effect which a hostile or conciliatory disposition on our part might have upon them. He inculcated how much it was for our interest to support the Federalists, and that to make peace was the only method of supporting them effectually; that we had nothing to fear for Canada if peace were made, be the terms what they might; that there would have been no difficulty about allegiance, impressment, &c.; but that our present demands were what America never could or would accede to. This was the general tenor of his conversation, to which I did not think it necessary to make much reply, and which I only mention to you in order to let you know at the earliest moment that the negotiation is not likely now to continue.... As I find, upon reading over what I have written, that I have drily stated what the American plenipotentiaries said to me, I cannot let it go without adding that it has made not the least impression upon me or upon my colleagues, to whom I have reported it."

If the notes and conversation of the American commissioners made no impression on Mr. Goulburn and his colleagues, the case was very different with their chiefs. A few days before Mr. Goulburn's letter was written, Lord Castlereagh passed through Ghent on his way to Vienna. He found that Goulburn had made a series of blunders, and was obliged to check him abruptly,[130] writing at the same time to Lord Liverpool, advising a considerable "letting down of the question."[131] Lord Liverpool replied on the 2d September, saying that his advice had already been followed: "Our 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."[132] Mr. Goulburn himself became a little nervous; he wrote on the 2d September of the American Commissioners: "Their only anxiety appears to me to get back to America. Whenever we meet them they always enter into unofficial discussions, much of the same nature as the conversation with which Mr. Bayard indulged me; but we have given no encouragement to such conversations, thinking that they are liable to much misrepresentation and cannot lead to any good purpose. All that I think I have learnt from them is this: that Mr. Adams is a very bad arguer, and that the Federalists are quite as inveterate enemies to us as the Madisonians. Those who know anything of America or Americans probably knew this before. We await with some anxiety your note."[133] On the 5th September, only three days afterwards, Mr. Goulburn's temper, in view of the awkward position he was in, had become irritable; the American commissioners had never, he thought, had any intention of making peace: "They gave it out all over the town (previously even to sending their note) that the negotiations would end in nothing, and I have never met them anywhere without hearing their complaints at being detained here, and their wish to leave the place on the 1st of October at the latest. Some days since they gave their landlord notice that they meant to quit their house, and two of their private secretaries set out to make a tour in England before their note was written, one of whom openly stated to me that, as they were on the point of returning to America, he wished, first of all, to see London."[134]

The result of the first round in this encounter was clearly in favor of the American champions. The unfortunate Goulburn was worsted, and forced, with very bad grace, to accept the admonitions of his chiefs and to endure the triumph of his opponents.

