These terms were the same as those announced by the “Times,” except that the “Courier” did not object to treating with Madison. The United States were to be interdicted the fisheries; Spain was to be supported in recovering Louisiana; the right of impressment must be expressly conceded,—anything short of this would be unwise and a disappointment. “There are points which must be conceded by America before we can put an end to the contest.”[7] Such language offered no apparent hope of peace; yet whatever hope existed lay in Castlereagh, who inspired it. Extravagant as the demands were, they fell short of the common expectation. The “Courier” admitted the propriety of negotiation; it insisted neither on Madison’s retirement nor on a division of the Union, and it refrained from asserting the whole British demand, or making it an ultimatum.
The chief pressure on the Ministry came from Canada, and could not be ignored. The Canadian government returned to its old complaint that Canadian interests had been ignorantly and wantonly sacrificed by the treaty of 1783, and that the opportunity to correct the wrong should not be lost. The Canadian official “Gazette” insisted that the United States should be required to surrender the northern part of the State of New York, and that both banks of the St. Lawrence should be Canadian property.[8] A line from Plattsburg to Sackett’s Harbor would satisfy this necessity; but to secure Canadian interests, the British government should further insist on acquiring the east bank of the Niagara River, and on a guaranty of the Indian Territory from Sandusky to Kaskaskias, with the withdrawal of American military posts in the Northwest. A pamphlet was published in May to explain the subject for the use of the British negotiators, and the required territorial cessions were marked on a map.[9] The control of the Lakes, the Ohio River as the Indian boundary, and the restitution of Louisiana were the chief sacrifices wished from the United States. The cession of a part of Maine was rather assumed than claimed, and the fisheries were to be treated as wholly English. A memorial from Newfoundland, dated Nov. 8, 1813,[10] pointed out the advantages which the war had already brought to British trade and fisheries by the exclusion of American competition, to the result of doubling the number of men employed on the Labrador shores; and the memorialists added,—
“They cannot too often urge the important policy ... of wholly excluding foreigners from sharing again in the advantages of a fishery from which a large proportion of our best national defence will be derived.”
British confidence was at its highest point when the Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia visited London, June 7, and received an enthusiastic welcome. Gallatin obtained an interview with the Czar, June 17, and hoped that Russian influence might moderate British demands; but the Czar could give him no encouragement.[11] Gallatin wrote home an often-quoted despatch, dated June 13, warning the President that fifteen or twenty thousand men were on their way to America, and that the United States could expect no assistance from Europe.
“I have also the most perfect conviction,” Gallatin continued, “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.”
Even these terms, Gallatin added, depended on American success in withstanding the shock of the campaign. He did not say that at the time he wrote, the status ante bellum would be scouted by public opinion in England as favorable to the United States; but his estimate of the situation was more nearly exact than though he had consulted only the apparent passions of the British press.
“Lord Castlereagh,” wrote Gallatin to Clay,[12] “is, according to the best information I can collect, the best disposed man in the Cabinet.” Yet Castlereagh did not venture at that stage to show a disposition for peace. He delayed the negotiation, perhaps wisely, six weeks after the American negotiators had assembled at Ghent; and his instructions[13] to the British commissioners, dated July 28, reflected the demands of the press. They offered, not the status ante bellum, but the uti possidetis, as the starting-point of negotiation. “The state of possession must be considered as the territorial arrangement which would revive upon a peace, except so far as the same may be modified by any new treaty.” The state of possession, in view of the orders that had then been given, or were to be given, for the invasion of the United States, was likely to cost the Americans half of Maine, between the Penobscot and the Passamaquoddy; Plattsburg, and the northern part of New York, Vermont, and New Hampshire; Fort Niagara, Mackinaw, and possibly New Orleans and Mobile. Besides this concession of the uti possidetis, or military occupation at the date of peace, the Americans were required at the outset to admit as a sine qua non, or condition precedent to any negotiation, that England’s Indian allies, the tribes of the Northwestern Territory, should be included in the pacification, and that a definite boundary should be assigned to them under a mutual guaranty of both Powers. Eastport, or Moose Island, and the fishing privileges were to be regarded as British. With these instructions of July 28, the British commissioners, early in August, started for Ghent.
Between Castlereagh’s ideas and those of Madison no relation existed. Gallatin and his colleagues at Ghent were provided with two sets of instructions. The first set had been written in 1813, for the expected negotiation at Petersburg. The second set was written in January, 1814, and was brought to Europe by Clay. Neither authorized the American commissioners to discuss such conditions as Castlereagh proposed. The President gave his negotiators authority to deal with questions of maritime law; but even there they were allowed to exercise no discretion on the chief issue in dispute. Monroe’s latest letter, dated January 28, was emphatic. “On impressment, as to the right of the United States to be exempted from it, I have nothing to add,” said the secretary;[14] “the sentiments of the President have undergone no change on that important subject. This degrading practice must cease; our flag must protect the crew, or the United States cannot consider themselves an independent nation.” The President would consent to exclude all British seamen, except those already naturalized, from American vessels, and to stipulate the surrender of British deserters; but the express abandonment of impressment was a sine qua non of treaty. “If this encroachment of Great Britain is not provided against,” said Monroe, “the United States have appealed to arms in vain. If your efforts to accomplish it should fail, all further negotiations will cease, and you will return home without delay.”
On territorial questions the two governments were equally wide apart. So far from authorizing a cession of territorial rights, Monroe instructed the American commissioners, both at St. Petersburg and at Ghent, “to bring to view the advantage to both countries which is promised by a transfer of the upper parts and even the whole of Canada to the United States.”[15] The instructions of January 1 and January 28, 1814, reiterated the reasoning which should decide England voluntarily to cede Canada. “Experience has shown that Great Britain cannot participate in the dominion and navigation of the Lakes without incurring the danger of an early renewal of the war.”[16]
These instructions were subsequently omitted from the published documents, probably because the Ghent commissioners decided not to act upon them;[17] but when the American negotiators met their British antagonists at Ghent, each party was under orders to exclude the other, if possible, from the Lakes, and the same divergence of opinion in regard to the results of two years’ war extended over the whole field of negotiation. The British were ordered to begin by a sine qua non in regard to the Indians, which the Americans had no authority to consider. The Americans were ordered to impose a sine qua non in regard to impressments, which the British were forbidden to concede. The British were obliged to claim the basis of possession; the Americans were not even authorized to admit the status existing before the war. The Americans were required to negotiate about blockades, contraband and maritime rights of neutrals; the British could not admit such subjects into dispute. The British regarded their concessions of fishing-rights as terminated by the war; the Americans could not entertain the idea.