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WRITINGS 
 
 OF 
 
 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 
 
 / 
 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK • BOST0^f • CHICAGO • DALLAS 
 ATLANTA • SAN FEANCISCO 
 
 MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 
 
 LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCOTTA 
 MELBOURNE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 
 
 TORONTO 
 
WRITINGS 
 
 OF 
 
 JOHN QUINCY ^DAMS 
 
 EDITED BY 
 WORTHINGTON CHAUNCEY FORD 
 
 "VOL. Y 
 1814-1816 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 1915 
 
 All riglils reserved 
 
 "r^- 
 
tL337 
 
 1 I 
 
 --e-VU. 
 
 n^-^? 
 
 Copyright, 1915 
 By MARY OGDEN ADAMS 
 
 Set up and electrotyped. Published June, 1915. 
 
 $^^^':^C)& 
 
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 V 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 1814 
 
 PAGE 
 
 January 2. To John Adams ...... i 
 
 Uallatin about to leave St. Petersburg. Curious 
 situation of the commissioners. Offers to treat from 
 Great Britain. 
 
 January 4. To R. G. Beasley ..... 4 
 
 American intelligence. No expectation of peace. 
 
 January 17. To Abigail Adams ..... 5 
 
 Intentions of Gallatin and Bayard. American news 
 by way of England. Battle of Lake Erie. Prevost's 
 dispatches. Lesson of the war. 
 
 January 24. To Thomas Boylston Adams ... 9 
 The ruler of Holland. Notification to consuls and pos- 
 sible explanation. Napoleon's fall. 
 
 January 29. To Robert Fulton . . . . .11 
 
 Issue of his patent subject to a specification and 
 model of boat. 
 
 February 5. To the Secretary of State ... 12 
 Interview with Count Romanzoff. Count Eleven's 
 dispatch. RomanzofiF's desire to resign his office. 
 Character outlined. Relations with the Emperor. 
 Publications in the official gazette. 
 
 February 17. To John Adams ..... 18 
 A new peace commission. A new destination after 
 peace. The powers and France. Peace not remote in 
 Europe. Relations with Great Britain. 
 
vi CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 March 30. To Abigail Adams ..... 22 
 Has learned of the new peace commission. Hopes 
 to return to America before the end of the year. Opin- 
 ion of Gallatin's merits. Concessions. The allies 
 and France, 
 
 April 7. To THE Secretary of State .... 27 
 Reported check in Britain's desire to negotiate. 
 Reasons for pursuing his journey. Mr. Harris. 
 
 April 7. To Senator Weydemeyer .... 29 
 Negotiations with Great Britain to be at Gothenburg. 
 Reasons for accepting the proposal. Error of Lord Cath- 
 cart. Is about to leave for Gothenburg. 
 
 April 15. To the Secretary of State . . -34 
 
 Brief interview with Weydemeyer. Cathcart's state- 
 ment a surprise. Object of the British Cabinet and 
 measures taken on mediation. Position of Russia. 
 Impressment of seamen a European issue. 
 
 April 25. To THE Secretary of State . . -39 
 
 Is about to leave for Gothenburg. Return of Harris. 
 Government of Sweden notified. Smith left as charge. 
 Need of a secretary. 
 
 May 12. To Abigail Adams ..... 42 
 
 Humiliation of France and Bonaparte. No confidence 
 in the allies except in Alexander. He will serve as 
 arbitrator. 
 
 May 13-June 2. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . 44 
 
 War in Europe has ended in calm. No appointment 
 of British commissioners. The place of meeting. Com- 
 mercial stagnation in England. 
 
 May 28. To the Secretary of State ... 47 
 
 Change in the place of meeting proposed, but will go 
 to Gothenburg. Sees little prospect of a favorable result. 
 
CONTENTS vii 
 
 PAGE 
 
 June 12. To Louisa Catherine Adams ... 48 
 
 Has lost his servant, but has a substitute. Desire of 
 a Frenchman to serve him. Officers of the ship and 
 naval strength. 
 
 June 25. To Louisa Catherine Adams ... 50 
 
 First to arrive at Ghent. Change of destination and 
 his wishes. Impressions of Sweden and Holland. Rise 
 of Antwerp and fate of Belgium. 
 
 June 28. To Louisa Catherine Adams ... 52 
 
 Changes in the old Stad-house at Amsterdam. Traces 
 of the Bonaparte family. Sober character of the people. 
 National airs. 
 
 July 2. To Louisa Catherine Adams . • • • 55 
 
 Popularity and moderation of the Emperor Alexander. 
 Wrangling over European sports. 
 