Lord Bathurst accordingly undertook to correct the mistakes of his envoys, and forwarded on the 1st September an argumentative note calculated to persuade the Americans that nothing could be more becoming in them than to surrender the lakes to Great Britain and the North-West Territory to the Indians. The long reply of the American commissioners, delivered on the 9th September, was mostly written by Mr. Gallatin, and Mr. Adams candidly says in his Diary: "I struck out the greatest part of my own previous draft, preferring that of Mr. Gallatin upon the same points." Its contents were briefly characterized in a short note from the Foreign Office to the Duke of Wellington, dated September 13: "It rejects all our proposals respecting the boundary and the military flag on the lakes, and refuses even to refer them to their government, offering at the same time to pursue the negotiation on the other points;" and on the 16th the Duke was notified that: "We mean in our reply to admit that we do not intend to make the _exclusive military possession of the lakes a sine qua non of the negotiation_." This was, however, not the only concession; the new ground which Lord Bathurst now marked out for his negotiators was still further in the rear of Mr. Goulburn's first position, and abandoned not only the lakes but also the attempt to create an Indian sovereignty. The British note was sent in on the 19th September, and Mr. Adams gives in his Diary a graphic account of the conflicting feelings it aroused: "The effect of these notes upon us when they first come is to deject us all. We so fondly cling to the vain hope of peace that every new proof of its impossibility operates upon us as a disappointment. We had a desultory and general conversation upon this note, in which I thought both Mr. Gallatin and Mr. Bayard showed symptoms of despondency. In discussing with them I cannot always restrain the irritability of my temper. Mr. Bayard meets it with more of accommodation than heretofore, and sometimes with more compliance than I expect. Mr. Gallatin, having more pliability of character and more playfulness of disposition, throws off my heat with a joke. Mr. Clay and Mr. Russell are perfectly firm themselves, but sometimes partake of the staggers of the two other gentlemen. Mr. Gallatin said this day that the _sine qua non_ now presented--that the Indians should be positively included in the peace, and placed in the state they were in before the war--would undoubtedly be rejected by our government if it was now presented to them, but that it was a bad point for us to break off the negotiation upon; that the difficulty of carrying on the war might compel us to admit the principle at last, for now the British had so committed themselves with regard to the Indians that it was impossible for them further to retreat. Mr. Bayard was of the same opinion, and recurred to the fundamental idea of breaking off upon some point which shall unite our own people in the support of the war.... I said ... that if the point of the Indians was a bad point to break upon, I was very sure we should never find a good one; if that would not unite our people, it was a hopeless pursuit. Mr. Gallatin repeated, with a very earnest look, that it was a bad point to break upon. 'Then,' said I, with a movement of impatience and an angry tone, 'it is a good point to admit the British as the sovereigns and protectors of our Indians.' Gallatin's countenance brightened, and he said in a tone of perfect good humor, 'That's a non-sequitur.' This turned the edge of the argument into mere jocularity. I laughed, and insisted that it was a sequitur, and the conversation easily changed to another point."

Mr. Gallatin was right, and he drafted the reply to the British note accordingly. There was a somewhat warm discussion over his draft, but his influence was now so decisive that Mr. Adams declares opposition useless; unless Gallatin voluntarily abandoned his point, he was uniformly sustained. This note, while refusing to admit the Indians into the treaty in any manner that would recognize them as independent nations, offered a stipulation that they should retain all their old rights, privileges, and possessions. It was signed and sent on the 26th September; on October 1 the news of the capture of Washington arrived.

The following letters give some conception of what was passing in the United States while the American commissioners were forcing Great Britain to abandon one position after another:

MRS. MADISON TO MRS. GALLATIN.

28th July, 1814.

... We have been in a state of perturbation here for a long time. The depredations of the enemy approaching within twenty miles of the city, and the disaffected making incessant difficulties for the government. Such a place as this has become! I cannot describe it. I wish for my own part we were at Philadelphia. The people here do not deserve that I should prefer it. Among other exclamations and threats, they say, if Mr. M. attempts to move from this house, in case of an attack, they will stop him, and that he shall _fall with it_. I am not the least alarmed at these things, but entirely disgusted, and determined to stay with him. Our preparation for defence, by some means or other, is constantly retarded, but the small force the British have on the bay will never venture nearer than at present, twenty-three miles....

JOSEPH H. NICHOLSON TO MRS. GALLATIN.

BALTIMORE, 4th September, 1814.

