Under such circumstances, Mr. Gallatin lingered helplessly in St. Petersburg, idle and anxious, while the world seemed convulsed with agony. He wrote a long letter to General Moreau on the 2d September, ignorant that, while he wrote, Moreau was drawing his last breath. With what patience he could command, he amused himself with such resources as St. Petersburg offered. No answer had yet been received from England, when, on the 19th October, letters arrived from the United States, announcing that his nomination as envoy to Russia had been rejected by the Senate, and that consequently he was no longer a member of the mission.
Curiously enough, only one week had elapsed since Mr. Gallatin had been officially recognized as envoy by Count Romanzoff; the difficulty of communicating with the Emperor had caused delays in every detail, so that all Mr. Gallatin’s share in the transactions under the mediation was, with the exception of this single week, unofficial. The news of his rejection by the Senate was probably not unexpected, but, like everything else in this unlucky mission, it came in just such a way as to increase complications; no official information of the fact and no instructions were received, nor did these reach Mr. Gallatin until the end of March in the following year, and yet without such official advices it was difficult to get away from St. Petersburg, and Count Romanzoff was strongly of the opinion that he could not go.
Nevertheless, there were some advantages in the situation. The Senate had at least restored to Mr. Gallatin his liberty of action; he was no longer dependent on his colleagues; if not envoy, he was still Secretary of the Treasury, strong in his relations with the President, master of all the threads of the negotiation, and it depended only upon himself to say what measures he should take. Little consideration was needed to show that he could do no good by returning to America. His enemies were there in possession of the field, and his failure in diplomacy would strengthen their hands; his only chance of baffling them was by rescuing the negotiation, and this he set himself to accomplish. Somewhat to the disgust of Mr. Adams, he proceeded, delicately but decidedly, to mark out his own course. Mr. Baring had urged the mission to go to England to treat directly of peace. Mr. Gallatin did, in October, send his secretary, George M. Dallas, to London to make a channel of communication between Lord Castlereagh, Count Lieven, the Russian Ambassador, and Mr. Baring on one side, and himself and Mr. Madison on the other. The news of Mr. Gallatin’s rejection by the Senate arrived precisely as young Dallas was starting for London. Thither Gallatin meditated following him, and as for the responsibility thus assumed, he bluntly told Mr. Adams “that he was no longer a member of the mission; he was a private gentleman, and might go home by the way of England or any other way, as he pleased; that as to the approbation of the government, he should not trouble himself about it; he would not disobey their orders, but if he was right he should not much regard whether they liked it or not. Mr. Baring’s letter did indeed speak of the decision of the British government upon the point of impressment in the clearest and strongest terms, but he believed the point might still be presented to them in a manner which would induce them to judge of it otherwise. This, he thought, would be the utility of their going to England. For his purpose was to convince the British ministers that unless they should yield on the article of impressment, there was no possibility of treating at all.”[121]
Another scheme of Mr. Gallatin’s was to go directly to the Emperor Alexander’s headquarters and attempt to stimulate his action; but to effect this object a strong friend was needed, and since Moreau’s death there was no individual about the Emperor on whose aid reliance could be put.
The anomalous attitude and independent action of Mr. Gallatin naturally annoyed his colleagues and might easily have made a coolness, but he had the tact to follow his own path without giving offence. Meanwhile the curious diplomatic mystification which had perplexed the American envoys all summer, and of which the Emperor was the innocent cause, began to approach an end. As early as July 14, Lord Castlereagh had instructed Lord Cathcart, in the most positive language, to make the Emperor understand that England could not consent to even the appearance of foreign intervention in the American dispute,[122] and this final decision seems to have been communicated to the Emperor on the 1st September, at Töplitz, when Alexander had already authorized Romanzoff to renew the offer of mediation; when Romanzoff had indeed already written his despatches to that effect and forwarded them to the Emperor for approval. On the arrival of these despatches at headquarters, Alexander wrote back on September 8, approving the draft for a new offer of mediation notwithstanding the fact that Lord Cathcart, only a week before, had officially announced that under no circumstances could England admit of mediation, but that she meant to negotiate directly. The second proposal to mediate was, therefore, forwarded by Romanzoff to Count Lieven, the Russian ambassador in London, and the Count must have informally notified Lord Castlereagh of its contents, for it seems to have been on the strength of information contained in this despatch that the British note to Mr. Monroe, dated November 4, and offering to negotiate directly, was founded; but Count Lieven never officially communicated the proposal itself to Lord Castlereagh; by the usual diplomatic jugglery this second offer was quietly suppressed at the British minister’s hint, and Count Lieven only wrote back that Lord Castlereagh had transmitted directly to the Emperor in person a memoir containing his reasons for declining mediation. The Emperor forgot to communicate this memoir to Romanzoff, and when the latter received Lieven’s letter early in November he could only communicate it without explanation to the Americans. This was done on November 3, and by this time another British minister, Lord Walpole, had arrived in St. Petersburg, who irritated the Americans still farther by talking openly and bitterly of Count Romanzoff’s intrigues. No one knew how to explain the riddle. Even Lord Cathcart, who was with the Emperor, wrote to Lord Castlereagh on the 12th December: “I think Nesselrode knows nothing of the cause of the delay of communicating with the American mission; that it was an intrigue of the Chancellor’s, if it is one; and that during the operations of war the Emperor has lost the clue to it, so that something has been unanswered. If it is not cleared up, I will write another note and send a copy to Walpole.”[123] Romanzoff himself was deeply mortified, and this evidence of the Emperor’s neglect seems to have been the cause of his retirement from office. He now announced to the Americans that he should remain Chancellor a short time longer solely to close the affair of this mission.