 July 3. To the Secretary of State .... 56 
 Ghent to have a British garrison. Journeyings of 
 the commissioners. -:::-■' 
 
 July 9. To Levett Harris . • • • • 57 
 
 His office announced to Russian government. Place 
 of meeting of no real importance. 
 
 July 12. To Louisa Catherine Adams •• • 59 
 
 Todd and Carroll. Opinions on the probability of 
 peace. His own plans. American visitors. Recollec- 
 tions of a Dutch school. His birthday toasted by 
 Bayard. Harmony. 
 
 July 15. To Louisa Catherine Adams ... 61 
 
 Distinguished visitors to Ghent. Marriage negotia- 
 tions for the hand of Princess Charlotte. Talk of a new 
 war. 
 
viii CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 July i6. To Alexander Hill Everett ... 62 
 
 Edward Everett's (f) ft K poem. An address to the 
 Charitable Fire Society and American principles. 
 
 July 19. To Louisa Catherine Adams ... 64 
 
 Commissioners have taken a house. Obtained from 
 a French universalist. A question of wines. 
 
 July 22. To Louisa Catherine Adams ... 65 
 
 Selection of Ghent meant delay. Clay, the attaches, 
 and Bayard. Will not get away as expected. 
 
 July 29. To Louisa Catherine Adams ... 67 
 
 Debate in the House of Commons on the negotiation. 
 Lord Castlereagh's candor. Utterances of Vanslttart 
 and Canning. Report of Madison's impeachment. 
 
 August I. To Louisa Catherine Adams ... 69 
 Removal to house and its consequences. Hughes as 
 an entertainer. Todd at Paris. British commissioners 
 delayed and the cause. Peace in Europe. 
 
 August 5. To Louisa Catherine Adams ... 71 
 British commissioners about to come. Entertain- 
 ments at St. Petersburg and the Emperor's title. 
 American news in the newspapers. Religious festival at 
 Boston. Massachusetts politics. Lannuyer. 
 
 August 9. To Louisa Catherine Adams ... 74 
 Arrival of the British commissioners. The speech of 
 the Prince Regent. Negotiation will not be of long con- 
 tinuance. 
 
 August II. To THE Secretary of State • • • 75 
 
 Arrival of the commissioners and the first conferepxe. 
 Assurances of peace exchanged. Indian pacification and 
 boundary. Reply of the American commissioners on 
 propositions. Attempt to pledge the American pleni- 
 potentiaries to results. Protocols of conferences. 
 
CONTENTS ix 
 
 PAGE 
 
 82 
 
 August 16. To Louisa Catherine Adams 
 
 American prospects not promising. A dinner to 
 Americans in Ghent and Adams' toast. Lord Hill's ex- 
 pedition. 
 
 August 17. To THE Secretary of State ... 84 
 Cochrane's proclamation and British pretensions. 
 Gallatin and the Emperor Alexander. Europe de- 
 pendent upon Great Britain. Propositions from the 
 British commissioners. Probable rupture of the con- 
 ference and Lord Hill's expedition. Belgium and Hol- 
 land under one ruler. 
 
 August 19. To Louisa Catherine Adams ... 88 
 Conferences suspended. Habits of living. Probable 
 stay at Ghent. 
 
 August 23. To Louisa Catherine Adams ... 90 
 Castlereagh at Ghent. A final exchange of notes. 
 Plans of the commissioners. Todd's interpretation of 
 his mother's wishes. Milligan's visit to Scotland. 
 Russell and de Cabre. 
 
 August 24. Answer to the British Commissioners . 93 
 Lord Castlereagh's proposition. Disposition for peace 
 unchanged. Question on the Indians. Practice of Euro- 
 pean nations. The lands of the Indians. Peace with 
 the natives broken by the English. Too much asked. 
 Objections to the proposed boundary. Military com- 
 mand of the lakes. Cession of territory. An amicable 
 warning. 
 
 August 26. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . . 102 
 
 Expects to leave Ghent in a few days. Harmony 
 among the Americans. No news from America. 
 
 August 29. To William Harris Crawford . . 104 
 
 Little prospect of a peace. Effect of a continuance of 
 the war on America. Preparations and coming dis- 
 asters. Cochrane's proclamation. 
 
X CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 August 30. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . . 107 
 
 In hourly expectation of the final reply. A spat be- 
 tween Bayard and W. Adams. 
 
 August 31. To George Joy. ..... 109 
 
 Making a fortune from a peace. Relations with 
 William Adams. 
 
 September 5. To the Secretary of State . .110 
 
 Cause of delay on the part of the British Commis- 
 sioners. An interview with Goulburn. Conquest of 
 Canada. Disavowal of proclamations. The British 
 navy and slaves taken in America. Indian allies and ter- 
 ritories. Armed force on the lakes. Comments. 
 