MY DEAR MADAM,--...You have of course heard of and grieved over our disasters at Washington. You have heard, too, of the disgraceful capitulation of Alexandria. Baltimore was at one time certainly prepared to pursue the baneful example, but the arrival of Rodgers, Porter, and Perry, the manly language which they held to our generals, and the great number of troops which are now here, have inspired more confidence. If the enemy had acted wisely they would have marched directly from Washington to this place, and would have found it an easy prey. If they come now, which we look for daily, or rather nightly, they will have a fight, but I am not quite sure that it will be a hard one. Our militia are so raw and so totally undisciplined, and our commanding generals so entirely unqualified to organize them, that I have very little confidence of success. The command has been taken from General Winder and given to General Smith. The latter assumed it in the first instance without authority at the request of some of our citizens, and the usurpation has since been confirmed at Washington. There is some derangement of the Administration which I do not understand. General Armstrong is here, and says he is no longer Secretary of War; but every one who comes from the city says he is still considered so there. He explained the thing to me in this way. Mr. Madison had been waited on by a deputation from Georgetown, of whom A. C. Hanson was one, who told him that they would not agree to defend the place or to make any resistance if General Armstrong was to have any control over them. That Mr. Madison, in consequence of this and much other remonstrance of a similar nature, proposed to Armstrong that he should do all the business of the War Department except that which related to the District; that Armstrong immediately answered that he must do the whole business or none, and tendered his resignation, which was not accepted. He added, however, in his conversation with me: "I am here, and the President is in Washington." He said, too, he was going immediately to New York; but he has remained several days, and is here yet. I had thought it probable he was waiting for a recall, but he said yesterday he should go to-day, and expressed some satisfaction at being again in private life. This seemed to relate altogether to his pecuniary concerns. He speaks with no irritation of the Administration, and it is certain that either he or Mr. Madison, or possibly both, have yielded to a contemptible faction in a contemptible village, at a most critical moment for our country. This is the precise language in which I expressed myself to him, but he said he washed his hands of it.

The loan is taken in part only at $80 for $100, and, I believe, a small part. If Congress do not act immediately with vigor, the nation, I fear, is lost.

Did you feel very, very sorry at hearing that your old house was burnt? I did, really, I had spent so many happy hours in it.

* * * * *

A short correspondence with Mme. de Staël, then a power in diplomacy, claims also a place here.

MADAME DE STAËL TO GALLATIN.

Ce 31 juillet, 1814.
COPPET, SUISSE, PAYS DE VAUD.

Vous m'avez permis de vous demander si nous avons quelque succès heureux à espérer de votre mission. Mandez-moi à cet égard, my dear sir, tout ce qu'il vous est permis de me dire. Je suis inquiète d'un mot de Lord Castlereagh sur la durée de la guerre, et je ne m'explique pas pourquoi il a dit qu'il était de l'intérêt de l'Angleterre que le congrès de Vienne s'ouvrît plus tard. C'est vous Amérique qui m'intéressez avant tout maintenant, à part de mes affaires pécuniaires. Je vous trouve à présent les opprimés du parti de la liberté et je vois en vous la cause qui m'attachait à l'Angleterre il y a un an. On souhaite beaucoup de vous voir à Genève et vous y trouverez la république telle que vous l'avez laissée, seulement elle est moins libérale, car la mode est ainsi maintenant en Suisse. Aussi les vieux aristocrates se relèvent et se remettent à combattre, en oubliant, comme les géants de l'Arioste, qu'ils sont déjà morts. J'espère que la raison triomphera, et quand on vous connaît, on trouve cette raison si spirituelle qu'elle semble la plus forte. Soyez pacifique cependant et sacrifiez aux circonstances. Vous devez vous ennuyer à Gand, et je voudrais profiter pour causer avec vous de tout le temps que vous y perdez. Avez-vous quelques commissions à faire à Genève et voulez-vous me donner le plaisir de vous y être utile en quelque chose?

Mille compliments empressés.

Vous savez que M. Sismondi vous a loué dans son discours à St Pierre.

MADAME DE STAËL TO GALLATIN.

Ce 30 septembre.
PARIS, RUE DE GRENELLE ST. GERMAIN, NO. 105.

Je vous ai écrit de Coppet, my dear sir, et je n'ai point eu de réponse de vous. Je crains que ma lettre ne vous soit pas parvenue. Soyez assez bon pour me dire ce que vous pouvez me dire sur la vente de mes fonds en Amérique. Je suis si inquiète que l'idée me venait d'envoyer mon fils en Amérique pour tirer ma fortune de là. Songez qu'elle y est presque toute entière, c'est à dire que j'y ai quinze cents mille francs, soit en terres, soit en fonds publics, soit chez les banquiers. Soyez aussi assez bon pour me dire si vous restez à Gand. Mon fils en allant en Angleterre pourrait passer par chez vous et vous donner des nouvelles de Paris. Enfin je vous prie de m'accorder quelques lignes sur tout ce qui m'intéresse. Vous pouvez compter sur ma discrétion et sur ma reconnaissance,--et je mérite peut-être quelque bienveillance par mes efforts pour vous servir. Lord Wellington prétend que je ne le vois jamais sans le prêcher sur l'Amérique. Vous savez de quelle haute considération je suis pénétrée pour votre esprit et votre caractère.