All the parties to this imbroglio, confused and irritated by the veil of mystery which surrounded it, suspected intrigue and treachery in their opponents. The Americans naturally believed that England was to blame, and, although this was not the case, there was some reason in the suspicion, for Lord Castlereagh, straightforward and honest in his treatment of Russia, was very slow in dealing with America, and, instead of writing on July 14 to the United States government, he had waited until Count Lieven again jogged his elbow by bringing to his knowledge Count Romanzoff’s second offer of mediation. This was the entire advantage gained for America by Russia, and the whole result accomplished by Mr. Gallatin’s voyage. On the 4th November, Lord Castlereagh forwarded to America the offer of direct negotiation which he had announced in his instructions to Lord Cathcart of the 14th July. Not until Mr. Baring wrote to Mr. Gallatin on the 14th December did these facts become certainly known to the Americans, and even then Mr. Baring was mistaken in regard to the dates furnished him from the Foreign Office.
1814.
All hope of success from the mediation had long vanished; the winter had set in; Gallatin was not even a member of the commission; yet he still lingered at St. Petersburg, partly in deference to Count Romanzoff’s wish, partly in the hope of receiving the long-expected communication from the Emperor which was to close the mission, partly in expectation of receiving more decisive news from England or of getting instructions from America, partly in order to have the company of Mr. Bayard on his journey. Not until the 25th January, 1814, did they leave St. Petersburg, and still without a word from the Emperor.
They travelled with all the slowness inevitable in the movements of those times from St. Petersburg to Amsterdam. There they arrived on the evening of the 4th March, and there they remained during four weeks. The situation of affairs did not grow better. The complete destruction of France was practically accomplished, and America was now left to oppose alone the whole power of England, which would infallibly be directed against her. On reaching Amsterdam Mr. Gallatin learned that Lord Castlereagh’s offer of direct negotiation had been promptly met on the part of Mr. Madison by the appointment of a new commission, of which Mr. Gallatin himself was not one, for the reason that at the time these nominations were made he was supposed to be on his way home to resume his post at the Treasury. When the mistake was discovered, and after it had become evident that the Treasury must no longer be left vacant, the President, on the 8th February, nominated Mr. Gallatin as a member of the new commission, and at the same time appointed Mr. G. W. Campbell Secretary of the Treasury. By this accident Mr. Gallatin, instead of standing first in the commission, was made its last member, and all his colleagues, Mr. Adams, Mr. Bayard, Henry Clay, and Jonathan Russell, took precedence of him.
These proceedings had no effect in changing Mr. Gallatin’s movements: whether first or last in the commission, or whether omitted from it entirely, he continued to superintend all the diplomatic operations connected with the proposed peace. Towards the end of March he received from Mr. Baring the necessary permission to visit England, and immediately afterwards he crossed the channel with Mr. Bayard and established himself in London. Almost at the same moment Mr. Clay and Mr. Russell arrived at Gottenburg, and brought with them Mr. Gallatin’s appointment as fifth commissioner. A considerable time necessarily elapsed before all the five envoys could be brought together, and during this interval Mr. Gallatin was quietly employed in smoothing the path of negotiation.