Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812. Volume 2

by A. T. Mahan

The instructions issued to the American commissioners were voluminous. They contained not only the requirements of the Government, but arguments from every point of view, and alternatives of several descriptions, to meet anticipated objections. Such elaboration was perhaps necessary when negotiation was to take place so remote from communication with home. On one point, however, as originally issued in contemplation of Russian mediation, demand was peremptory. Impressment must cease, by stipulation. "If this encroachment of Great Britain is not provided against, the United States have appealed to arms in vain." At that moment, April 15, 1813,[480] the flush of expectation was still strong. "Should improper impressions have been taken of the probable consequences of the war, you will have ample means to remove them. It is certain that from its prosecution Great Britain can promise to herself no advantage, while she exposes herself to great expenses and to the danger of still greater losses." Nine months later, looking to direct negotiation, the same confident tone is maintained. "On impressment, the sentiments of the President have undergone no change. This degrading practice must cease.... No concession is contemplated on any point in controversy;"[481] and three weeks afterwards, February 14, 1814, "Should peace be made in Europe, it is presumed that the British Government would have less objection to forbear impressment for a specified term, than it would have should the war continue. In concluding a peace, even in case of a previous general peace in Europe, it is important to obtain such a stipulation."[482] On June 27, the note was lowered. "If found indispensably necessary to terminate the war, you may omit any stipulation on the subject of impressment." This was in pursuance of the Cabinet determination of June 27, already quoted.[483] It abandoned the only ground for war that had existed since August, 1812, when the Orders in Council were known to have been repealed. The commissioners were indeed to do their best to obtain from the British Government the demanded concessions, not in the matter of impressment only, but on the whole subject of irregular blockades, which underlay the Orders in Council, as well as on other maritime questions in dispute; but in pressing such demands they were under orders to fall back before resistance. From the opening of the colloquy they were on the defensive.

Quite different was the position assumed at first by the British Government and people. The events of the critical year 1813, both in Europe and America, had changed the entire outlook. Alexander Baring, whose general attitude towards the United States was friendly, wrote to Gallatin, October 12, 1813, "We wish for peace, but the pressure of the war upon our commerce and manufactures is over. They have ample relief in other quarters; indeed, the dependence of the two countries on each other was overrated." He was positive that there would be no concession on impressment. Again, on December 14, "The pressure of the war is diminished. Commerce is now abundantly prosperous."[484] Gallatin himself had occasion to spend some time in London during the succeeding spring,—1814. Quotation from his observations has been made already.[485] In a letter of April 21,—after Napoleon's abdication,—"The prosecution of war with the United States would afford a convenient pretext for preserving a more considerable standing force."[486] This would be a useful element in the troublesome diplomacy to be foreseen, in settling the disturbed affairs of Europe; and the Government stood in need of reasons for maintaining the pressure of taxation, which was already eliciting, and later in the year still more elicited, symptoms of great discontent and dangerous Parliamentary opposition. Yet in its conduct towards America the Cabinet had the people behind it. Two months later, Gallatin wrote to the Secretary of State, "You may rest assured of the general hostile spirit of this nation, and of its wish to inflict serious injury on the United States; that no assistance can be expected from Europe; and that no better terms will be obtained than the status ante bellum."[487]

At the time of this writing, June 13, the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Castlereagh, returned from Paris, where he had been spending the two months succeeding the first abdication of Napoleon. During this period formal peace with France had been established, and the Bourbons reseated on her throne. His instructions to the British commissioners at Ghent, issued July 28, were framed on lines which showed consciousness of mastery.[488] The question of abandoning the practice of impressment would not be so much as entertained. The Rule of 1756 should "rest on its own clear and well established authority."[489] The commissioners were not even to discuss it. Equally decisive was the position taken with regard to questions of irregular blockades, and of compensation for seizures under the Orders in Council. When these were presented by the American commissioners, the first was waived aside, as one on which there was no difference of abstract principle; while as to the second, "you cannot be too peremptory in discouraging, at the outset, the smallest expectation of any restitution of captures made under the Orders in Council."[490]

Military and naval weakness, combined with the changed conditions in Europe, made the United States powerless when thus confronted with refusal. The British Secretary stood on far less sure ground, as to success, when he began to formulate his own demands. These were essentially two: suitable arrangements for the Indians, and a rectification of the frontiers. There was a third question, concerning the fisheries on the Great Banks of Newfoundland. As to these, the general right of all nations to frequent the Banks, being open sea, was explicitly admitted; but the subjects of a foreign state had no right to fish within the maritime jurisdiction of Great Britain, much less to land with their catch on coasts belonging to her. The provisions of the Treaty of 1783 therefore would not be renewed, unless for an equivalent.

As regarded the Indians, an adequate arrangement of their interests was a sine quâ non of peace; nor would a full and express recognition of present limits by itself alone fulfil this demand. There must be security for its future observance. The particular method by which this observance should be maintained was not made indispensable; but it was plainly stated in the instructions that the best means was "a mutual guarantee of the Indian possessions, as they shall be established upon the peace, against encroachment on the part of either State." The suggestion, in its logical consequence and in its intent, went to establishing the communities of Indians as a sovereign state, with boundaries guaranteed by Great Britain and the United States,—a most entangling alliance. In support of this, Castlereagh alleged that such a barrier of separation possessed a distinct advantage over a line of contact between the two guaranteeing states, such as now existed in their common boundary. The collisions incident to intercourse between red and white men were easily transferred from side to side of such a conventional line, causing continual disputes. The advantages of a buffer state, to use the modern term, would be secured by the proposed arrangement. Writing to the prime minister, the Earl of Liverpool, he said, "The question is one of expediency; and not of principle, as the American commissioners have endeavored to make it. It does not follow, because, in the year 1783, the two States, not perhaps very justly, took a common boundary, thereby assuming a sort of sovereignty over the Indians, that they may not mutually recede from that boundary, if a frontier conterminous with that of the Indians is preferable to one with each other."[491]

