The Life of Albert Gallatin

Mr. Gallatin was right, and he drafted the reply to the British note accordingly. There was a somewhat warm discussion over his draft, but his influence was now so decisive that Mr. Adams declares opposition useless; unless Gallatin voluntarily abandoned his point, he was uniformly sustained. This note, while refusing to admit the Indians into the treaty in any manner that would recognize them as independent nations, offered a stipulation that they should retain all their old rights, privileges, and possessions. It was signed and sent on the 26th September; on October 1 the news of the capture of Washington arrived.

The following letters give some conception of what was passing in the United States while the American commissioners were forcing Great Britain to abandon one position after another:

MRS. MADISON TO MRS. GALLATIN28th July, 1814.

… We have been in a state of perturbation here for a long time. The depredations of the enemy approaching within twenty miles of the city, and the disaffected making incessant difficulties for the government. Such a place as this has become! I cannot describe it. I wish for my own part we were at Philadelphia. The people here do not deserve that I should prefer it. Among other exclamations and threats, they say, if Mr. M. attempts to move from this house, in case of an attack, they will stop him, and that he shall fall with it. I am not the least alarmed at these things, but entirely disgusted, and determined to stay with him. Our preparation for defence, by some means or other, is constantly retarded, but the small force the British have on the bay will never venture nearer than at present, twenty-three miles…

JOSEPH H. NICHOLSON TO MRS. GALLATINBaltimore, 4th September, 1814.

My dear Madam, – …You have of course heard of and grieved over our disasters at Washington. You have heard, too, of the disgraceful capitulation of Alexandria. Baltimore was at one time certainly prepared to pursue the baneful example, but the arrival of Rodgers, Porter, and Perry, the manly language which they held to our generals, and the great number of troops which are now here, have inspired more confidence. If the enemy had acted wisely they would have marched directly from Washington to this place, and would have found it an easy prey. If they come now, which we look for daily, or rather nightly, they will have a fight, but I am not quite sure that it will be a hard one. Our militia are so raw and so totally undisciplined, and our commanding generals so entirely unqualified to organize them, that I have very little confidence of success. The command has been taken from General Winder and given to General Smith. The latter assumed it in the first instance without authority at the request of some of our citizens, and the usurpation has since been confirmed at Washington. There is some derangement of the Administration which I do not understand. General Armstrong is here, and says he is no longer Secretary of War; but every one who comes from the city says he is still considered so there. He explained the thing to me in this way. Mr. Madison had been waited on by a deputation from Georgetown, of whom A. C. Hanson was one, who told him that they would not agree to defend the place or to make any resistance if General Armstrong was to have any control over them. That Mr. Madison, in consequence of this and much other remonstrance of a similar nature, proposed to Armstrong that he should do all the business of the War Department except that which related to the District; that Armstrong immediately answered that he must do the whole business or none, and tendered his resignation, which was not accepted. He added, however, in his conversation with me: “I am here, and the President is in Washington.” He said, too, he was going immediately to New York; but he has remained several days, and is here yet. I had thought it probable he was waiting for a recall, but he said yesterday he should go to-day, and expressed some satisfaction at being again in private life. This seemed to relate altogether to his pecuniary concerns. He speaks with no irritation of the Administration, and it is certain that either he or Mr. Madison, or possibly both, have yielded to a contemptible faction in a contemptible village, at a most critical moment for our country. This is the precise language in which I expressed myself to him, but he said he washed his hands of it.

The loan is taken in part only at $80 for $100, and, I believe, a small part. If Congress do not act immediately with vigor, the nation, I fear, is lost.

Did you feel very, very sorry at hearing that your old house was burnt? I did, really, I had spent so many happy hours in it.

A short correspondence with Mme. de Staël, then a power in diplomacy, claims also a place here.

MADAME DE STAËL TO GALLATINCe 31 juillet, 1814.Coppet, Suisse, Pays de Vaud.

