A second conference only served to show the want of any common basis for negotiation. The Americans had come to Ghent to settle two outstanding problems—blockades and indemnities for attacks on neutral commerce—and to insist on the abandonment of impressments as a sine qua non. Both commissions then agreed to appeal to their respective Governments for further instructions. Within a week, Lord Castlereagh sent precise instructions which confirmed the worst fears of the Americans. The Indian boundary line was to follow the line of the Treaty of Greenville and beyond it neither nation was to acquire land. The United States was asked, in short, to set apart for the Indians in perpetuity an area which comprised the present States of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illinois, four-fifths of Indiana, and a third of Ohio. But, remonstrated Gallatin, this area included States and Territories settled by more than a hundred thousand American citizens. What was to be done with them? "They must look after themselves," was the blunt answer.
In comparison with this astounding proposal, Lord Castlereagh's further suggestion of a "rectification" of the frontier by the cession of Fort Niagara and Sackett's Harbor and by the exclusion of the Americans from the Lakes, seemed of little importance. The purpose of His Majesty's Government, the commissioners hastened to add, was not aggrandizement but the protection of the North American provinces. In view of the avowed aim of the United States to conquer Canada, the control of the Lakes must rest with Great Britain. Indeed, taking the weakness of Canada into account, His Majesty's Government might have reasonably demanded the cession of the lands adjacent to the Lakes; and should these moderate terms not be accepted, His Majesty's Government would feel itself at liberty to enlarge its demands, if the war continued to favor British arms. The American commissioners asked if these proposals relating to the control of the Lakes were also a sine qua non. "We have given you one sine qua non already," was the reply, "and we should suppose one sine qua non at a time was enough."
The Americans returned to their hotel of one mind: they could view the proposals just made no other light than as a deliberate attempt to dismember the United States. They could differ only as to the form in which they should couch their positive rejection. As titular head of the commission, Adams set promptly to work upon a draft of an answer which he soon set before his colleagues. At once all appearance of unanimity vanished. To the enemy they could present a united front; in the privacy of their apartment, they were five headstrong men. They promptly fell upon Adams's draft tooth and nail. Adams described the scene with pardonable resentment.
"Mr. Gallatin is for striking out any 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."
Sharp encounters took place between Adams and Clay. "You dare not," shouted Clay in a passion on one occasion, "you CANNOT, you SHALL not insinuate that there has been a cabal of three members against you!" "Gentlemen! Gentlemen!" Gallatin would expostulate with a twinkle in his eye, "We must remain united or we will fail." It was his good temper and tact that saved this and many similar situations. When Bayard had essayed a draft of his own and had failed to win support, it was Gallatin who took up Adams's draft and put it into acceptable form. On the third day, after hours of "sifting, erasing, patching, and amending, until we were all wearied, though none of us satisfied," Gallatin's revision was accepted. From this moment, Gallatin's virtual leadership was unquestioned.
The American note of the 24th of August was a vigorous but even-tempered protest against the British demands as contrary to precedent and dishonorable to the United States. The American States would never consent "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." "A treaty concluded on such terms would be but an armistice." But after the note had been prepared and dispatched, profound discouragement reigned in the American hotel. Even Gallatin, usually hopeful and philosophically serene, grew despondent. "Our negotiations may be considered at an end," he wrote to Monroe; "Great Britain wants war in order to cripple us. She wants aggrandizement at our expense.... I do not expect to be longer than three weeks in Europe." The commissioners notified their landlord that they would give up their quarters on the 1st of October; yet they lingered on week after week, waiting for the word which would close negotiations and send them home.
Meantime the British Ministry was quite as little pleased at the prospect. It would not do to let the impression go abroad that Great Britain was prepared to continue the war for territorial gains. If a rupture of the negotiations must come, Lord Castlereagh preferred to let the Americans shoulder the responsibility. He therefore instructed Gambier not to insist on the independent Indian territory and the control of the Lakes. These points were no longer to be "ultimata" but only matters for discussion. The British commissioners were to insist, however, on articles providing for the pacification of the Indians.
Should the Americans yield this sine qua non, now that the first had been withdrawn? Adams thought not, decidedly not; he would rather break off negotiations than admit the right of Great Britain to interfere with the Indians dwelling within the limits of the United States. Gallatin remarked that after all it was a very small point to insist on, when a slight concession would win much more important points. "Then, said I [Adams], 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 face brightened, and he said in a tone of perfect good-humor, 'That's a non-sequitur.' This turned the edge of the argument into jocularity. I laughed, and insisted that it was a sequitur, and the conversation easily changed to another point." Gallatin had his way with the rest of the commission and drafted the note of the 26th of September, which, while refusing to recognize the Indians as sovereign nations in the treaty, proposed a stipulation that would leave them in possession of their former lands and rights. This solution of a perplexing problem was finally accepted after another exchange of notes and another earnest discussion at the American hotel, where Gallatin again poured oil on the troubled waters. Concession begat concession. New instructions from President Madison now permitted the commissioners to drop the demand for the abolition of impressments and blockades; and, with these difficult matters swept away, the path to peace was much easier to travel.
Such was the outlook for peace when news reached Ghent of the humiliating rout at Bladensburg. The British newspapers were full of jubilant comments; the five crestfallen American envoys took what cold comfort they could out of the very general condemnation of the burning of the Capitol. Then, on the heels of this intelligence, came rumors that the British invasion of New York had failed and that Prevost's army was in full retreat to Canada. The Americans could hardly grasp the full significance of this British reversal: it was too good to be true. But true it was, and their spirits rebounded.
It was at this juncture that the British commissioners presented a note, on the 21st of October, which for the first time went to the heart of the negotiations. War had been waged; territory had been overrun; conquests had been made—not the anticipated conquests on either side, to be sure, but conquests nevertheless. These were the plain facts. Now the practical question was this: Was the treaty to be drafted on the basis of the existing state of possession or on the basis of the status before the war? The British note stated their case in plain unvarnished fashion; it insisted on the status uti possidetis—the possession of territory won by arms.