A peace party was formed with a view to array the religious sentiment of the country against the war, and societies with similar objects were organized by the more radical of the Federalists. To such an extreme was this opposition carried, that some of the citizens of New London, Conn., made a practice of giving information to the enemy, by means of blue lights, of the departure of American vessels.
The Hartford Convention.
This opposition finally culminated in the assembling of a convention at Hartford, at which delegates were present from all of the New England states. They sat for three weeks with closed doors, and issued an address which will be found in this volume in the book devoted to political platforms. It was charged by the Democrats that the real object of the convention was to negotiate a separate treaty of peace, on behalf of New England, with Great Britain, but this charge was as warmly denied. The exact truth has not since been discovered, the fears of the participants of threatened trials for treason, closing their mouths, if their professions were false. The treaty of Ghent, which was concluded on December 14th, 1814, prevented other action by the Hartford convention than that stated. It had assembled nine days before the treaty, which is as follows:
Treaty of Ghent.
This treaty was negotiated by the Right Honorable James Lord Gambier, Henry Goulburn, Esq., and William Adams, Esq., on the part of Great Britain, and John Quincy Adams, James A. Bayard, Henry Clay, Jonathan Russell, and Albert Gallatin, on behalf of the United States.
The treaty can be found on p. 218, vol. 8, of Little & Brown’s Statutes at Large. The first article provided for the restoration of all archives, records, or property taken by either party from the other during the war. This article expressly provides for the restoration of “slaves or other private property.” The second article provided for the cessation of hostilities and limitation of time of capture. The third article provided for the restoration of prisoners of war.
The fourth article defined the boundary established by the treaty of 1783, and provided for commissioners to mark the same.
The fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth articles established rules to govern the proceedings of the commissioners.
The ninth article bound the United States and His Britannic Majesty to end all hostilities with Indian tribes, with whom they were then respectively at war.
The tenth article reads as follows:—