Albert Gallatin

by John Austin Stevens

In company with Mr. Bayard, Mr. Gallatin reached the English capital on April 9, 1814. There they heard some days later of the arrival of Messrs. Clay and Russell at Gottenburg. The situation of Great Britain had greatly changed. Intoxicated with the success of their arms and the abdication of Napoleon, the English people were quite ready to undertake the punishment of the United States, while the release of a large body of trained troops in France, Italy, Holland, and Portugal enabled the ministry immediately to throw a large force into Canada for the summer campaign. In the British cabinet a belief was said to be entertained that a continuance of the war would bring about a separation of the American Union, and perhaps a return of New England to the mother country. In this emergency Gallatin availed himself of the opportunity which presented itself of addressing Lafayette in sending to that officer the patents for the Louisiana land granted to him by the American government, and urged the use of his influence to promote an accommodation between England and the United States.

To Clay he wrote on April 22, proposing that the place of negotiation be changed from “that corner” Gottenburg, either to London, or some neutral place more accessible to the friendly interference of those among the European powers upon which they must greatly rely. The Emperor Alexander was expected in London, and Castlereagh, who had recently returned from France where he had been in direct intercourse with him, was understood to be of all the cabinet the best disposed to the United States. From Clay Gallatin heard in reply that the British chargé d'affaires at Stockholm had already asked the sanction of the Swedish government to the negotiation at Gottenburg. While Clay was unwilling to go to London he gave his consent to carry on the negotiations in Holland, if the arrangement could be made in such a manner as to avoid any ill feeling at the Swedish court by the change from Gottenburg. In May Gallatin and Bayard asked of Monroe, who was then secretary of state, authority for the commissioners to remove the negotiation to any place which their judgment should prefer. In May, also, the British government was officially notified by the American commissioners of their appointment. Lord Bathurst answered with an assurance that commissioners would be forthwith appointed for Great Britain, and with a proposal of Ghent as the place for negotiation. This was at once acceded to.

Meanwhile Mr. Crawford, the United States minister at Paris, was endeavoring, at the instance of Mr. Gallatin, to secure the friendly interposition of the Emperor Alexander, not as a mediator, but as a common friend and in the interest of peace to the civilized world. Crawford was unable to obtain an audience of the emperor, or even an interview with Count Nesselrode, but Lafayette took up the cause with his hearty zeal for everything that concerned the United States, and, in a long interview with the emperor at the house of Madame de Staël, submitted to him the view taken by the United States of the controversy, and obtained from him his promise to exert his personal influence with the British government on his arrival at London. Baron von Humboldt, the Prussian minister at Paris, who had been influenced by British misrepresentation, was also won over by Lafayette, and now tendered his services to Mr. Gallatin in any way in which he might be made useful. Lafayette's letter was brought by Humboldt in person. Gallatin and Humboldt had met in 1804, when the great traveler passed through Washington on his return from Peru and Mexico.

The Treaty of Paris having been signed, Lord Castlereagh reached London early in June, and the emperor arrived a few days later. Mr. Gallatin had an audience of the emperor on June 17, and on the 19th submitted an official statement of the American case and an appeal for the interposition of his imperial majesty, "the liberator and pacifier of Europe." From the interview Mr. Gallatin learned that the emperor had made three attempts in the interest of peace, but that he had no hope that his representations had been of any service. England would not admit a third party to interfere, and he thought that, with respect to the conditions of peace, the difficulty would be with England and not with America.

On June 13 Gallatin warned Monroe of the preparations England was making which would enable her to land fifteen to twenty thousand men on the Atlantic coast; that the capture of Washington and New York would most gratify the British people, and that no help need be expected from the countries of Europe, all which were profoundly desirous of peace.

The ministry informing Mr. Gallatin that the British commissioners would start for Ghent on July 1, he improved the interval by a visit to Paris. He left London, where he had passed nearly three months in the uncertain preliminaries of negotiation, and after a few days in the French capital reached Ghent on July 6. The British commissioners only appeared on August 6. They were Lord Gambier, Henry Goulburn, and William Adams, all second-rate men, but for this reason suited to the part they had to play. After the overturn of Napoleon the British cabinet had no desire for peace, or at least not until they had secured by war some material advantages in the United States, which a treaty would confirm. The business of their representatives at Ghent was to make exorbitant demands of the Americans and delay negotiations pending the military operations in progress.