Vous m’avez permis de vous demander si nous avons quelque succès heureux à espérer de votre mission. Mandez-moi à cet égard, my dear sir, tout ce qu’il vous est permis de me dire. Je suis inquiète d’un mot de Lord Castlereagh sur la durée de la guerre, et je ne m’explique pas pourquoi il a dit qu’il était de l’intérêt de l’Angleterre que le congrès de Vienne s’ouvrît plus tard. C’est vous Amérique qui m’intéressez avant tout maintenant, à part de mes affaires pécuniaires. Je vous trouve à présent les opprimés du parti de la liberté et je vois en vous la cause qui m’attachait à l’Angleterre il y a un an. On souhaite beaucoup de vous voir à Genève et vous y trouverez la république telle que vous l’avez laissée, seulement elle est moins libérale, car la mode est ainsi maintenant en Suisse. Aussi les vieux aristocrates se relèvent et se remettent à combattre, en oubliant, comme les géants de l’Arioste, qu’ils sont déjà morts. J’espère que la raison triomphera, et quand on vous connaît, on trouve cette raison si spirituelle qu’elle semble la plus forte. Soyez pacifique cependant et sacrifiez aux circonstances. Vous devez vous ennuyer à Gand, et je voudrais profiter pour causer avec vous de tout le temps que vous y perdez. Avez-vous quelques commissions à faire à Genève et voulez-vous me donner le plaisir de vous y être utile en quelque chose?

Mille compliments empressés.

Vous savez que M. Sismondi vous a loué dans son discours à St Pierre.

MADAME DE STAËL TO GALLATINCe 30 septembre.Paris, Rue de Grenelle St. Germain, No. 105.

Je vous ai écrit de Coppet, my dear sir, et je n’ai point eu de réponse de vous. Je crains que ma lettre ne vous soit pas parvenue. Soyez assez bon pour me dire ce que vous pouvez me dire sur la vente de mes fonds en Amérique. Je suis si inquiète que l’idée me venait d’envoyer mon fils en Amérique pour tirer ma fortune de là. Songez qu’elle y est presque toute entière, c’est à dire que j’y ai quinze cents mille francs, soit en terres, soit en fonds publics, soit chez les banquiers. Soyez aussi assez bon pour me dire si vous restez à Gand. Mon fils en allant en Angleterre pourrait passer par chez vous et vous donner des nouvelles de Paris. Enfin je vous prie de m’accorder quelques lignes sur tout ce qui m’intéresse. Vous pouvez compter sur ma discrétion et sur ma reconnaissance, – et je mérite peut-être quelque bienveillance par mes efforts pour vous servir. Lord Wellington prétend que je ne le vois jamais sans le prêcher sur l’Amérique. Vous savez de quelle haute considération je suis pénétrée pour votre esprit et votre caractère.

Mille compliments.GALLATIN TO MADAME DE STAËL-HOLSTEINGand, 4 octobre, 1814.

Ce n’est que hier, my dear madam, que j’ai reçu votre lettre du 23 septembre; celle que vous m’aviez fait le plaisir de m’écrire de Coppet m’était bien parvenue; mais malgré la parfaite confiance que vous m’avez inspirée, il était de mon devoir de ne rien laisser transpirer de nos négociations; et j’espérais tous les jours pouvoir vous annoncer le lendemain quelque chose de positif. Nous sommes toujours dans le même état d’incertitude, mais il me paraît impossible que cela puisse durer longtemps, et je vous promets que vous serez la première instruite du résultat. Malgré les fâcheux auspices sous lesquels nous avions commencé à traiter, je n’avais point perdu l’espérance de pouvoir réussir. Il faut cependant convenir que ce qui s’est passé à la prise de Washington peut faire naître de nouveaux obstacles à la paix. Une incursion momentanée et la destruction d’un arsenal et d’une frégate ne sont qu’une bagatelle; mais faire sauter ou brûler les palais du Congrès et du Président, et les bureaux des différente départements, c’est un acte de vandalisme dont la guerre de vingt ans en Europe, depuis les frontières de la Russie jusques à Paris et de celles du Danemarc jusqu’à Naples, n’offre aucun exemple, et qui doit nécessairement exaspérer les esprits. Est-ce parceque à l’exception de quelques cathédrales, l’Angleterre n’avoit aucun édifice public qui pût leur être comparé? Ou serait-ce pour consoler la populace de la cité de Londres de ce que Paris n’a été ni pillé ni brûlé?

