Thus the British demand, which had till then been intended to include half of Maine and the whole south bank of the St. Lawrence River from Plattsburg to Sackett’s Harbor, suddenly fell to a demand for Moose Island, a right of way across the northern angle of Maine, Fort Niagara with five miles circuit, and the Island of Mackinaw. The reason for the new spirit of moderation was not far to seek. On the afternoon of October 17, while the British Cabinet was still deliberating on the basis of uti possidetis, news reached London that the British invasion of northern New York, from which so much had been expected, had totally failed, and that Prevost’s large army had precipitately retreated into Canada. The London “Times” of October 19 was frank in its expressions of disappointment:—
“This is a lamentable event to the civilized world.... The subversion of that system of fraud and malignity which constitutes the whole policy of the Jeffersonian school ... was an event to which we should have bent and yet must bend all our energies. The present American government must be displaced, or it will sooner or later plant its poisoned dagger in the heart of the parent State.”
The failure of the attempt on Baltimore and Drummond’s bloody repulse at Fort Erie became known at the same time, and coming together at a critical moment threw confusion into the Ministry and their agents in the press and the diplomatic service throughout Europe. The “Courier” of October 25 declared that “peace with America is neither practicable nor desirable till we have wiped away this late disaster;” but the “Morning Chronicle” of October 21–24 openly intimated that the game of war was at an end. October 31, the Paris correspondent of the London “Times” told of the cheers that rose from the crowds in the Palais Royal gardens at each recital of the Plattsburg defeat; and October 21 Goulburn wrote from Ghent to Bathurst,[46]—
“The news from America is very far from satisfactory. Even our brilliant success at Baltimore, as it did not terminate in the capture of the town, will be considered by the Americans as a victory and not as an escape.... If it were not for the want of fuel in Boston, I should be quite in despair.”
In truth the blockade was the single advantage held by England; and even in that advantage the Americans had a share as long as their cruisers surrounded the British Islands.
Liverpool wrote to Castlereagh, October 21,[47] commenting severely on Prevost’s failure, and finding consolation only in the thought that the Americans showed themselves even less patriotic than he had supposed them to be:—
“The capture and destruction of Washington has not united the Americans: quite the contrary. We have gained more credit with them by saving private property than we have lost by the destruction of their public works and buildings. Madison clings to office, and I am strongly inclined to think that the best thing for us is that he should remain there.”
Castlereagh at Vienna found himself unable to make the full influence of England felt, so long as such mortifying disasters by land and sea proved her inability to deal with an enemy she persisted in calling contemptible.
On the American commissioners the news came, October 21, with the effect of a reprieve from execution. Gallatin was deeply moved; Adams could not believe the magnitude of the success; but as far as regarded their joint action, the overthrow of England’s scheme produced no change. Their tone had always been high, and they saw no advantage to be gained by altering it. The British commissioners sent to them, October 21, the substance of the new instructions, offering the basis of uti possidetis, subject to modifications for mutual convenience.[48] The Americans by common consent, October 23, declined to treat on that basis, or on any other than the mutual restoration of territory.[49] They thought that the British government was still playing with them, when in truth Lord Bathurst had yielded the chief part of the original British demand, and had come to what the whole British empire regarded as essentials,—the right of way to Quebec, and the exclusion of American fishermen from British shores and waters.
The American note of October 24, bluntly rejecting the basis of uti possidetis, created a feeling akin to consternation in the British Cabinet. At first, ministers assumed that the war must go on, and deliberated only on the point to be preferred for a rupture. “We still think it desirable to gain a little more time before the negotiation is brought to a close,” wrote Liverpool to the Duke of Wellington,[50] October 28; and on the same day he wrote to Castlereagh at Vienna to warn him that the American war “will probably now be of some duration,” and treating of its embarrassments without disguise.[51] The Czar’s conduct at Vienna had annoyed and alarmed all the great Powers, and the American war gave him a decisive advantage over England; but even without the Russian complication, the prospect for ministers was not cheering.