 September 9. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . 120 
 
 Believes the commission will not be dismissed as ex- 
 pected by all. An exchange of notes. Number of 
 British negotiators. Praise for Gallatin and Bayard. 
 Visitors and a compliment. 
 
 September 9. Answer to the British Commissioners 122 
 Reasons for not discussing propositions. Relations 
 with the Indians and armaments on the lakes. Practice 
 of the British government. The American system. 
 
 September 10. To Abigail Adams .... 130 
 
 Intentions of the Smiths. Clay and Russell not 
 against the success of the mission. Progress of the 
 negotiation. Situation of the American commissioners. 
 Milligan's visit to Scotland and its consequence. 
 
 September 11. To Lafayette ..... 134 
 On visiting Paris and Victor de Tracy. Prospects of 
 the mission. 
 
 September 13. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . 136 
 
 Continuation of the interchange of notes probable. 
 Summary of what has passed. No concession. 
 
CONTENTS xi 
 
 PAGE 
 
 September 13. To George Joy ..... 138 
 Will be happy to see him unless commercial specula- 
 tion be his object. Abuse of access and information. 
 
 September 14. To William Harris Crawford . . 139 
 
 France and the rights of neutrality. The negotiation 
 has become arrant trifling. The United States to be a 
 great naval and military power. 
 
 September 16. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . 141 
 
 Commission to part. Note sent to England. English 
 press on the situation. A rumored apology. 
 
 September 23. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . 143 
 
 Last note in preparation, as is believed. Changes in 
 the British demands. News from England. His own 
 part in preparing papers. Doubt of the future. 
 
 September 27. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . 145 
 
 Policy of the British government. Discussion has 
 been preliminary only. A suggestion of his own ac- 
 cepted. Real debate with the Privy Council. Manner 
 of preparing notes. Treatment of his matter. Gallatin's 
 influence. 
 
 October 4. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . . 148 
 
 A reminder. Destruction by the British at Washing- 
 ton. Weakness of the defense. Must be prepared for 
 misfortunes. Sentiment of the Americans. 
 
 October 5. To William Harris Crawford . . • 15J 
 
 News from America. Clay optimistic on the outcome 
 of the negotiation. British misrepresentations. 
 
 October 7. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . . 153 
 
 Destruction at Washington contrary to usages of civi- 
 lized nations. Cruelty in civil wars. Rejoicing in Eng- 
 land. Precipitate retreat of British. 
 
xii CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 October ii. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . . 155 
 
 Will remain some weeks longer. A new British note. 
 The Washington attack and European opinion. An at- 
 tempted defense. 
 
 October 14. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . . 158 
 
 The fourth British note. Has yielded to his colleagues. 
 Enemy not to be propitiated. Lawrence's last words. 
 Bayard on the vandalic attacks. 
 
 October 18. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . . 161 
 
 The Congress of Vienna and peace. Pamphlets by 
 Carnot and Chateaubriand. The Bourbon rule. The 
 French army. 
 
 October 18. To William Harris Crawford . . 163 
 
 Object of British policy. No good reason for breaking 
 off the negotiation. Danger of delay. 
 
 October 25. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . . 164 
 
 Protracting the negotiation. New pretensions ad- 
 vanced and rejected. Trials to be endured. 
 
 October 25. To Abigail Adams ..... 166 
 Congratulations on jubilee year. How peace may be 
 secured. England at the Congress of Vienna. Memorial 
 of Tallyrand. 
 
 October 25. To the Secretary of State . . . 168 
 
 Detention of the Chauncey. Reported violation of the 
 cartel. Conduct of the agent. Delay the British policy. 
 Why no rupture has taken place. Basis of uii possidetis 
 rejected. Congress of Vienna and peace. 
 
 October 28. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . . 174 
 
 Social activity at Ghent. Isolation of the British 
 Commissioners. Retreat of Prevost. 
 
CONTENTS xiii 
 
 PAGE 
 
 November 4. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . 176 
 
 Newspapers as a source of information. Conditions 
 on which peace will turn. 
 
 November 6. To William Harris Craw^ford . .180 
 
 Negotiation spinning out. Question of etiquette on 
 exchange of projets. 
 
 November 8. To Louisa Catherine Adams . .178 
 
 Preparing a reply to the British note. Pakenham 
 sent to America. Wellington may go. 
 
 November 11. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . 181 
 
 War will probably continue. Draft of treaty sent to 
 the British Commissioners. His own part in it. The 
 Regent's speech to Parliament. 
 
 November 14. To George Joy ..... 184 
 
 Nature of civil war. Is something of an optimist. 
 
 November 15. To Levett Harris .... 186 
 
 Why the negotiation has been kept open. Situation 
 in America. General issue of campaign yet to come. 
 A threat of retaliation. 
 
