But when the cabinet took a survey of the general field they felt little complacency in the prospect of a struggle which sooner or later must interest the maritime powers. France, compelled by the peace of Vienna to withdraw from what even Lafayette considered as her natural frontier, was restive, and there was a large party in Russia who would gladly see the emperor take up the American cause. Moreover the chancellor of the exchequer saw before him an inevitable addition of ten millions of pounds sterling to his budget, the only avowable reason for which was the rectification of the Canadian frontier. In their distress the cabinet proposed to Wellington to go to the United States with the olive-branch and the sword, to negotiate or conquer a peace. The desire of the cabinet to bring the war to an honorable conclusion was avowed. But Wellington, before accepting this proposal, gave Lord Liverpool a very frank opinion of the mistake made in exacting territorial concessions, since the British held no territory of the United States in other than temporary possession, and had no right to make any such demand. Lord Liverpool was not tenacious. He was never, he wrote Lord Bathurst, much inclined to give way to the Americans, but the cabinet felt itself compelled to withdraw from its extreme ground. He accepted his defeat and acknowledged it.
The Americans meanwhile arranged a draft of a treaty. The articles on impressment and other maritime rights, absolutely rejected by the British, were set aside. There only remained the question of the boundaries, the fisheries, and the navigation of the Mississippi. Here Mr. Gallatin had as much difficulty in maintaining harmony between Adams and Clay as in obtaining a peace from Liverpool and Bathurst. Adams was determined to save the fisheries; Clay would not hear of opening the Mississippi to British vessels. A compromise was effected by which it was agreed that no allusion should be made to either subject. Mr. Gallatin terminated the dispute by adding a declaration that the commissioners were willing to sign a treaty applying the principle of the status quo ante bellum to all the subjects of difference. This was in strict conformity with the instructions from the home government. On November 10 the American draft was sent in. On the 25th the British replied with a counter-draft which made no allusion to the fisheries, but stipulated for the free navigation of the Mississippi. The Americans replied that they would give up the navigation of the river for a surrender of the fisheries. This proposal was at once refused by the British. The matter was settled by an offer of the Americans to negotiate under a distinct reservation of all American rights. All stipulations on either subject were in the end omitted, the British government on December 22 withdrawing the article referring to these points. In the course of the negotiation Mr. Gallatin proposed that in case of a future war both nations should engage never to employ the savages as auxiliaries, but this article does not appear. To the credit of civilization, however, the last article contained a mutual engagement to put an end to the trade in slaves. An agreement entered into in perfect faith, but which the jealousy of the exercise of search in any form rendered nugatory for half a century. On Christmas day the treaty was signed. Mr. Henry Adams[19] justly says, “Far more than contemporaries ever supposed, or than is now imagined, the Treaty of Ghent was the special work and the peculiar triumph of Mr. Gallatin.” His own correspondence shows how admirably he was constituted for the nice work of diplomatic negotiation. In the self-poise which he maintained in the most critical situations, the unerring sagacity with which he penetrated the purposes of his adversaries, the address with which he soothed the passions and guided the judgments of his colleagues, it is impossible to find a single fault. If he had a fault, says his biographer, it was that of using the razor when he would have done better with the axe. But the axe is not a diplomatic weapon. The simulation of temper may serve an occasional purpose, but temper itself is a mistake; and to Mr. Gallatin's credit be it said, it was a mistake never committed by him in the course of this long and sometimes painful negotiation. Looking back upon its shifting scenes, it is clear that even the pertinacity of Adams and the irascibility of Clay served to advance the purpose of the mission. From the first to the last Mr. Gallatin had his own way, not because it was his own way, but because it was the best way and was so recognized by the majority of the commission at every turn of difference. Fortunately for the interests of peace the battle of New Orleans had not yet been fought. There seems a justice in this final act of the war. The British attack upon the Chesapeake[20] was committed before war had been declared. The battle of New Orleans was fought a fortnight after the Treaty of Ghent was signed. The burning of Washington was avenged by the most complete defeat which the British had ever encountered in their long career of military prowess.
