The War of 1812

by Donald R Hickey

  The United States also pursued peace through Jonathan Russell, the American chargé d’affaires in London. On June 26, barely a week after the declaration of war, the administration dispatched a note to Russell authorizing him to open negotiations for an armistice. The British would have to give up the Orders-in-Council and impressment, but in return the United States promised to bar all British seamen from American ships.6 By the time Russell made this offer in late August, the Orders-in-Council had already been repealed. Hence impressment was the only issue that stood in the way of peace.

  Britain’s Response

  The British, however, showed no interest in Russell’s offer. Having made one important concession—on the Orders-in-Council—they were in no mood to make another. “No administration,” said Britain’s foreign secretary, Lord Castlereagh, “could expect to remain in power that should consent to renounce the right of impressment, or to suspend the practice, without the certainty of an arrangement . . . to secure its object.” With the war only a few weeks old, Castlereagh expressed surprise at America’s eagerness for peace. “If the American Government was so anxious to get rid of the war,” he told Russell, “it would have an opportunity of doing so on learning the revocation of the orders in council.”7

  That the repeal of the Orders-in-Council would end the war the British did not doubt. For years British restrictions on neutral trade had been the leading source of Anglo-American friction, while impressment had not been a major issue since the loss of the Monroe–Pinkney Treaty and the attack on the Chesapeake in 1807. Confident that the repeal of the Orders would avert war, the British government in July 1812 instructed the Royal Navy to ignore any attacks from privateers sent to sea before news of the British concession reached America.8 Even after learning of the declaration of war at the end of July, Castlereagh told Russell that British officials still entertained “great hopes . . . of the favorable effect” which the repeal of the Orders would have on American policy.9

  The British government waited until October 13—ten weeks after receiving the news of war—before authorizing general reprisals against the United States.10 In the meantime, the ministry instructed Sir John Borlase Warren, the new British naval commander on the American station, to propose an armistice. Foster, who had heard of the repeal of the Orders after leaving the United States, was already trying to arrange a cease-fire in Halifax. At his suggestion, British officials in Canada signed an armistice with Major General Henry Dearborn. The United States, however, repudiated this agreement because it did not provide for an end to impressment.11 Hence the negotiations in 1812 ended in failure even though both sides were interested in peace.

  Russia’s Mediation Offer

  In March 1813, Andrei Dashkov, the Russian minister in Washington, invited the United States to take part in a new round of negotiations, this time under the auspices of his government.12 Aside from any prestige they might garner, the Russians had several reasons for acting. Great Britain was their most important ally, and they wanted her to concentrate on the war in Europe. In addition, the United States was an important commercial partner whose ships normally carried tropical produce to Russian ports in the Baltic. This trade had come to an abrupt halt with the outbreak of war, and it was not likely to resume until peace was restored.13

  The administration welcomed the Russian offer.14 Russia had long championed neutral rights, and American officials expected to profit from her mediation. “There is not a single [maritime] interest,” Monroe wrote, “in which Russia and the other Baltic powers may not be considered as having a common interest with the United States.”15 American officials were anxious for peace for several reasons. The campaign against Canada had not gone well, Federalist opposition remained as adamant as ever, and the nation’s financial situation was already deteriorating. Furthermore, Napoleon’s retreat from Russia had greatly strengthened Britain’s hand on the Continent. If Britain prevailed in Europe, the United States might find itself alone in the field against her. To avoid this prospect, American officials hoped to liquidate the war in the New World while Britain was still tied up in the Old.16

  Without waiting to hear Britain’s response, Madison chose three peace commissioners and dispatched them to Europe. Albert Gallatin, who had grown weary of his duties at the Treasury Department, was chosen to head the mission. He was joined by John Quincy Adams, the American minister in St. Petersburg, and James A. Bayard, a moderate Delaware Federalist. The Senate rejected Gallatin’s nomination because he was still a member of the cabinet, but by this time he was already in Europe.17

  The instructions the commissioners carried with them called for British concessions on a broad range of maritime issues.18 Later Monroe suggested that Great Britain might consider tossing Canada into the bargain. “It may be worth while,” he told the envoys, “to bring to view, the advantages to both Countries which is promised, by a transfer of the upper parts and even the whole of Canada to the United States.”19 Only one of the American demands, however, was a sine qua non—a point deemed essential to any settlement—and that was an end to impressment. Bayard, who had earlier declared that if this point were insisted upon he was likely to “grow grey in the war,” suggested an informal understanding on the subject, but the administration was unyielding.20 Privately Monroe told Gallatin that an informal agreement “would not only ruin the present admn., but the republican party & even the [republican] cause.”21

  Gallatin and Bayard joined Adams in St. Petersburg in July 1813. There they remained—attending an unending round of parties—waiting for Britain’s official response to the mediation offer.22 In fact, the British had already rejected the proposal. They had no desire (as Castlereagh put it) to allow the United States “to mix directly or indirectly Her Maritime Interests with those of another State”—and certainly not with those of a great inland power that had long favored a broad definition of neutral rights.23