 November 15. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . 188 
 
 Concert and ball. The theatrical entertainments. 
 Expects bad news from America. The Regent's speech 
 and the English policy. Prevost and retaliation. 
 
 November 17. To William Harris Crawford . . 192 
 
 The campaign in America. Debate on the Regent's 
 speech. What has been done in the negotiation. The 
 fisheries. Cruel conduct of the war. The European 
 press. Position of France at Vienna. 
 
 November 18. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . 195 
 
 Little expectation of a peace. Success of Tallyrand 
 at Vienna. Predominance of Great Britain. 
 
xiv CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 November 20. To the Secretary of State . . 198 
 
 Passports and dispatches. The Transit and instruc- 
 tions. Course of the negotiation. Belief that the 
 United States will sink before Britain. 
 
 November 22. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . 202 
 
 English newspapers on the negotiation. A rupture 
 anticipated. Conduct of the British commissioners. 
 As to a projet of a treaty. The destruction at Washing- 
 ton. Measure of W. Adams. 
 
 November 23. To Abigail Adams .... 205 
 
 An outline of the negotiation. British military 
 achievements. Boast of the Earl of Liverpool. The 
 Congress at Vienna. The situation at Ghent. 
 
 November 24. To Levett Harris .... 209 
 
 Opinion at St. Petersburg and of the British ministry. 
 Malice against America. Must be prepared for desola- 
 tion. Humiliating failures. Publication of the com- 
 mission's dispatches. 
 
 November 25. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . 212 
 
 Good effect produced by the publication of dis- 
 patches. Change in the British position. Annoyance 
 shown and possible end of the mission. Approval of 
 the President and his own proposal validated by in- 
 structions. The Hartford Convention. 
 
 November 27. To Peter Paul Francis De Grand 215 
 
 The progress of the negotiation. Triumph of Amer- 
 ican mariners. Withholding of reports in England. An 
 atrocious system of warfare. 
 
 November 29. To Louisa Catherine Adams . .218 
 
 Recall of the Dutch minister to the United States. 
 Proceedings of the Massachusetts legislature. A reply 
 from the British Commissioners. Trifles and principles. 
 
PAGE 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 England inclined towards peace. Federal politics and 
 changes in the government. 
 
 December 2. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . . 221 
 
 More cheering news from the United States. His col- 
 leagues and concession. Language softened to ad- 
 vantage. Clinging to little things. Result of a confer- 
 ence. Threats met, and readiness for a treaty. Social 
 enjoyments. 
 
 December 6. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . . 225 
 
 His colleagues sanguine of a treaty. Why he doubts 
 the sincerity of the British. Change in tone of English 
 journals. The strolling players. 
 
 December 8. To Levett Harris ..... 227 
 Great Britain makes it a war of conquest. Maritime 
 questions not to be discussed at Vienna. Situation of 
 the negotiation. 
 
 December 9. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . . 229 
 
 The trying moment at hand. Mutual conciliation 
 among his colleagues. •-t;-' 
 
 December 12. Note to the British Commissioners . 231 
 Failure of conferences to produce an agreement. 
 Restoration of captured territory. Islands in Passa- 
 maquoddy Bay. Navigation of the Mississippi. 
 
 December 13. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . 235 
 
 The negotiation labors. Suppression of feeling. De- 
 pendence of the British Commissioners. The Duke of 
 Wellington at Paris. 
 
 December 16. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . 237 
 
 His best friend. Character of his colleagues and irri- 
 tability. Greatest differences with Clay. Their position 
 not so favorable. Hail Columbia and the Hanoverian 
 officers. 
 
xvi CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 December 20. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . 241 
 
 General belief in a peace. The London Times makes 
 charges against the American mission. Milligan's con- 
 duct. 
 
 December 23. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . 243 
 
 Inquisitive visitors. An insistent correspondent. His 
 own state of peculiar anxiety. Treaty, if signed, will 
 give little satisfaction to either nation. England pre- 
 pares for a new campaign. 
 
 December 24. To Abigail Adams .... 247 
 
 A treaty of peace signed. Will go to Paris and await 
 orders. Character of the peace. 
 
 December 26. To John Adams ..... 248 
 Manner of sending the treaty to America. Informa- 
 tion wanted on the fisheries. Question of rights and 
 liberties. What passed in the negotiation. War and 
 treaties. Massachusetts' interests in the result. Har- 
 mony among the Americans has been constant. 
 
 December 27. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . 253 
 
 The signing and dispatching of the treaty. Bentzon's 
 energy. Announcement at Ghent. Treaty sent to the 
 United States. Movements of the Commissioners. 
 May be appointed to England. She will join him in 
 Paris. 
 