Tout en vous disant cela, je ne me plains point de la conduite des Anglais, qui, si la guerre continue, loin de nous nuire, n’aura servi qu’à unir et animer la nation. Sous ce point de vue, la manière dont on nous fait la guerre doit pleinement rassurer ceux qui avaient des craintes mal fondées sur la permanence de notre union et de notre gouvernement fédératif. Et il n’y a qu’une dissolution totale qui puisse renverser nos finances et nous faire manquer à nos engagements. Je comprends cependant fort bien que lorsqu’on n’est pas Américain, l’on désirerait dans ce moment avoir sa fortune ailleurs que dans ce pays là; je puis avoir des préjugés trop favorables et ne voudrais aucunement vous induire en erreur. Mais il me semble que vendre vos fonds à 15 ou 20 pour cent de perte serait un sacrifice inutile. Ils tomberont probablement encore plus si la guerre continue, mais les intérêts seront toujours fidèlement payés et le capital sera au pair six mois après la paix. Nous nous sommes tirés d’une bien plus mauvaise situation. À la fin de la guerre de l’indépendance nous n’avions ni finances ni gouvernement; notre population ne s’élevait qu’à environ trois millions et demi, la nation était extrêmement pauvre, la dette publique était presqu’égale à ce qu’elle est actuellement; les fonds perdaient de 80 à 85 pour cent. Nous n’avons cependant pas fait faillite; nous n’avons pas réduit la dette à un tiers par un trait de plume; avec de l’économie et surtout de la probité, nous avons fait face à tout, remis tout au pair, et pendant les dix années qui avaient précédé la guerre actuelle nous avions payé la moitié du capital de notre ancienne dette. Au milieu de toutes nos factions, n’importe quel parti ait gouverné, le même esprit les a toujours animés à cet égard. Le même esprit règne encore; nous sommes très-riches; nous étions huit millions d’âmes au commencement de la guerre, et la population augmente de deux cent cinquante mille âmes par an. Si je n’ai pas entièrement méconnu l’Amérique, ses ressources et la moralité de sa politique, je ne me trompe pas en croyant ses fonds publics plus solides que ceux de toutes les puissances européennes.

Si cependant vous avez peur, attendez du moins la conclusion de nos négociations; vous n’avez pas le temps de faire vendre avant cette époque. Je serai au reste encore quinze jours au moins à Grand et donnerai avec grand plaisir à M. votre fils tous les renseignements en mon pouvoir s’il passe par ici en allant en Angleterre. Je suis très-sensible à tout ce que vous avez fait pour être utile à l’Amérique; je sens encore plus combien je vous dois; vous m’avez reçu et accueilli comme si j’eusse été une ancienne connaissance. Avant de vous connaître je respectais en vous Madame de Staël et la fille de Madame Necker, aux écrits et à l’exemple de qui j’ai plus d’obligation que je ne puis exprimer. Mais je vous avouerai que j’avais grand peur de vous; une femme très élégante et aimable et le premier génie de son sexe; l’on tremblerait à moins; vous eûtes à peine ouvert les lèvres que je fus rassuré, et en moins de cinq minutes je me sentis auprès de vous comme avec une amie de vingt ans. Je n’aurais fait que vous admirer, mais votre bonté égale vos talents et c’est pour cela que je vous aime. Agréez-en, je vous prie, l’assurance et soyez sûre du plaisir que me procurerait l’occasion de pouvoir vous être bon à quelque chose.

Mr. Goulburn, meanwhile, under the instructions of his government, was condescending to what had some remote resemblance to diplomacy. On the 23d September he wrote to Lord Bathurst acknowledging the receipt of two private letters, and adding: “You may depend upon our governing ourselves entirely by the instructions which they contain, and upon my continuing to represent to the Americans, as I always have done whenever an opportunity has offered, the very strong opinion which prevails in England against an unsatisfactory peace with America. Of this Mr. Gallatin appears to be the only American in any degree sensible, and this perhaps arises from his being less like an American than any of his colleagues.”135