  The British rejection was common knowledge, but because the Russians were reluctant to give up the project, the American envoys received no formal notice.24 By December the lack of any official word had become a source of “much impatience and embarrassment.”25 Finally in January 1814, six months after arriving in Russia, Gallatin and Bayard took their leave, refusing to wait any longer. The two envoys headed for London, ostensibly en route home but actually to scout out the prospects for peace in the enemy’s capital.26

  Before leaving Russia, the American envoys had conducted informal negotiations with Alexander Baring, an ardent friend of the United States who had married a Philadelphia socialite and was the nation’s banker in London. Although the Americans had hoped that the foreign seaman act, which authorized the president to bar British tars from American ships, would provide a basis for ending impressment, Baring disabused them of this notion.27 No British government, he said, could agree to renounce impressment on this basis alone, and even the best friends of peace “would not be bold enough to recommend it.”28

  The British Counter Offer

  Although British officials rejected the mediation offer, they felt obliged to make a counter offer to demonstrate their peaceful intentions. Having already raised the possibility of direct talks through various other channels, Castlereagh dispatched a message in November 1813 offering “to enter upon a direct negociation for the restoration of Peace.” The talks, Castlereagh said, would have to be conducted “upon principles of perfect reciprocity not inconsistent with the established maxims of Public Law, and with the maritime Rights of the British Empire.”29 This was a thinly disguised promise to insist on the right of impressment.

  President Madison accepted this offer and appointed four men to serve on the commission. John Quincy Adams headed the mission; the other members were James A. Bayard, Kentucky War Hawk Henry Clay, and Jonathan Russell, who had conducted the early armistice negotiations in London. Three weeks later, when Madison learned that Gallatin was still in Europe, he was added to the commission. Since everyone now agreed that Gallatin had given up
his place in the cabinet, the Senate approved his nomination.30

  The American delegation was exceptionally strong. Four of the envoys already had distinguished themselves in public life, and Adams and Clay still had long and important careers ahead of them. Only Russell would never achieve any great distinction. With such a strong delegation, differences of opinion were inevitable. Clay and Adams were frequently at odds, though usually on minor issues. “Upon almost all the important questions,” Adams said, “we have been unanimous.”31 Gallatin played a particularly important role in forging this consensus. According to Adams, the former secretary of the treasury contributed “the largest and most important share to the conclusion of the peace.”32

  John Quincy Adams (1767–1848) of Massachusetts was read out of the Federalist party when he supported the embargo of 1807. During the War of 1812, he served as the nation’s minister to Russia and as a member of the delegation that negotiated the Treaty of Ghent. After returning to the United States, he served as secretary of state and then as president, but (like his father) he was voted out of office after one term. (Engraving by A. B. Durand after a painting by T. Sully. Library of Congress)

  In contrast to the United States, Great Britain had to rely on second-tier men because her top officials were busy with European affairs. The British peace mission was headed by Admiral James Gambier, who was expected to look after Britain’s maritime rights. Also on the commission was Dr. William Adams, an Admiralty lawyer selected because American diplomats were known to favor legal arguments, and Henry Goulburn, an undersecretary in the Colonial Office who was supposed to protect Britain’s interests in Canada. Goulburn was the most ambitious and energetic of the three, and he took charge of the negotiations.33

  The British envoys were appointed in May but were slow to leave home. According to an American observer in London, they did “not appear in a hurry to leave this Country.”34 British officials dragged their feet, hoping that victories in America would enhance their bargaining position. Now that the war in Europe was over, the mood in Great Britain was vindictive. “War with America, and most inveterate war,” said a friendly Englishman, “is in the mouth of almost every one you meet in this wise and thinking nation.”35 The British press contributed to this mood with inflammatory pieces. The American people, said the London Sun, must not be “left in a condition to repeat their insults, injuries, and wrongs.” “Our demands,” added the Times, “may be couched in a single word, Submission.”36

  The View from the Continent

  American officials had hoped that the great powers on the Continent would serve as a counterpoise to Britain, but it soon became apparent that British influence was everywhere paramount, even in the press. “It is something singular,” reported Bayard, “that on the continent you get no news but what comes from England.” “If the War is to be continued,” Clay warned, “we must rely for its prosecution exclusively upon our own resources.” “From Europe,” added Gallatin, “no assistance can for some time be expected.”37

  Few Europeans gave much thought to the American war. According to Jonathan Russell, the “Great Congress at Vienna” (which was forging a general European settlement) overshadowed “the little congress at Ghent.”38 Nevertheless everyone—the British included—recognized that the American war hampered Britain’s freedom of action on the Continent, and as time passed, sympathy for the United States mounted. By December 1814 Gallatin reported that the continental powers “rejoiced at any thing which might occupy & eventually weaken our Enemy,” and an American in Paris said that “enthusiasm here in our favor is in full flood.”39