 December 30. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . 256 
 
 Joy in share in restoring peace to the world. Publica- 
 tion of the treaty. Restoration of captures at sea. 
 
 1815 
 
 January 2. To James A. Bayard, Henry Clay and 
 
 Jonathan Russell ...... 258 
 
 Custody of the papers of the mission. Willingness to 
 surrender them under certain conditions. Cannot 
 comply with requisition. 
 
CONTENTS xvil 
 
 PAGE 
 
 January 3. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . . 260 
 
 Terms in treaty are of perfect reciprocity, but no sub- 
 ject of dispute settled. Stock-jobbing in London. 
 Virulence of the Times. Music and celebrations. Tak- 
 ing leave of the Empress mother. 
 
 January 6. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . . 263 
 
 New-year's address on Vienna and Ghent. The ques- 
 tion of time. 
 
 January 13. To Levett Harris ..... 264 
 Courtesy of the Duke of Wellington to be imitated. 
 Has had no correspondence with Count Nesselrode. 
 
 January 10-17. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . 266 
 
 Party violence in Congress. The New England con- 
 federation. Employment of Gallatin. Sale of household 
 effects. 
 
 January 20. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . 268 
 
 The treaty in America and Aiassachusetts. The 
 islands in Passamaquoddy Bay. The fishing right and 
 the navigation of the Mississippi. Position of the 
 Indians. 
 
 January 24. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . 272 
 
 A portrait by Van Huffel. How Hail Columbia was 
 introduced. A fair lady and gallantry. 
 
 January 27. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . . 274 
 
 Has left Ghent. Inertia of matter. Kind treatment 
 received from the people of Ghent. Change in Sweden. 
 
 February 21. To Abigail Adams .... 277 
 
 Impressions of Paris after thirty years. Madame de 
 Stael and the Lafayettes. His colleagues of Ghent. Has 
 been presented to the king. The Louvre. 
 
 February 28. Commission ..... 276 
 
xviii CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 February 23. To the Secretary of State . . .281 
 
 Manner of sending the treaty. A treaty of commerce 
 with Great Britain. The matter of maritime rights. 
 Supremacy of England. Questions to be negotiated. 
 
 March 2. To Levett Harris ..... 285 
 The Congress of Vienna and the treaty of Ghent. 
 Monument to the Queen of Prussia. 
 
 March 13. Instructions ...... 286 
 
 Execution of the treaty. Surrender of occupied terri- 
 tory, and boundary. Taking away of slaves. Discrimi- 
 nating duties. Order of signatures in treaties. 
 
 March 19. To Abigail Adams ..... 290 
 Treaty of Ghent ratified by the United States. 
 Peace on the ocean. Landing of Napoleon in France and 
 triumphant progress towards Paris. Defection of the 
 army. Gallatin and Bayard. Mrs. Adams has left St. 
 Petersburg. 
 
 March 21. To John Adams 294 
 
 Napoleon at Paris. Changes in name of the Journal. 
 Quiet entrance of Napoelon. The King set out for Lille. 
 Books desired. 
 
 April 22. To Abigail Adams 299 
 
 Arrival of Mrs. Adams from St. Petersburg. In- 
 fluence of Napoleon. Little opposition to his progress. 
 The army and holders of national property. Action of 
 the allies. The Ghent commissioners. 
 
 April 24. To John Adams ...... 304 
 
 The English mission. A treaty of commerce with 
 Great Britain. The fisheries question. No pacific senti- 
 ments towards America. Dependence on England of 
 the Bourbons and their weakness. War against Napo- 
 leon. The French constitution. 
 
CONTENTS XIX 
 
 PAGE 
 
 April 24. To THE Secretary of the Treasury . .310 
 
 Sale of American stock in Europe. Prices in America 
 and in Europe. 
 
 April 28. To Peter Paul Francis De Grand . .312 
 
 An unfinished letter. Effect of the war in raising esti- 
 mation of the United States. Navy to be cherished. 
 Faction and the treaty. The Hartford Convention. 
 Napoleon and Europe. 
 
 June 5. To George William Erving . . . -317 
 
 American newspapers. The elections in Massachu- 
 setts. Naval prints. 
 
 June 23. To the Secretary of State . . -319 
 
 Interview with Lord Castlereagh. Assurances of 
 peace. Question of seamen. The Dartmoor prison in- 
 quest. A boundary commission. Restoration of slaves 
 and a treaty of commerce. Appointment of Charles 
 Bagot. 
 
 July II. To WiLLEM AND Jan Willink . . -325 
 
 Prices of American stock and payment of interest on 
 loans. 
 
 July i8. To Christopher Hughes .... 326 
 The Ghent commissioners' plans. The treaty of com- 
 merce. Shaler's diplomacy. 
 