Mille compliments.

GALLATIN TO MADAME DE STAËL-HOLSTEIN.

GAND, 4 octobre, 1814.

Ce n'est que hier, my dear madam, que j'ai reçu votre lettre du 23 septembre; celle que vous m'aviez fait le plaisir de m'écrire de Coppet m'était bien parvenue; mais malgré la parfaite confiance que vous m'avez inspirée, il était de mon devoir de ne rien laisser transpirer de nos négociations; et j'espérais tous les jours pouvoir vous annoncer le lendemain quelque chose de positif. Nous sommes toujours dans le même état d'incertitude, mais il me paraît impossible que cela puisse durer longtemps, et je vous promets que vous serez la première instruite du résultat. Malgré les fâcheux auspices sous lesquels nous avions commencé à traiter, je n'avais point perdu l'espérance de pouvoir réussir. Il faut cependant convenir que ce qui s'est passé à la prise de Washington peut faire naître de nouveaux obstacles à la paix. Une incursion momentanée et la destruction d'un arsenal et d'une frégate ne sont qu'une bagatelle; mais faire sauter ou brûler les palais du Congrès et du Président, et les bureaux des différente départements, c'est un acte de vandalisme dont la guerre de vingt ans en Europe, depuis les frontières de la Russie jusques à Paris et de celles du Danemarc jusqu'à Naples, n'offre aucun exemple, et qui doit nécessairement exaspérer les esprits. Est-ce parceque à l'exception de quelques cathédrales, l'Angleterre n'avoit aucun édifice public qui pût leur être comparé? Ou serait-ce pour consoler la populace de la cité de Londres de ce que Paris n'a été ni pillé ni brûlé?

Tout en vous disant cela, je ne me plains point de la conduite des Anglais, qui, si la guerre continue, loin de nous nuire, n'aura servi qu'à unir et animer la nation. Sous ce point de vue, la manière dont on nous fait la guerre doit pleinement rassurer ceux qui avaient des craintes mal fondées sur la permanence de notre union et de notre gouvernement fédératif. Et il n'y a qu'une dissolution totale qui puisse renverser nos finances et nous faire manquer à nos engagements. Je comprends cependant fort bien que lorsqu'on n'est pas Américain, l'on désirerait dans ce moment avoir sa fortune ailleurs que dans ce pays là; je puis avoir des préjugés trop favorables et ne voudrais aucunement vous induire en erreur. Mais il me semble que vendre vos fonds à 15 ou 20 pour cent de perte serait un sacrifice inutile. Ils tomberont probablement encore plus si la guerre continue, mais les intérêts seront toujours fidèlement payés et le capital sera au pair six mois après la paix. Nous nous sommes tirés d'une bien plus mauvaise situation. À la fin de la guerre de l'indépendance nous n'avions ni finances ni gouvernement; notre population ne s'élevait qu'à environ trois millions et demi, la nation était extrêmement pauvre, la dette publique était presqu'égale à ce qu'elle est actuellement; les fonds perdaient de 80 à 85 pour cent. Nous n'avons cependant pas fait faillite; nous n'avons pas réduit la dette à un tiers par un trait de plume; avec de l'économie et surtout de la probité, nous avons fait face à tout, remis tout au pair, et pendant les dix années qui avaient précédé la guerre actuelle nous avions payé la moitié du capital de notre ancienne dette. Au milieu de toutes nos factions, n'importe quel parti ait gouverné, le même esprit les a toujours animés à cet égard. Le même esprit règne encore; nous sommes très-riches; nous étions huit millions d'âmes au commencement de la guerre, et la population augmente de deux cent cinquante mille âmes par an. Si je n'ai pas entièrement méconnu l'Amérique, ses ressources et la moralité de sa politique, je ne me trompe pas en croyant ses fonds publics plus solides que ceux de toutes les puissances européennes.

