For Honour's Sake

by Mark Zuehlke

  Remarking that he wished to ensure clear understanding of each point, Adams repeated them. He understood that impressment was a “point proper for discussion.” No, Goulburn interjected, the British “did not think it a point necessary to be discussed,” but thought it an American concern.13

  When Adams said he needed to confer with his colleagues before providing comment on each point raised, Goulburn urged him to provide “an immediate answer” as to whether they had any instructions on the Indian boundary sine qua non. Adams refused to be drawn, and the meeting was set over to the next morning. Future meetings would alternate between respective residences. Gambier suggested the American house be first, as the British were still moving from their hotel to better accommodations.14

  Gloomily, the Americans considered their response. There was little cause for optimism. Gallatin told his son, James, that the British had demanded that the “Indian tribes should have the whole of the North-Western Territory. This comprises the States of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illinois—four-fifths of Indiana and the third of Ohio. That an Indian sovereignty should be constituted under the guarantee of Great Britain: this is to protect Canada…. The other demands are of little importance. They consist of Sackett’s Harbour and Fort Niagara, so as to have control of the lakes. But all this means the dismemberment of the United States.” Although Goulburn had not outlined the territory sought, Gallatin was certain that was the British intention.

  The British commissioners did not impress Gallatin, according to his son. They were “men who have not made any mark and have no influence or weight. He attaches but little importance to them as they are but the puppets of Lord Castlereagh and Liverpool. Father feels he is quite capable of dealing with them.”15

  Through the rest of the afternoon, over dinner, and into the evening, the Americans talked and argued. At issue were the Indians. Impressment could be let lie. Their instructions from Monroe had been explicit that the fishery could await a commercial treaty. Boundaries between America and Canada could be discussed. But they had no instructions on the Indians. Who could have conceived the need? Who could think that the British would make sine qua non that America should surrender vast amounts of its sovereign territory to the Indians? It was incomprehensible. Finally, with Gallatin acting as secretary, they drafted a response.

  No sooner was this document complete than a package of dispatches and letters from America arrived, including two letters written by Monroe in late June. Gallatin, Adams, and Hughes spent several hours deciphering the simple number code only to find that the June 25 letter reaffirmed that the fisheries were not to be discussed. If the British insisted, the negotiations were to be terminated. The June 27 message confirmed that impressment could be omitted. It was one in the morning when the three men wearily took to their beds. They had decided that nothing in Monroe’s letters affected their response.16

  The British, Adams wrote Louisa, were “polite and conciliatory. Their professions both with regard to their government and themselves, liberal, and highly pacific. But they have not changed the opinion which I have constantly had of the result …. At present I do not think that the negotiation will be of long continuance.”17

  After breakfast the three Englishman took their seats across from the Americans at a table set up in the room that Bayard had earlier offered to show Baker. Adams confirmed that they had instructions to negotiate the issue of impressment and allegiance, no instructions on Indian boundaries, instructions regarding British boundary claims, and nothing relating to fisheries. On the second point Adams said instructions could not have been expected as this “was never contemplated by them as being in dispute. No European power had ever considered the Indian nations as Great Britain appeared now to consider them.” He suggested the British government “so modify the instruction as to this point being a sine qua non as not to preclude discussion on the other points in which there might be use.”

  Goulburn replied that both powers had made treaties with the Indians and some of these nations were British allies, so it was not beyond contemplation that “Britain would stipulate for them in any treaty with the U.S.” It would be difficult to proceed without some assurance that the American commissioners could at least agree to a provisional article even if they had no specific instructions. The British government’s view in this regard was clearly “to procure to her Allies a peace as permanent as that procured for themselves and to establish the Indian Nations as a sort of barrier between the two States to prevent their future collision.”

  The same effect would be achieved, Bayard countered, if Britain and America entered into a peace treaty and then the United States independently negotiated peace agreements with the Indians. He understood that commissions for negotiations with the Indians had already been appointed and those agreements would “fix limits to their territories.”

  It was certainly not lost on the British commissioners that the United States had historically broken one treaty after another with the Indians, but they refrained from any sharp rebuke. In a personal note to Lord Bathurst after the meeting, Goulburn said he and his colleagues “have been particularly careful to say nothing in these preliminary proceedings which could in any degree cause irritation on their part and have therefore rather let any observation of the Americans which gave an opening for a sharp answer to pass without observation than get into a squabble which could lead to no object.”

  The tension, however, was palpable. Goulburn coolly stated that Britain wanted to assure “the permanence of the Peace made with the Indians.”

  “Is it intended to restrain the Indians from alienating their own lands?” Bayard asked.

  “The restraint need not be on the Indian right of alienation but on the right of the U.S. or Great Britain to acquire those lands by purchase or cession,” Dr. William Adams responded. They could still sell to a third party.