 July 25. To William Eustis ..... 328 
 Peace and party politics in the United States. Part 
 played by New England. 
 
 July 27. To Alexander Hill Everett . . 330 
 His entrance into the diplomatic career and his re- 
 quests. European seductions and corruptions. Recol- 
 lections of The Hague. Message to Veerman. 
 
XX CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 July 28. To Levett Harris . . . . -332 
 
 Fulton's steamboat privileges in Russia. Measures 
 to secure its advantages. 
 
 August 9. To Lord Castlereagh .... 334 
 
 Restoration of slaves under the treaty of Ghent, 
 Changes in propositions during negotiations. The fort 
 at Michillimackinac. 
 
 August 15. To THE Secretary of State . 339 
 
 Treaty with Algiers, and protection of American 
 commerce. 
 
 August 15. To Francis Freeling .... 340 
 
 Question on the address of a letter. 
 
 August 17. To G. H. Freeling ..... 340 
 Explanation is accepted, but states his proper official 
 title and character. 
 
 August 20. To R. G. Beasley . . . . . 341 
 
 As to aid for Thomas Nelson. Real cases of distress. 
 
 August 22. To THE Secretary of State . . . 343 
 
 Abolition of discriminating duties. Time convention 
 
 * operates. Orders of Council on American trade. Re- 
 strictions as to St. Helena. The Louisiana convention 
 as a precedent. Michillimackinac. Removal of slaves 
 and the treaty provisions. Intentions of the negotiators. 
 Charges against British naval officers. Little prospect 
 of satisfaction. 
 
 August 27. To Benjamin Waterhouse . . . 353 
 
 Travels of his letters. Boston federalist newspapers 
 and the Ghent treaty. Governor Strong's assertion. 
 The British navy and impressment. France and the 
 allies. 
 
CONTENTS xxi 
 
 PAGE 
 
 August 29. To THE Secretary of State . . -357 
 
 Discriminating duties. An instance of impressments. 
 Distress of seamen. Michillimackinac and naval arma- 
 ment on tile lakes. 
 
 August 31. To John Adams ..... 360 
 
 The fisheries and New England's policy. The Trini- 
 tarian and Unitarian controversy. Persecution in Eu- 
 rope, hichiquuis Letters. Situation of France. 
 
 August 31. To William Eustis ..... 365 
 Conquered France. The Algerian pirates. Dutch 
 commerce and prices of American stock. British per- 
 formance of the Ghent treaty. Paper constitutions. 
 
 September 5. To the Secretary of State . . 367 
 
 Compensation for slaves taken away after the peace. 
 Need of authenticated papers. Michillimackinac. 
 Peace in Europe. Hostile feelings against America. 
 
 September 9. To Joseph Hall ..... 372 
 Shortsightedness of the federalists. The Ghent 
 treaty and the sine qua non. American character in 
 Europe. Lessons of the war. 
 
 September 19. To the Secretary of State 377 
 
 Hostilities against the United States. Interview with 
 Lord Bathurst. Order on the fisheries. The question 
 of right under treaties. Western posts and Indian rela- 
 tions. Nicholls' treaty disavowed. Departure of Bagot. 
 Policy towards France. 
 
 September 20. To John Adams . . . . -389 
 
 The fishery rights. Orders issued on the practice. 
 Lloyd and the British declaration at Ghent. Massachu- 
 setts must assert itself. 
 
 September 30. To the Secretary of State . . 394 
 
 Services of a secretary, James Grubb. English inten- 
 tions in South America. Auguste Annoni. 
 
xxii CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 October 2. To Thomas Reilly ..... 396 
 Crew of the Monticello. 
 
 October 4. To Mitchel King ..... 397 
 
 Copies of public records and publication of Ramsay's 
 history. 
 
 October 5. To William Plumer ..... 398 
 France has in turn become the victim. Prospects of 
 peace. Influence upon the United States. Need for 
 preparation. British spirit of commercial monopoly. 
 Historical works and periodicals. Tranquillity of 
 Europe. 
 
 October 7. To the Secretary of State . . . 403 
 
 Official requests and Consul Fox. English criticism 
 of the commercial convention with the United States. 
 The Floridas. 
 
 October 7. To Earl Bathurst ..... 406 
 Restitution or compensation for slaves of Downman. 
 Peculiar circumstances of the transaction. 
 
 October 9. To John Adams ..... 407 
 
 His position and its prospects. Questions to be dis- 
 cussed. Status of the fisheries. The commercial con- 
 vention. Economic situation of England. France not to 
 be feared. Religious controversy in Massachusetts. 
 
 October 10. To Jonathan Russell .... 412 
 Summary of incidents since parting. Negotiating a 
 commercial convention with Great Britain. Points of 
 difference. Gain of a formality in signing treaties. St. 
 Helena closed to American ships. Decatur and the 
 Barbary States. The Napoleon museum. 
 