  The United States profited from this undercurrent of sympathy. Napoleon had allowed American ships to arm in French ports and to bring their prizes in for adjudication, but after his fall the British put pressure on the new regime to halt this practice. Although French officials revoked the authority of American ships to arm in French ports, they refused to close their ports to American privateers. British merchants raised a clamor, and British officials protested, but in vain. American privateers were still cruising from French ports when the war ended.40

  Negotiations at Ghent

  The peace negotiations were originally planned for Gothenburg, Sweden, but the end of the war in Europe made Ghent more convenient because it afforded quicker access to both capitals.41 The negotiations lasted from August 8, 1814, to December 24, 1814—far longer than anyone expected although not as long as the Congress of Vienna, which met from September 1814 to June 1815.

  The negotiations were conducted behind closed doors, but President Madison kept the American people informed of the progress. British officials, on the other hand, kept their people in the dark. “The proceedings at Ghent,” said the London Morning Chronicle, “continue to excite the chief interest in the public mind, but Ministers persist in their silence both with regard to their progress and result.”42 The Times was reduced to making deductions from the number of messages that were carried between the hotels of the two delegations, and the paper complained that the first real news of the negotiations came from America.43 In mid-December gamblers were still offering three-to-one odds that peace would not be concluded before the end of the year, and as late as December 24, the very day the treaty was signed, the Morning Chronicle reported that the talks “afforded no prospect of an amiable issue,” and the Times repeated rumors that the negotiations had broken off.44

  Adams claimed that the tone of the British notes in the negotiations was “arrogant, overbearing, and offensive,” while that of American notes was “neither so bold nor so spirited as I think it should be.”45 The Massachusetts envoy need not have worried because the British representatives were overmatched and thus outmaneuvered. A London newspaper later complained that the British envoys showed neither “adroitness or skill” and accused them of presenting their demands in a “crude and undigested state.”46 After overplaying their hand in the early rounds, the British envoys were put on a tight leash by officials in London. Thereafter, as Adams put it, they “were little more than a medium of communication between us and the British Privy Council.”47 The American envoys were quick to exploit this advantage. “The Americans,” complained Goulburn, “have rather hoaxed us for the number of our references home.”48

  The Nagging Problem of Impressment

  When the negotiations began, the American envoys were still bound to insist on an end to impressment. Six months earlier Monroe had written that even if the war in Europe ended the British still had to give up impressment. “This degrading practice,” he said, “must cease, our flag must protect the crew, or the United States, cannot consider themselves an independent Nation.”49

  Like other American diplomats in this era, the envoys at Ghent were prepared to violate their instructions if necessary. As early as November 1813, Adams reported that Bayard “seemed anxious to discuss the expediency of giving up the point of impressment.”50 Six months later Clay said that the issue had become “a mere theoretic pretension” and that if “the interests of our Country demanded of me the personal risk of a violation of instructions I should not hesitate to incur it.”51 Adams and Gallatin also hinted at a willingness to give up the point.52

  The envoys never had to take this risk because in June 1814 the administration decided to jettison the issue.53 The news reached the envoys just as the negotiations got under way.54 Although Republican leaders later justified their decision by claiming that the end of the European war had brought an end to impressment, privately they conceded that Napoleon’s defeat had killed any chance of winning concessions on the issue.55

  British Peace Terms

  With impressment out of the way, the envoys were able to focus on other issues, and in the first two weeks of the negotiations the British presented their terms. As a sine qua non for peace, they insisted that their Indian allies be included in the settlement and that a permanent barrier or reservation be established for them in the Old Northwest. In addition, they demanded American ter
ritory in northern Maine (to facilitate overland traffic between Quebec and Halifax) and in present-day Minnesota (to assure ready access to the Mississippi River). They also called on the United States to demilitarize the Great Lakes—removing all warships from those waters and all fortifications from the shores. Finally, the British declared that the American right to fish in Canadian waters and to dry their catch on the nearby shores would not be renewed without an equivalent.56

  The British terms were based on several considerations, but uppermost was their concern for Canadian security. It was “notorious to the whole world,” the British said, “that the conquest of Canada and its permanent annexation to the United States was the declared object of the American Government.”57 When the American envoys denied this, the British produced the annexationist proclamations issued by generals William Hull and Alexander Smyth in 1812.58 The American envoys, however, blandly replied that neither of these proclamations “was authorized or approved by the Government.”59 Unable to find any official statement on the subject, the British could only repeat that American designs on Canada were a “matter of notoriety.”60

  British officials had talked about the desirability of an Indian barrier ever since the early 1790s.61 Such a barrier would enhance Canadian security by establishing a buffer zone between British and American territories and by ensuring that the western tribes remained loyal to Britain. Control of the lakes and a direct overland route between Quebec and Halifax were also expected to increase Canadian security by making it easier to ward off attacks from the south.