Si cependant vous avez peur, attendez du moins la conclusion de nos négociations; vous n'avez pas le temps de faire vendre avant cette époque. Je serai au reste encore quinze jours au moins à Grand et donnerai avec grand plaisir à M. votre fils tous les renseignements en mon pouvoir s'il passe par ici en allant en Angleterre. Je suis très-sensible à tout ce que vous avez fait pour être utile à l'Amérique; je sens encore plus combien je vous dois; vous m'avez reçu et accueilli comme si j'eusse été une ancienne connaissance. Avant de vous connaître je respectais en vous Madame de Staël et la fille de Madame Necker, aux écrits et à l'exemple de qui j'ai plus d'obligation que je ne puis exprimer. Mais je vous avouerai que j'avais grand peur de vous; une femme très élégante et aimable et le premier génie de son sexe; l'on tremblerait à moins; vous eûtes à peine ouvert les lèvres que je fus rassuré, et en moins de cinq minutes je me sentis auprès de vous comme avec une amie de vingt ans. Je n'aurais fait que vous admirer, mais votre bonté égale vos talents et c'est pour cela que je vous aime. Agréez-en, je vous prie, l'assurance et soyez sûre du plaisir que me procurerait l'occasion de pouvoir vous être bon à quelque chose.

* * * * *

Mr. Goulburn, meanwhile, under the instructions of his government, was condescending to what had some remote resemblance to diplomacy. On the 23d September he wrote to Lord Bathurst acknowledging the receipt of two private letters, and adding: "You may depend upon our governing ourselves entirely by the instructions which they contain, and upon my continuing to represent to the Americans, as I always have done whenever an opportunity has offered, the very strong opinion which prevails in England against an unsatisfactory peace with America. Of this Mr. Gallatin appears to be the only American in any degree sensible, and this perhaps arises from his being less like an American than any of his colleagues."[135]

Evidently Mr. Gallatin was doing his utmost to keep the peace, and all he could do was hardly enough. When the American note of September 26 was received, Mr. Goulburn wrote to his government that he considered it a rejection of their proposition _sine qua non_, and that to admit the American offer would be to abandon the principle on which the whole argument had been founded. He accused the American commissioners of irritating and unfounded accusations, of falsehood, of misstatement, and of fraud.[136] Lord Liverpool, however, was in a better temper, and, after consultation with his colleague, Earl Bathurst, framed an article which, in effect, accepted the offer of Indian amnesty proposed by the American envoys; yet so curiously ungracious was the mode of this concession that the Americans were by no means reassured. Instead of pacifying Mr. Adams, it irritated him. Mr. Gallatin had still to act as peacemaker. "The tone of all the British notes," says Mr. Adams, "is arrogant, overbearing, and offensive. The tone of ours is neither so bold nor so spirited as I think it should be. It is too much on the defensive, and too excessive in the caution to say nothing irritating. I have seldom been able to prevail upon my colleagues to insert anything in the style of retort upon the harsh and reproachful matter which we receive." The candid reader of these papers must admit that there is no apparent want of tartness in the American notes, and occasionally the retort is perhaps a little too much in the British style; but in any case the moment when England had yielded, however ungraciously, was justly thought by all Mr. Adams's colleagues to be not the most appropriate occasion for reproach. Even Mr. Clay was earnest on this point, and insisted upon drafting the American reply himself, and thus disposing of the Indian question. This done, the next step was to call for the projet of a treaty.