However plausible reasoning based upon such premises might seem to the party advancing it, it could not qualify the fact that it required from the United States a large cession of territory, to be surrendered to the Indians under British guarantee. Such a demand was a dangerous diplomatic weapon to put within reach of a commission, of which Adams and Gallatin were members. In presenting it, also, the British representatives went beyond the letter of their instructions, issued by Castlereagh on July 28, and enlarged August 14. Not only was the inclusion of the Indians in the peace to be a sine quâ non, but they wrote, "It is equally necessary" that a definite boundary be assigned, and the integrity of their possessions mutually guaranteed.[492] This paper was submitted to Castlereagh as he passed through Ghent to Paris, on his way to the Vienna Conference. "Had I been to prepare the note given in on our part, I should have been less peremptory;" but, like many superiors, he hesitated to fetter the men in immediate charge, and "acquiesced in the expression, 'It is equally necessary, etc.,' which is very strong."[493] The prime minister was still more deprecatory. He wrote Castlereagh, "Our commissioners had certainly taken a very erroneous view of our policy. If the negotiations had been allowed to break off upon the two notes already presented, ... I am satisfied the war would have become popular in America."[494]

The American commissioners could see this also, and were quick to use the advantage given by the wording of the paper before them, to improve the status of the United States in the negotiation; for one of the great weaknesses, on which Great Britain reckoned, was the disunion of American sentiment on the subject of the war. Of their reply, dated August 24, Castlereagh wrote, "It is extremely material to answer the American note, as it is evidently intended to rouse the people upon the question of their independence."[495] Besides the Indian proposition, the British note of August 19 had conveyed also the explicit views of the ministry as to rectification of frontier. Stated briefly, the chain of the Great Lakes was asserted to be a military barrier essential to the security of Canada, as the weaker community in North America. To assure it, no territorial cession was required; but the lakes should be in the sole military tenure of Great Britain. The United States might use them freely for commercial purposes, but should maintain on them no ship of war, nor build any fortification on their shores, or within a certain distance, to be fixed by agreement. In addition to this, on the side of the lower St. Lawrence, there was to be such a cession of the northern part of Maine as would establish a direct communication between Quebec and Halifax. The American reply of August 24[496] discussed these questions, patiently but instructively. The matters involved were made plain for the American reader, and the paper closed with the clear intimation that before such terms were accepted there must be a great deal more fighting. "It is not necessary to refer such demands to the American Government for instructions. They will only be a fit subject of deliberation when it becomes necessary to decide upon the expediency of an absolute surrender of national independence." So far as the British proposals went, the question was military, not diplomatic; for soldiers and seamen to decide, not for negotiators.

So it stood, and so in the solution it proved. The American commissioners held firm to this ground; while on the part of the British there was thenceforth a continual effort to escape from a false position, or to temporize, until some favorable change of circumstances might enable them to insist. "The substance of the question," wrote Castlereagh to the prime minister, "is, are we prepared to continue the war for territorial arrangements. If not, is this the best time to make peace, or is it desirable to take the chances of the campaign and then to be governed by circumstances?"[497] "If our campaign in Canada should be as successful as our military preparations would lead us to expect," ... replied Liverpool, "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."[498]

By these considerations the next British note was dictated, and presented September 4.[499] It simply argued the question, with dilatory design, in a somewhat minatory tone. "I think it not unlikely," Liverpool had written with reference to it, "that the American commissioners will propose to refer the subject to their Government. In that case, the negotiation may be adjourned till the answer is received, and we shall know the result of the campaign before it can be resumed." But the Americans did not refer. They too needed time for their people to learn what now was the purpose of hostilities, which the British envoys had precipitately stated as an indispensable concession, and to manifest the national temper under the changed circumstances; but they did not choose that the matter should be stated as one open to discussion. They knew well enough the harassment of maintaining a land warfare three thousand miles from Great Britain, as well as the dangers threatening the European situation and embarrassing the British ministry. They in turn discussed at length, scrutinizing historically the several arguments of their opponents; but their conclusion was foregone. The two propositions—first, of assigning "a definite boundary to the Indians living within the limit of the United States, beyond which boundary they [the United States] should stipulate not to acquire any territory; secondly, of securing the exclusive military possession of the lakes to Great Britain—are both inadmissible. We cannot subscribe to, and would deem useless to refer to our Government, any arrangement containing either of these propositions." The British Government was not permitted any subterfuge to escape from the premature insistence upon cession of territory made by their envoys, which would tend to unite the people in America; nor was it to be anticipated that prolonged hostilities for such an object would be acceptable in Great Britain.

The pre-eminence given to the Indian question by Great Britain in these negotiations was due to the importance attached by British local officials to the aid of the savages in war, and to a sensitive conviction that, when thus utilized, they should not be abandoned in peace. Their military value was probably over-estimated. It consisted chiefly in numbers, in which the British were inferior, and in the terror produced by their cruelties; doubtless, also, in some degree to their skill in woodcraft; but they were not dependable. Such as it was, their support went usually to the weaker party; not because the Indian naturally sided with the weaker, but because he instinctively recognized that from the stronger he had most to fear. Therefore in colonial days France, in later days Great Britain, in both cases Canada, derived more apparent profit from their employment than did their opponent, whose more numerous white men enabled him to dispense with the fickle and feebler aid of the aborigines.