  Clay snapped that he had “extreme difficulty” believing any article on this subject would be accepted by the American government.18

  The discussion deadlocked, each side agreed to draft a protocol outlining the points that had been discussed over the first two days. These would be compared the next day and together the commissioners would write a final record of the proceedings to forward to their respective governments for consideration.

  As the meeting ended John Quincy Adams told Gambier that he was impressed by the candour and conciliatory attitude the British commissioners had so far displayed. Clay agreed. In his letter to Bathurst, Goulburn expressed similar regard that the Americans had “conducted themselves with more candor and openness than I had expected …. I believe they are sincere in their wish to re-establish peace between the two Countries.” But he thought there was “little hope of their concluding anything [with regard to the Indian boundary] without the receipt of instructions from America.” As to whether the talks continued, he said, that “must depend upon your decision whether we shall proceed to discuss our other points of difference in the uncertainty in which the Americans are with respect to the Indian boundary or whether we shall suspend our proceedings.”19

  Protocols in hand on August 10, they immediately clashed. The British took offence at how the American protocol, meticulously worked up initially by Adams and then supplemented and corrected by the other three commissioners, contained explanatory notes regarding the reasons the American government had offered no instructions on the Indian boundaries and fisheries. Goulburn grumbled that all explanations should be removed and inserted into a dispatch to the respective government because if matters of “argument were admitted on one side it must also be admitted on the other, and must eventually contain everything said at the conferences.”

  Bayard thought the British had not disclosed their full meaning the day before and “their proposition respecting the Indian boundary, as put by themselves, was not intelligible …. Did they mean to take a portion of our territory and assign it to the Indians? Did they mean, in a word, to alter the condition of the Indians in r
elation to the United States?”

  “It could not be said there was a territory assigned to people which was already in their possession,” Dr. Adams replied.

  In the British protocol the words dominion and territory had often been used in reference to the Indian nations, a fact Adams found rankling. Finally he remarked “that they must be aware the terms Dominions, Territories, and Possessions, as applied to Indians, were of very different import from the same terms as applied to civilized nations; that this difference was well known and understood … by all the European nations.”

  One or the other of those words was necessary to make any sense, Goulburn replied. He preferred territory.

  The American draft concluded that the British commissioners declined further discussions unless it was agreed that a provisional article might be drawn up on the Indian question subject to ratification by the U.S. government. In the absence of this, the British proposed suspending talks until they consulted their government.

  When the British asked that this statement be removed, the Americans replied that this was “a fact so material to the statement of what had actually taken place, that without it the protocol itself must be imperfect.”

  Dr. Adams thought it “expressed rather too strongly, to say that they had declined entering into the discussion.”

  Those were his exact words the day before, Clay reminded him. True, Adams confessed, but “those were remarks … thrown out rather in the manner of friendly discussion than intimating a fixed purpose to decline it in future.”20

  The Americans agreed to excise the offending words. Essentially, when the final document was signed off, the protocol closely resembled the British original. But the Americans would forward their draft protocol to Washington in the expectation that it would clearly illustrate that the British commissioners had not come to Ghent intending to negotiate in good faith. Rather they had come with intent to use the dispute over Indian boundaries as pretense for breaking off discussions.

  In a private letter, Bayard commented that the Indian boundary line issue “seems to me at present to offer serious difficulty to a pacification. The pretension … in my opinion is totally inadmissible and possibly has been selected as a designed insuperable obstacle to peace. When first disclosed it was declared to be a sine qua non. One such pretension is as complete a barrier against peace as an hundred …. The conferences are in consequence suspended and they have written to their Government for further instructions. The state of things does not augur well.”21

  Adams was beside himself with anxiety that in the absence of a peace agreement, which he doubted was attainable, America must soon face a blow that would “lay us prostrate at the mercy of our foe. God forbid! But either that, or a latent energy must be brought forth, of which we have as yet manifested no sign.”22

  While awaiting reply from London, the British commissioners moved to new lodgings in a former Carthusian monastery on the Fratersplein, about a mile north of the city centre. It was a large, drafty building with a six-storey belfry and a four-storey alcove that had been converted into apartments. The greater portion of the building had been transformed into a textile mill after monasteries and convents were abolished following annexation of the Netherlands by France in 1795. The factory was owned by Lieven Bauwens, who had managed to smuggle the plans for the cotton gin out of England in 1800—a feat that enabled Ghent to become a textile capital. By 1814, Ghent’s population stood at about 60,000 people—many impoverished factory workers living in squalor and crammed into ancient buildings that lined narrow alleys running off from the wider boulevards that followed the course of the numerous canals connecting the two rivers running through it.