On the 18th October, Lord Bathurst accordingly sent the sketch for such a projet to Mr. Goulburn. Its most important point was an offer to treat in regard to boundaries on the basis of _uti possidetis_, an offer not in itself unfair, but startling in the application which Lord Bathurst gave to it. He proposed to exchange Castine and Machias, which were held by the British, for Forts Erie and Amherstburg, held by the Americans, while Michilimackinac, Fort Niagara with five miles circuit, and the northern angle of Maine were to become British territory.[137] The details of this cession were, however, not to be put forward until the American commissioners had admitted the basis of _uti possidetis_, and accordingly the British commissioners, on the 21st October, sent a note to the Americans offering to treat on this ground, and adding that "they trust that the American plenipotentiaries will show, by their ready acceptance of this basis, that they duly appreciate the moderation of His Majesty's government in so far consulting the honor and fair pretensions of the United States, as, in the relative situation of the two countries, to authorize such a proposition."

Three days later, on the 24th October, the Americans sent back a very brief note bluntly refusing to treat on the basis of _uti possidetis_, or on any other basis than the _status quo ante bellum_ in respect to territory, and calling for the British projet.

Of all the notes sent by the American negotiators, this, which they seem to have considered a matter of course and to which they gave not even a second thought, produced the liveliest emotions in the British government. Lord Liverpool, on receiving it, wrote at once to the Duke of Wellington: "The last note of the American plenipotentiaries puts an end, I think, to any hopes we might have entertained of our being able to bring the war with America at this time to a conclusion.... The doctrine of the American government is a very convenient one; that they will always be ready to keep what they acquire, but never to give up what they lose.... We still think it desirable to gain a little more time before the negotiation is brought to a close, and we shall therefore call upon them to deliver in a full projet of all the conditions on which they are ready to make peace before we enter into discussion on any of the points contained in our last note."[138] Mr. Goulburn assumed that everything was over, and merely wished to know whether they had best break off on this point or on that of the fisheries, and he showed almost his only trace of common sense by advising government to select the fisheries.[139] On the British side it was formally, though secretly, announced through the interior official circle, that the American war was to go on, and for a time the only apparent question was how to carry it on most effectively.

Unluckily, however, the more the British government looked at the subject from this point of view the less satisfaction they found in it. Mr. Vansittart, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was very uncomfortable. Lord Liverpool was quite as uneasy as Mr. Vansittart. On the 28th October, the same day on which he wrote to the Duke of Wellington, he sent a letter to Lord Castlereagh, at Vienna: "I think it very material that we should likewise consider that our war with America will probably now be of some duration. We owe it therefore to ourselves not to make enemies in other quarters, if we can avoid it, for I cannot but feel apprehensive that some of our European allies will not be indisposed to favor the Americans; and if the Emperor of Russia should be desirous of taking up their cause, we are well aware, from some of Lord Walpole's late communications, that there is a most powerful party in Russia to support him.... Looking to a continuance of the American war, our financial state is far from satisfactory. Without taking into the account any compensation to foreign powers on the subject of the slave-trade, we shall want a loan for the service of the year of £27,000,000 or £28,000,000. The American war will not cost us less than £10,000,000 in addition to our peace establishment and other expenses. We must expect, therefore, to hear it said that the property tax is continued for the purpose of securing a better frontier for Canada."[140] A week later Lord Liverpool wrote again to Lord Castlereagh in a still lower tone: "I see little prospect of our negotiations at Ghent ending in peace.... The continuance of the American war will entail upon us a prodigious expense, much more than we had any idea of.... All our colleagues are coming to town, and we are to have a Cabinet on the speech to-morrow. Many of them have not yet seen the American correspondence; but we have got the question into that state that the government is not absolutely committed, and there will be an opportunity therefore of reviewing in a full Cabinet the whole course of our policy as to America."[141]

This Cabinet council hit upon a brilliant idea to extricate them from their difficulties: the Duke of Wellington should go to America, with full powers to make peace or to fight, and in either case to take the entire responsibility on his own shoulders. This scheme was immediately communicated to the Duke by Lord Liverpool, in a letter dated November 4, the day after the council, and in communicating it the Earl frankly said: "The more we contemplate the character of the American war the more satisfied we are of the many inconveniences which may grow out of the continuation of it. We desire to bring it to an honorable conclusion."

