sented drafts of an answer. The one offered by Clay, with some modifications, was finally adopted.67 After two months of negotiations the settlement of the Indian question had now been reached, and with this obstacle removed, the first prospect of a treaty of peace began faintly to appear. 67 Memoirs of J. Q. Adams, III., 51–52. CHAPTER VII MODIFICATION OF BRITISH DEMANDS At the time that the American ministers were struggling with the question of the acceptance of the article on Indian pacification and the reply to be made to the British note, public opinion in America, which was to aid materially the work of the peace ministers, was rapidly forming. The capture of Washington on August 24 and the burning of the public buildings by the British called forth general indignation, and the reception of the despatches from Ghent, containing the proposition of the British ministers, aroused the people even more.1 The war sentiment at once became more pronounced, and even the Federalists acknowledged that peace was impossible under the terms proposed by the British Government. The despatches brought by George M. Dallas on the John Adams reached New York at ten o'clock the evening of October 5. Early the next morning Dallas started for Washington to present the despatches to the Secretary of State. These, accompanied by an 1 R. M. Patterson to Russell, Nov. 6, 1814; Russell Papers, MS., No. 1708. 2 New York Spectator, Oct. 6, 1814. address, were transmitted by Madison to Congress October 10.3 Congress had been called in secret session to consider the despatches, and to act with reference to new instructions, which were submitted by the President on the 13th. The House of Representatives ordered ten thousand copies of the despatches to be printed and distributed widely. The public communication of the despatches of the negotiation, before it was known definitely whether or not negotiations were broken off, caused the severest criticism in England. Madison had thus acted in order to unite all parties in a more vigorous support of the Administration in the prosecution of the war, and his plan was, in a large measure, successful. All agreed that the proposals of Great Britain were inadmissible, being inconsistent with the sovereign rights of the United States. Many regarded the terms as absolutely dishonorable and arrogant. The legislature of New York passed a resolution "That the House of Assembly of the State of New York view, with mingled emotions of surprise and indignation, the extravagant and disgraceful terms proposed by the British commissioners at Ghent-that however ardently they may desire the restoration of peace to their country, they 8 New York Herald, Oct. 13, 1814. 4 Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Presidents, I., 551. can never consent to receive it at the sacrifice of national honor and dignity-that they therefore strongly recommend to the National Legislature, the adoption of the most vigorous and efficacious measures in the prosecution of the war, as the best means of bringing this contest to an honorable termination, and of transmitting unimpaired to their posterity, their rights, liberty, and independence.” The popular objections to the terms were well stated in the Philadelphia Aurora of October 24: "It is impossible our commissioners can listen to such terms without indignation, and we feel warranted in saying, that to restrain the United States from treating with the Indians; that to despoil them through Massachusetts, Michigan, Ohio, and the Lakes of their natural frontier and soil; to admit Great Britain into an exclusive right to arm the Lakes and to a military occupation of both shores; to erect an independent savage power on our confines and within our domain; and to curtail our fisheries, sacred by the treaty of 1782, are demands, attempts, or pretensions which the United States will never submit to, but with the loss of her freedom." The territorial demands of Great Britain aroused the greatest indignation in the United States. The land that was exacted by Great Britain, either in the form New York Spectator, Oct. 29, 1814. Federal Republican, Oct. 21, 1814. Philadelphia Aurora, Oct. 24, 1814. of a permanent Indian territory or for communication between Halifax and Quebec, it was pointed out, meant the cession by the United States of some 233,000,000 acres, an extent of country larger than England, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland. This territory, it was estimated, was worth, at the government price of land, nearly $500,000,000.$ The Federalist papers, while laying the blame of the ill success of the mission upon Madison, opposed the British pretensions as vigorously as the Republicans. The United States Gazette in an editorial of October 19, 1814, said: "England now turns upon us in the fullness of her wrath and power. No alternative is left us but to resist with energy or submit with disgrace. As the latter is not possible to Americans, we must prepare our minds for an extremely long, arduous, and sanguinary war." The Federal Republican, also, in its issue of October 21, said: "We all agree in opinion that the terms proposed by Great Britain are inadmissible, and that her pretensions as stated by her Commissioners at Ghent ought to be resisted to the last. To be restrained from ever hereafter obtaining land from the Indians by fair and voluntary treaty would be to surrender an essential right of sovereignty and to submit to a degradation which nothing short of conquest ought to impose upon us.' Another 8 Providence Patriot, Nov. 12, 1814. • United States Gazette, Oct. 24, 1814. 9910 |