  The elegant and lavishly furnished apartments perfectly suited the upper-class expectations of the three commissioners. But Goulburn’s wife complained that the drafty rooms provided an unhealthy atmosphere for Harry, while she contracted a cold that proved impossible to shake. There was also the disappointment that Ghent society had largely decamped to the country for the summer and would not return until November. This meant there were few social or cultural events.23 Invited to lunch at a local dignitary’s villa, the Goulburns were greeted at the door by what the extremely short-sighted Jane took to be a butler. Treating the man in the manner appropriate to a servant, she was embarrassed to discover this was in fact their host. That a gentleman would not employ a butler horrified them both, and they were equally dismayed by the villa’s stark and sparse furnishings. Leaving as soon as was polite, they vowed to never “make a longer visit to a house where comfort appears to be so ill understood.”24 That Goulburn expected their stay in Ghent to be short undoubtedly reassured his wife.

  The Americans held a dinner for all their compatriots living in the city and ended seating twenty-two at the table.25 On the 13th, the British commissioners came to dine. Goulburn declined, claiming to be unwell with a burst blood vessel in his throat that rendered him incapable of speech, but Gambier and Dr. Adams attended. Gambier happily recounted boyhood days spent in Boston while his uncle was in command of the naval station, and allowed how he had participated in the blockade of New York during the Revolution. As a vice-president of the English Bible Society, he often still corresponded with the Bible Society of Boston, of which Adams was a member. When Bayard edged the conversation gently toward business, Gambier laughed politely. “We won’t talk about that now,” he said.26

  When not entertaining, the Americans dined at four and usually spent two hours over the meal. “We then disperse to our several amusements and avocations,” Adams wrote Louisa. “Mine is a solitary walk of two or three hours—solitary, because I find none of the other gentlemen disposed to join me in it, particularly at that hour. They frequent the coffee houses, the Reading Rooms, and the billiard tables. Between eight and nine I return from my walk and immediately betake myself to bed. I rise usually about five in the morning, and from that time until dinner am closely engaged in writing or other business.” He longed to return to her in St. Petersburg, lamented the shortening days that hinted at the approach of autumn and forced him to abridge the duration of his walks. “I hope we shall have no winter evenings to dispose of….”27

  On August 19, the British commissioners requested a three o’clock conference at their house. London had finally replied, but the Americans were surprised to learn that the courier bringing the instructions had been none other than Viscount Castlereagh.

  The foreign secretary arrived late at the monastery on the Thursday night of August 18 the same day that the British fleet entered Chesapeake Bay. His instructions were stuffed in a red dispatch box, one of many swelling the vast amount of luggage he was taking to Vienna, where a congress was to convene in September that would redraw the map of Europe. Also in tow was the full retinue that was accompanying him to Vienna, including his wife, her sister, and a gaggle of secretaries, consultants, and servants. Despite the lateness of the hour, Castlereagh summoned the three commissioners, while arrangements were made to accommodate this large party at hotels throughout the city.

  It was clear to Castlereagh that the two matters the Americans claimed to have no instructions on posed the greatest barrier to continuing negotiations. Regarding the fishery, he wanted to determine whether they would acknowledge that the “right of fishing and drying within the British jurisdiction does not thereby of right revive” if they were to sign a treaty of peace that dealt with the other issues. Goulburn and the others must get this clarified.

  As for the Indian questions, he could understand that they might not have anticipated that Britain would want to establish secure boundaries for the Indians. But, Castlereagh said, “it appears unaccountable … that the American Government should have left the negotiators without instructions, inasmuch as they could have had no reason to suppose that the British Government would for a moment listen to a separate peace, to the exclusion of the Indians, who have acted with them as allies during the war.”

  He agreed with Goulburn t
hat the whole future of the negotiation turned on the point of “whether the Commissioners will or will not take upon themselves to sign a Provisional Agreement upon the points on which they have no instructions. If they decline this, the British Government sees no advantage in prosecuting the discussion further, until the American negotiators shall have received instructions upon these points.” If they agreed that they could enter into provisional agreements, he believed the negotiation could continue and the treaty be sent after British ratification to the United States for that government to either confirm or not.

  As to the additional American points, Castlereagh rejected any need to discuss blockades and advised the commissioners they could not “be too peremptory in discouraging, at the outset, the smallest expectation of any restitution of captures made under the Orders in Council.” On the desire for a commercial treaty, the foreign secretary said the government was willing to enter into one after conclusion of the peace.

  On the issue of Canada’s boundaries, Castlereagh offered some clarification of the British position, which was to be understood as “strictly defensive.” The Great Lakes from Lake Ontario to Lake Superior were to form the “natural military frontier” of the Canadas, and as “the weaker power on the North American continent, the least capable of acting offensively, and the most exposed to sudden invasion, Great Britain considers itself entitled to claim the use of the lakes as a military barrier.” If both powers claimed a right to put ships onto the lakes, Castlereagh foresaw a “perpetual contest for naval ascendancy, in peace as well as war,” that would only guarantee future conflict. Control of the lakes should be given to Britain and with that went “military command of both shores … with a suitable frontier.”