The Duke of Wellington had some experience in acting as scape-goat for the blunders of his government; he was a man immeasurably superior to his civil chiefs, and even his common sense at times amounted to what in other men was genius. He wrote back, on the 9th November, a letter which would alone stamp him as the ablest English statesman of his day. He did not refuse to go to America, but he pointed out the mistakes that had been made there, and which must be remedied before he could do any good service; he then told Lord Liverpool very civilly but very decidedly that he had made a great blunder in requiring territorial concessions: "I confess that I think you have no right, from the state of the war, to demand any concession of territory from America. Considering everything, it is my opinion that the war has been a most successful one, and highly honorable to the British arms; but from particular circumstances, such as the want of the naval superiority on the lakes, you have not been able to carry it into the enemy's territory, notwithstanding your military success and now undoubted military superiority, and have not even cleared your own territory of the enemy on the point of attack. You cannot, then, on any principle of equality in negotiation, claim a cession of territory excepting in exchange for other advantages which you have in your power. I put out of the question the possession taken by Sir John Sherbrooke between the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy Bay. It is evidently only temporary and till a larger force will drive away the few companies he has left there; and an officer might as well claim the sovereignty of the ground on which his piquets stand or over which his patrols pass. Then, if this reasoning be true, why stipulate for the _uti possidetis_? You can get no territory; indeed, the state of your military operations, however creditable, does not entitle you to demand any; and you only afford the Americans a popular and creditable ground, which, I believe, their government are looking for, not to break off the negotiations, but to avoid to make peace. If you had territory, as I hope you soon will have New Orleans, I should prefer to insist upon the cession of that province as a separate article than upon the _uti possidetis_ as a principle of negotiation."[142]

This was plain speaking. The whole British scheme of negotiation had, moreover, been fatally shaken by the disastrous failure of Sir George Prevost's attack on Plattsburg. Lord Liverpool immediately wrote back to the Duke that the question was still open and the Cabinet was disposed to meet his views on the subject.[143] A few days later, on the 18th November, he wrote to Lord Castlereagh announcing that government had at last decided to recede: "We have under our consideration at present the last American note of their projet of treaty, and I think we have determined, if all other points can be satisfactorily settled, not to continue the war for the purpose of obtaining or securing any acquisition of territory. We have been led to this determination by the consideration of the unsatisfactory state of the negotiations at Vienna, and by that of the alarming situation of the interior of France. We have also been obliged to pay serious attention to the state of our finances and to the difficulties we shall have in continuing the property tax. Considering the general depression of rents, which, even under any corn law that is likely to meet with the approbation of Parliament, must be expected to take place under such circumstances, it has appeared to us desirable to bring the American war, if possible, to a conclusion."[144]

Thus the second round in this diplomatic encounter closed with the British government fairly discomfited; Lord Bathurst and Lord Liverpool had succeeded no better than Mr. Goulburn in dealing with the American envoys, and had received a sharp lesson from the Duke of Wellington into the bargain. When the unfortunate Mr. Goulburn received the despatches containing his new instructions, he was deeply depressed. "I need not trouble you," he wrote on the 25th November to Lord Bathurst, "with the expression of my sincere regret at the alternative which the government feels itself compelled, by the present state of affairs in Europe, to adopt with respect to America. You know that I was never much inclined to give way to the Americans; I am still less inclined to do so after the statement of our demands with which the negotiation opened, and which has in every point of view proved most unfortunate."[145] The draught was a bitter one, but he swallowed it.

Meanwhile, the American commissioners, ignorant of all this secret correspondence and consultation, were busy in framing their projet, and in disputing among themselves in regard to the extension they should give to the principle of the _status quo ante bellum_ as applied to other than territorial questions, and especially to the fisheries and the Mississippi.