Evidently Mr. Gallatin was doing his utmost to keep the peace, and all he could do was hardly enough. When the American note of September 26 was received, Mr. Goulburn wrote to his government that he considered it a rejection of their proposition sine qua non, and that to admit the American offer would be to abandon the principle on which the whole argument had been founded. He accused the American commissioners of irritating and unfounded accusations, of falsehood, of misstatement, and of fraud.136 Lord Liverpool, however, was in a better temper, and, after consultation with his colleague, Earl Bathurst, framed an article which, in effect, accepted the offer of Indian amnesty proposed by the American envoys; yet so curiously ungracious was the mode of this concession that the Americans were by no means reassured. Instead of pacifying Mr. Adams, it irritated him. Mr. Gallatin had still to act as peacemaker. “The tone of all the British notes,” says Mr. Adams, “is arrogant, overbearing, and offensive. The tone of ours is neither so bold nor so spirited as I think it should be. It is too much on the defensive, and too excessive in the caution to say nothing irritating. I have seldom been able to prevail upon my colleagues to insert anything in the style of retort upon the harsh and reproachful matter which we receive.” The candid reader of these papers must admit that there is no apparent want of tartness in the American notes, and occasionally the retort is perhaps a little too much in the British style; but in any case the moment when England had yielded, however ungraciously, was justly thought by all Mr. Adams’s colleagues to be not the most appropriate occasion for reproach. Even Mr. Clay was earnest on this point, and insisted upon drafting the American reply himself, and thus disposing of the Indian question. This done, the next step was to call for the projet of a treaty.

On the 18th October, Lord Bathurst accordingly sent the sketch for such a projet to Mr. Goulburn. Its most important point was an offer to treat in regard to boundaries on the basis of uti possidetis, an offer not in itself unfair, but startling in the application which Lord Bathurst gave to it. He proposed to exchange Castine and Machias, which were held by the British, for Forts Erie and Amherstburg, held by the Americans, while Michilimackinac, Fort Niagara with five miles circuit, and the northern angle of Maine were to become British territory.137 The details of this cession were, however, not to be put forward until the American commissioners had admitted the basis of uti possidetis, and accordingly the British commissioners, on the 21st October, sent a note to the Americans offering to treat on this ground, and adding that “they trust that the American plenipotentiaries will show, by their ready acceptance of this basis, that they duly appreciate the moderation of His Majesty’s government in so far consulting the honor and fair pretensions of the United States, as, in the relative situation of the two countries, to authorize such a proposition.”

Three days later, on the 24th October, the Americans sent back a very brief note bluntly refusing to treat on the basis of uti possidetis, or on any other basis than the status quo ante bellum in respect to territory, and calling for the British projet.

Of all the notes sent by the American negotiators, this, which they seem to have considered a matter of course and to which they gave not even a second thought, produced the liveliest emotions in the British government. Lord Liverpool, on receiving it, wrote at once to the Duke of Wellington: “The last note of the American plenipotentiaries puts an end, I think, to any hopes we might have entertained of our being able to bring the war with America at this time to a conclusion… The doctrine of the American government is a very convenient one; that they will always be ready to keep what they acquire, but never to give up what they lose… We still think it desirable to gain a little more time before the negotiation is brought to a close, and we shall therefore call upon them to deliver in a full projet of all the conditions on which they are ready to make peace before we enter into discussion on any of the points contained in our last note.”138 Mr. Goulburn assumed that everything was over, and merely wished to know whether they had best break off on this point or on that of the fisheries, and he showed almost his only trace of common sense by advising government to select the fisheries.139 On the British side it was formally, though secretly, announced through the interior official circle, that the American war was to go on, and for a time the only apparent question was how to carry it on most effectively.

Unluckily, however, the more the British government looked at the subject from this point of view the less satisfaction they found in it. Mr. Vansittart, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was very uncomfortable. Lord Liverpool was quite as uneasy as Mr. Vansittart. On the 28th October, the same day on which he wrote to the Duke of Wellington, he sent a letter to Lord Castlereagh, at Vienna: “I think it very material that we should likewise consider that our war with America will probably now be of some duration. We owe it therefore to ourselves not to make enemies in other quarters, if we can avoid it, for I cannot but feel apprehensive that some of our European allies will not be indisposed to favor the Americans; and if the Emperor of Russia should be desirous of taking up their cause, we are well aware, from some of Lord Walpole’s late communications, that there is a most powerful party in Russia to support him… Looking to a continuance of the American war, our financial state is far from satisfactory. Without taking into the account any compensation to foreign powers on the subject of the slave-trade, we shall want a loan for the service of the year of £27,000,000 or £28,000,000. The American war will not cost us less than £10,000,000 in addition to our peace establishment and other expenses. We must expect, therefore, to hear it said that the property tax is continued for the purpose of securing a better frontier for Canada.”140 A week later Lord Liverpool wrote again to Lord Castlereagh in a still lower tone: “I see little prospect of our negotiations at Ghent ending in peace… The continuance of the American war will entail upon us a prodigious expense, much more than we had any idea of… All our colleagues are coming to town, and we are to have a Cabinet on the speech to-morrow. Many of them have not yet seen the American correspondence; but we have got the question into that state that the government is not absolutely committed, and there will be an opportunity therefore of reviewing in a full Cabinet the whole course of our policy as to America.”141

