“I am afraid,” said Castlereagh’s letter,[442] “this tender of mediation which on a question of maritime right cannot be listened to by Great Britain, however kindly and liberally intended, will have had the unfortunate effect of protracting the war with the United States. It is to be lamented that the formal offer was made to America before the disposition of the British government was previously sounded as to its acceptance of a mediation. It has enabled the President to hold out to the people of America a vague expectation of peace, under which he may reconcile them with less repugnance to submit to the measures of the Government. This evil, however, cannot now be avoided, and it only remains to prevent this question from producing any embarrassment between Great Britain and Russia.”
Embarrassment between Great Britain and Russia was no new thing in European politics, and commonly involved maritime objects for which the United States were then fighting. Castlereagh had much reason for wishing to avoid the danger. The most fortunate result he could reasonably expect from the coming campaign was a defeat of Bonaparte that should drive him back to the Rhine. Then Russia and Austria would probably offer terms to Napoleon; England would be obliged to join in a European Congress; Napoleon would raise the question of maritime rights, and on that point he would be supported by Russian sympathies. Napoleon and Russia might insist that the United States should take part in the Congress, and in that case England might be obliged to retire from it. Castlereagh felt uneasy at the prospect, and ordered Cathcart to “press the Emperor of Russia in the strongest manner not to push his personal interference on this point further.” Cathcart was to use his utmost endeavors to persuade the Czar “pointedly to discountenance a design so mischievously calculated to promote the views of France.”
Another week of reflection only increased Castlereagh’s anxieties, and caused the British government to take a step intended to leave the Czar no opening for interference. July 13 Castlereagh wrote Cathcart new instructions,[443] directing him to present a formal note acquainting the Czar that the Prince Regent was “ready immediately to name plenipotentiaries to meet and treat with the American plenipotentiaries in the earnest desire” of peace, either in London or at Gothenburg; although he could “not consent that these discussions should be carried on in any place which might be supposed to imply that they were in any way connected with any other negotiations.” He wrote privately to Cathcart that the mere knowledge of the intervention of a third power in any arrangement with the United States would probably decide the British people against it.[444]
Thus in July, 1813, when the war was barely a year old, Castlereagh reached the point of offering to negotiate directly with the United States. This advantage was gained by the Russian offer of mediation, and was intended not to pacify America but to silence Alexander and Roumanzoff. Castlereagh was frank and prompt in his declarations. His offer of direct negotiation was dated July 13, at a time when Alexander Baring received a letter from Gallatin announcing his arrival at Gothenburg and inviting assistance for the proposed mediation. Baring consulted Castlereagh, and wrote, July 22, a long letter to Gallatin, to inform the American commissioners what the British government had done and was willing to do. “Before this reaches you,” said Baring,[445] “you will have been informed that this mediation has been refused, with expressions of our desire to treat separately and directly here; or, if more agreeable to you, at Gothenburg.” To leave no room for misunderstanding, Baring added that if the American commissioners were obliged by their instructions to adhere pertinaciously to the American demands in respect to impressments, he should think negotiation useless.
In regular succession all these expressions of British policy were received at St. Petersburg in the Czar’s absence, and in the doubtful state of mind which followed the battles of Lützen and Bautzen. Alexander had left Count Roumanzoff at St. Petersburg, continuing to act as Chancellor of the Empire and Foreign Secretary; but in truth the Minister of Foreign Affairs, as far as the Czar then required such an officer, was Count Nesselrode, who attended Alexander in person and received his orders orally. Nesselrode at that time was rather an agent than an adviser; but in general he represented the English alliance and hostility to Napoleon, while Roumanzoff represented the French alliance and hostility to England.
Of English diplomacy Americans knew something, and could by similarity of mind divine what was not avowed. Of French diplomacy they had long experience, and their study was rendered from time to time more easy by Napoleon’s abrupt methods. Of Russian diplomacy they knew little or nothing. Thus far Minister Adams had been given his own way. He had been allowed to seem to kindle the greatest war of modern times, and had been invited to make use of Russia against England; but the Czar’s reasons for granting such favor were mysterious even to Adams, for while Napoleon occasionally avowed motives, Alexander never did. Russian diplomacy moved wholly in the dark.
Only one point was certain. For reasons of his own, the Czar chose to leave Roumanzoff nominally in office until the result of the war should be decided, although Roumanzoff was opposed to the Czar’s policy. The chancellor did not stand alone in his hostility to the war; probably a majority of the Russian people shared the feeling. Even the army and its old General Koutousoff, though elated with an immense triumph, grumbled at being obliged to fight the battles of Germany, and would gladly have returned to their own soil. The Czar himself could not afford to break his last tie with the French interest, but was wise to leave a path open by which he could still retreat in case his war in Germany failed. If Napoleon should succeed once more in throwing the Russian army back upon Russian soil, Alexander might still be obliged to use Roumanzoff’s services if not to resume his policy. Such a suspicion might not wholly explain Alexander’s course toward Roumanzoff and Koutousoff, but no one could doubt that it explained the chancellor’s course toward the Czar. Indeed, Roumanzoff made little concealment of his situation or his hopes. Adams could without much difficulty divine that the failure of the Czar in Germany would alone save Roumanzoff in St. Petersburg, and that the restoration of Roumanzoff to power was necessary to reinvigorate the mediation.
Castlereagh’s first positive refusal to accept the mediation was notified to Count Lieven in May, and was known to Roumanzoff in St. Petersburg about the middle of June. Early in July the Czar received it, and by his order Nesselrode, in a despatch to Lieven dated July 9, expressed “the perfect satisfaction which his Imperial Majesty felt in the reasons which actuated the conduct of this [British] government on a point of so much delicacy and importance.”[446] The Czar was then in the midst of difficulties. The result of the war was doubtful, and depended on Austria.
Just as news of the armistice arrived in St. Petersburg, Minister Adams went to Roumanzoff, June 22, to inform him of Gallatin’s and Bayard’s appointment. Roumanzoff in return gave Adams explicit information of England’s refusal to accept the Czar’s offer. Adams immediately recorded it in his Diary:[447]—
“He [Roumanzoff] said that he was very sorry to say he had received since he had seen me [June 15] further despatches from Count Lieven, stating that the British government, with many very friendly and polite assurances that there was no mediation which they should so readily and cheerfully accept as that of the Emperor of Russia, had however stated that their differences with the United States of America involving certain principles of the internal government of England were of a nature which they did not think suitable to be settled by a mediation.”