By his political life Mr. Gallatin acquired an American reputation; by his management of the finances of the United States he placed himself among the first political economists of the day; but his masterly conduct of the Treaty of Ghent showed him the equal of the best of European statesmen on their own peculiar ground of diplomacy. No one of American birth has ever rivaled him in this field. Europeans recognized his pre-eminent genius. Sismondi praised him in a public discourse. Humboldt addressed him as his illustrious friend. Madame de Staël expressed to him her admiration for his mind and character. Alexander Baring gave him more than admiration, his friendship.
Upon the separation of the commissioners, Mr. Gallatin paid a flying visit to Geneva. His fame, or “glory,” to use the words of Humboldt, preceded him. Of his old intimates, Serre was under the sod in a West Indian island; Badollet was leading a quiet life at Vincennes in the Indiana Territory, where Gallatin had obtained for him an appointment in the land office; Dumont was in England. Of Gallatin's family few remained. But he received the honors due to him as a Genevan who had shed a lustre on his native city. On his way to England, where he had made an appointment with his colleagues to attempt a commercial treaty with Great Britain, he stopped at Paris. Here he saw Napoleon, returned from Elba, his star in full blaze before its final extinction. Here he heard in April (1815) of his appointment by Madison as minister to France. His colleagues also had been honored by similar advancements. Adams was transferred from Russia to England. Bayard was named minister to Russia, but illness prevented his taking possession of his post.
In April, Mr. Gallatin and Mr. Clay opened negotiations with Lord Castlereagh in London, where they were quickly joined by Adams. Lord Castlereagh bore no malice against Mr. Gallatin for the treaty. On the contrary, he wrote of it to Lord Liverpool as “a most auspicious and seasonable event,” and wished him joy at “being released from the millstone of an American war.” With Lord Castlereagh Mr. Gallatin arranged in the course of the summer a convention regulating commercial intercourse between the United States and Great Britain, the only truly valuable part of which was that which abolished all discriminating duties. Mr. Gallatin considered this concession as an evidence of friendly disposition, and rightly judged that British antipathy and prejudice were modified, and that in the future friendly relations would be preserved and a rupture avoided. Beyond this, there was little gained. The old irritating questions of impressment and blockade and the exclusion of the United States from the West Indies trade remained.
In July Mr. Gallatin parted from Mr. Baring and his London friends on his homeward journey. From New York, on September 4, he wrote Madison, thanking him for the appointment of minister to France as an “evidence of undiminished attachment and of public satisfaction for his services;” but he still held his acceptance in abeyance. To Jefferson, two days later, he had also the satisfaction to say with justice, that the character of the United States stood as “high as ever it did on the European continents, and higher than ever it did in Great Britain;” and that the United States was considered “as the nation designed to check the naval despotism of England.” To Jefferson he naturally spoke of that France from which they had drawn some of their inspirations and their doctrines.
He thus describes the condition of the people:—
“The revolution (the political change of 1789) has not, however, been altogether useless. There is a visible improvement in the agriculture of the country and the situation of the peasantry. The new generation belonging to that class, freed from the petty despotism of nobles and priests, and made more easy in their circumstances by the abolition of tithes, and the equalization of taxes, have acquired an independent spirit, and are far superior to their fathers in intellect and information; they are not republicans and are still too much dazzled by military glory; but I think that no monarch or ex-nobles can hereafter oppress them long with impunity.”
And again, “Exhausted, degraded, and oppressed as France now is, I do not despair of her ultimate success in establishing her independence and a free form of government.” But it was not till half a century later that Gambetta, the Mirabeau of the Republic, led France to the full possession of her material forces, and reëstablished in their original vigor the principles of 1789. That Gallatin was not blinded by democratic prejudices appears in the letter he wrote to Lafayette after Napoleon's abdication, in which he said: “My attachment to the form of government under which I was born and have ever lived never made me desirous that it should, by way of experiment, be applied to countries which might be better fitted for a limited monarchy.”