In June Gallatin was satisfied of the general hostile spirit of Great Britain and of its wish to inflict serious injury on the United States. He notified Monroe of his opinion and warned him that the most favorable terms to be expected were the status ante bellum, and not certainly that, unless the American people were united and the country able to stand the shock of the campaign. Mr. Madison's administration had already humbled itself to an abandonment, or at least to an adjournment, of the principle to establish which they had resorted to arms. But in the first stages of the negotiation it was clear that the British cabinet had more serious and dangerous objects in view, and looked beyond aggression and temporary injury to permanent objects. At the first meeting on August 8, the British commissioners demanded, as a preliminary to any negotiation, that the United States should set apart to the Indian tribes the entire territory of the Northwest to be held by them forever in sovereignty under the guaranty of Great Britain. The absurdity of such a demand is sufficient evidence that it was never seriously entertained. There could have been no idea that the military power of Great Britain was able to enforce, or that the United States would abjectly submit to, such a mutilation of its territory and such a limitation of its expansion. Behind this cover Mr. Gallatin instinctively detected the real design of the cabinet to be the conquest of New Orleans and the mouths of the Mississippi. If to the territory thus acquired that of Florida should be added by cession from Spain, which could hardly refuse any compensation asked of her by Great Britain in return for the liberation of the Peninsula, a second British dominion would be set up on the American continent. These views Gallatin communicated to Monroe in a private dispatch of August 20, 1814, by the hands of Mr. Dallas. To the sine qua non of the British commissioners no answer was made by the Americans. The negotiation was abruptly suspended, and only by informal conversation was Mr. Goulburn given to understand that reference had been had to America for instructions. Mr. Gallatin was of opinion that the negotiations were at an end, and in his despair of peace took consolation in the belief that the insolence of the demand would unite America from Maine to Georgia in defense of her rights, of her territory, and indeed of her independence. The American commissioners made no secret of their belief that their mission was closed. Two of the secretaries started from Ghent on a continental tour, and notice was given to the landlord of the house where the commissioners resided of their intention to quit it on October 1. On August 2, while matters were still at this deadlock, Lord Castlereagh passed through Ghent on his way to the Congress at Vienna. Goulburn was ordered to change his tone and Lord Liverpool was advised to moderate his demands; to use Castlereagh's words, to “a letting down of the question.” Lord Liverpool replied on September 2, that he had already given Goulburn to understand that the commission had taken a very erroneous view of British policy. In this communication he betrays the hope, which the cabinet had entertained, of the outcome of American dissensions, by his expression of the opinion that if the negotiation had broken off on the notes already presented by the British commission, or the answer that the Americans were disposed to make, the war would have become popular in America.

Lord Bathurst reopened the negotiations, but his modification was of tone rather than of matter. The surrender of the control of the Lakes to Great Britain, and of the Northwest Territory to the Indians, was still adhered to. The reply of the American commissioners was drawn chiefly by Mr. Gallatin. It absolutely rejected the proposals respecting the boundary and the military flag on the Lakes, and refused even to refer them to the American government, but offered to pursue the negotiation on the other points. To Monroe Mr. Gallatin explained his reason for assenting to discuss the Indian article, and therein his colleagues concurred with him, to be: that they had little hope of peace, but thought it desirable, if there were to be a breach, that it should be on other grounds than that of Indian pacification. The reply of the commission on this point, also drafted by Mr. Gallatin, was sent in on September 26. It merely guaranteed the Indians in all their old rights, privileges, and possessions.

The destruction of the public buildings at Washington by the British troops, known in London on October 1, caused a great sensation in England. As Gallatin said in a letter to Madame de Staël, it was “an act of vandalism to which no parallel could be found in the twenty years of European war from the frontiers of Russia to Paris, and from those of Denmark to Naples.” “Was it (he asked), because, with the exception of a few cathedrals, England had no public buildings comparable to them, or was it to console the London mob for their disappointment that Paris was neither pillaged nor burned?” It can hardly be doubted that the flames which consumed the American capital lighted the way to peace. The atrocity of war was again brought vividly to the view of nations whose sole yearning was for peace. Far from discouraging the American commissioners, it fortified their resolution. They knew that it would unite the people of the States as one man. It in no way disturbed Gallatin's confidence either in the present or future of his adopted country. To those who asked his opinion of the securities of the United States, he said: "If I have not wholly misunderstood America, its resources and its political morality, I am not wrong in the belief that its public funds are more secure than those of all European powers.”

In spite of the protests of Mr. Goulburn, who felt the ground on which he stood daily less stable, and in his letters to his chief was unsparing in his denunciations, Lord Liverpool accepted the proposed settlement of the Indian question. Nothing remained but to incorporate in a treaty form the points agreed upon. Lord Bathurst, who seems throughout the negotiation to have forgotten the old adage, that “fine words butter no parsnips,” and with true British blindness never to have appreciated how thoroughly he was overmatched by Mr. Gallatin, submitted a preliminary notification that the British terms would be based on the principle of uti possidetis, which involved a rectification of the boundaries on the Canadian frontier. To this the Americans returned a peremptory refusal. They would not go one step farther except on the basis of the status quo ante bellum. Lord Liverpool considered this as conclusive. A vigorous prosecution of the war was resolved upon by the cabinet. Only for reasons of expediency was a show of negotiation still kept up.