This Cabinet council hit upon a brilliant idea to extricate them from their difficulties: the Duke of Wellington should go to America, with full powers to make peace or to fight, and in either case to take the entire responsibility on his own shoulders. This scheme was immediately communicated to the Duke by Lord Liverpool, in a letter dated November 4, the day after the council, and in communicating it the Earl frankly said: “The more we contemplate the character of the American war the more satisfied we are of the many inconveniences which may grow out of the continuation of it. We desire to bring it to an honorable conclusion.”

The Duke of Wellington had some experience in acting as scape-goat for the blunders of his government; he was a man immeasurably superior to his civil chiefs, and even his common sense at times amounted to what in other men was genius. He wrote back, on the 9th November, a letter which would alone stamp him as the ablest English statesman of his day. He did not refuse to go to America, but he pointed out the mistakes that had been made there, and which must be remedied before he could do any good service; he then told Lord Liverpool very civilly but very decidedly that he had made a great blunder in requiring territorial concessions: “I confess that I think you have no right, from the state of the war, to demand any concession of territory from America. Considering everything, it is my opinion that the war has been a most successful one, and highly honorable to the British arms; but from particular circumstances, such as the want of the naval superiority on the lakes, you have not been able to carry it into the enemy’s territory, notwithstanding your military success and now undoubted military superiority, and have not even cleared your own territory of the enemy on the point of attack. You cannot, then, on any principle of equality in negotiation, claim a cession of territory excepting in exchange for other advantages which you have in your power. I put out of the question the possession taken by Sir John Sherbrooke between the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy Bay. It is evidently only temporary and till a larger force will drive away the few companies he has left there; and an officer might as well claim the sovereignty of the ground on which his piquets stand or over which his patrols pass. Then, if this reasoning be true, why stipulate for the uti possidetis? You can get no territory; indeed, the state of your military operations, however creditable, does not entitle you to demand any; and you only afford the Americans a popular and creditable ground, which, I believe, their government are looking for, not to break off the negotiations, but to avoid to make peace. If you had territory, as I hope you soon will have New Orleans, I should prefer to insist upon the cession of that province as a separate article than upon the uti possidetis as a principle of negotiation.”142

This was plain speaking. The whole British scheme of negotiation had, moreover, been fatally shaken by the disastrous failure of Sir George Prevost’s attack on Plattsburg. Lord Liverpool immediately wrote back to the Duke that the question was still open and the Cabinet was disposed to meet his views on the subject.143 A few days later, on the 18th November, he wrote to Lord Castlereagh announcing that government had at last decided to recede: “We have under our consideration at present the last American note of their projet of treaty, and I think we have determined, if all other points can be satisfactorily settled, not to continue the war for the purpose of obtaining or securing any acquisition of territory. We have been led to this determination by the consideration of the unsatisfactory state of the negotiations at Vienna, and by that of the alarming situation of the interior of France. We have also been obliged to pay serious attention to the state of our finances and to the difficulties we shall have in continuing the property tax. Considering the general depression of rents, which, even under any corn law that is likely to meet with the approbation of Parliament, must be expected to take place under such circumstances, it has appeared to us desirable to bring the American war, if possible, to a conclusion.”144

Thus the second round in this diplomatic encounter closed with the British government fairly discomfited; Lord Bathurst and Lord Liverpool had succeeded no better than Mr. Goulburn in dealing with the American envoys, and had received a sharp lesson from the Duke of Wellington into the bargain. When the unfortunate Mr. Goulburn received the despatches containing his new instructions, he was deeply depressed. “I need not trouble you,” he wrote on the 25th November to Lord Bathurst, “with the expression of my sincere regret at the alternative which the government feels itself compelled, by the present state of affairs in Europe, to adopt with respect to America. You know that I was never much inclined to give way to the Americans; I am still less inclined to do so after the statement of our demands with which the negotiation opened, and which has in every point of view proved most unfortunate.”145 The draught was a bitter one, but he swallowed it.