 November 24. To John Adams ..... 418 
 Inability to write or to see friends. Uncertainty as to 
 expense allowances. The Massachusetts militia and 
 the navy. 
 
CONTENTS xxiii 
 
 PAGE 
 
 November 28. To Sylvanus Bourne .... 420 
 Expenses of education at Harvard University. Books 
 for reading on international law. 
 
 November 29. To William Eustis .... 423 
 Prospects of peace between the United States and 
 Great Britain. The fisheries. The national finances. 
 
 November 29. To William Shaler .... 426 
 The treaty with Algiers. Europe will follow the ex- 
 ample. No more tribute. 
 
 November 30. To John Thornton Kirkland . . 428 
 
 Visit from the astronomer Bond. Books for the 
 University. Religious persecution in Europe. Treat- 
 ment of France by the powers. 
 
 December 5. To Abigail Adams . . . -431 
 
 The Unitarian controversy and Channing's pamphlet. 
 His own conclusions. Priestley's position. 
 
 December 6. To Alexander Hill Everett . . . 436 
 
 Visit to Waterloo. St. Pierre's idea of perpetual peace. 
 Malthus and his theory of population. 
 
 December 14. To the Secretary of State . . 439 
 
 Claims against Great Britain for losses in the late war. 
 No hope of redress. 
 
 December 14. To Jonathan Russell .... 441 
 Criticism of the commercial convention. The fur 
 trade. Armaments on the lakes. Cheapness of the nec- 
 essaries of life in England an evil. 
 
 December 16. To John Adams ..... 445 
 The fishery clauses in treaties as interpreted by 
 Great Britain. Right must be maintained. Religious 
 intolerance in France. Conduct of the allies. Some 
 things to be gained. 
 
xxiv CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 December — . To Lord Castlereagh .... 448 
 As to American seamen in want. Provisions of the 
 law. Burden in cases raised should be on Great Britain. 
 Pensions. 
 
 December 24. To James Madison . . . -451 
 
 A pamphlet from one who desires to migrate to 
 America. 
 
 December 27. To Abigail Adams .... 453 
 
 Wishes to return to the United States. The com- 
 mercial convention. American influence in the Mediter- 
 ranean. Feeling against the United States. 
 
 December 29. To Rufus King ..... 455 
 Trusts no impairment of mutual confidence. Intro- 
 duces Pursh. 
 
 1816 
 
 January i. To George Joy ...... 456 
 
 Pay of American consuls. Money not the only re- 
 ward of service. 
 
 January 5. To George Joy ...... 458 
 
 Kirkland on federalists. 
 
 January 5. To John Adams ..... 458 
 
 Unity and Trinity and the Athanasian creed. Argu- 
 ments of a Jesuit father. The President's message and 
 peace with Great Britain. Effect of low prices in Eng- 
 land. The Bank and the national debt. 
 
 January 8. To Lord Castlereagh .... 463 
 Undue discrimination on American ships in the ports 
 of Ireland. Asks for equal privilege with British vessels. 
 
 January 9. To Abigail Adams ..... 466 
 Departure of Bagot for America. Letter of John 
 Adams to Dr. Price. Position of the dissenters. Atti- 
 
CONTENTS XXV 
 
 PAGE 
 
 tude towards the French Protestants. Origin of the 
 Lloyd letters. The Hallowells. 
 
 January 9. To the Secretary of State . . . 470 
 
 Vessels taken within the Spanish jurisdiction. 
 
 January 22. To Lord Castlereagh .... 472 
 Rights and liberties in the fisheries. Nature of the 
 treaty of 1783. Termination of treaties by war. Perma- 
 nent stipulations. Acknowledgment of independence. 
 The treaty of 1783 in the Ghent treaty. The fishing lib- 
 erties. Distinction between right and liberty. Effect of 
 independence. Natural conditions. 
 
 January 22. To the Secretary of State . . . 487 
 
 Europe and the South Americans. Importance as 
 something to be desired. Peace with the United States. 
 
 January 31. To the Secretary of State . . . 491 
 
 New powers for further negotiations. The question 
 
 of seamen. Care for distressed sailors. Results of an 
 
 inquiry. Proposals submitted. Means of protecting 
 seamen. 
 
 February 8. To the Secretary of State . . . 497 
 
 Interview with Lord Castlereagh. Armaments on the 
 lakes. Sources of trouble. Specific examples. Nature 
 of the proposals. Cession of the Floridas. Relations 
 with Spain and South Americans. Downman's slaves. 
 Wishes of the government of the United States. Evi- 
 dence offered. Emigration from Ireland. 
 
 February 8. To Abigail Adams . . . . • S^^ 
 
 A visit to the Copleys and to West. 
 
 February 17. To Lord Castlereagh . . . • 5^1 
 
 The treaty of Ghent on restoration of property cap- 
 tured. Action of British naval officers. Manner of 
 
PAGE 
 
 xxvi CONTENTS 
 
 framing the stipulation. Lord Bathurst's statement. 
 Proper interpretation of the stipulation. 
 
 February 27. To William Plumer . . . • 5^^ 
 
 Possible connection between the Hartford Conven- 
 tion and a hurricane and influenza. Political and eco- 
 nomic relations of Great Britain. Taxes and agricultural 
 distress. 
 
 February 29. To John Adams ..... 520 
 Expulsion of the Jesuits from Russia. Reported diffi- 
 culties between the United States and Spain. 
 
 March 4. To Abigail Adams ..... 522 
 Impressions and experiences when last in Paris. Re- 
 ception of Napoleon at the theatre. The Napoleon 
 museum. 
 
 March 6. To the Secretary of State . . . 526 
 
 Discrimination in Ireland against American vessels. 
 Duties on cotton and light money. The renewal of the 
 property tax. 
 
 March 8. To Jonathan Russell .... 530 
 
 Cobbett and his paper. Distress in England. The 
 situation in the United States. Christopher Hughes and 
 Shaler. 
 
 March 12. To Lord Castlereagh .... 533 
 Representation on Downman's slaves. Captain 
 Barrle's statement examined. Violation of flags of truce. 
 Possible sources of information. 
 
 March 16. To Alexander Hill Everett . . . 537 
 
 Lessons to be drawn from the negotiation at Ghent. 
 Benefits to the United States. J. A. Smith, secretary of 
 legation. Everett's future prospects. Qualities of secre- 
 taries and failures. Should not remain in Europe too 
 long. 
 
CONTENTS xxvii 
 
 PAGE 
 
 March 25. To Abigail Adams ..... 542 
 His health and handwriting. Extent of his corre- 
 spondence and demands upon his services. Samples of 
 applications. 
 
 March 27. To Joseph Pitcairn ..... 545 
 Order for books for Harvard University. 
 
 March 29. To William Eustis ..... 546 
 Rumored difficulties with Onis. American finance. 
 Distress and taxes in England. 
 
 March 30. To the Secretary of State . . -55° 
 
 Deputies from South America. Relations between 
 the United States and Spain. Neutrality with South 
 America. Expeditions from Kentucky and Tennessee. 
 Conduct of Onis. Downman's slaves. Armaments on 
 the lakes. 
 
 March 31. To Henry Jackson ..... 556 
 American consuls in France. 
 
WRITINGS 
 
 O F 
 
 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 
 
WRITINGS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 
 
 TO JOHN ADAMS 
 
 St. Petersburg, 2 January, 1814. 
 My Dear Sir: 
 
 The last letters I have had the pleasure of receiving from 
 you are those of i and 2 July, and excepting them and others 
 of the same period from my mother and brother I have noth- 
 ing from America dated later than June. The communica- 
 tions are nearly annihilated, and but for the return of the 
 gentlemen who came out here on the extraordinary mission 
 and that of their companions, I should be deprived of all 
 means of transmitting a letter to my friends. 
 
 The Neptune, the vessel in which these gentlemen came, 
 and which they ordered In the beginning of November to 
 go and wait for them at Gothenburg, has effected her passage 
 to that port. Mr. Gallatin, who to this day has received 
 Information of the decision of the Senate upon his nomina- 
 tion to this mission only through the medium of a newspaper. 
 Intends leaving this place In the course of eight or ten days. 
 He has received a letter from one of his relations in Geneva, 
 proposing to meet him In Switzerland, and I believe con- 
 templates commencing his journey In that direction. You 
 will easily judge from your Intimate knowledge of the usual 
 course of official transactions of the situation In which he 
 personally and his colleagues have been placed, with the 
 certain Information now nearly three months since received 
 of the vote In Senate upon the nomination, and without any 
 authentic communication of the fact. As neither Mr. 
 
 I 
 
2 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 Bayard nor myself have received our commissions under the 
 appointment with advice and consent^ Mr. Gallatin's powers 
 to act are still precisely the same as our own; and if the media- 
 tion had been accepted and the negotiation in progress, we 
 should have been thrown into a dilemma not a little awkward 
 and embarrassing. The British government, however, 
 peremptorily refused to treat with the United States under 
 the mediation of Russia, or as they expressed it, under any 
 mediation. This determination they communicated to 
 the Emperor Alexander at his headquarters, and from the 
 nature of the occupations which have occupied his time and 
 absorbed his attention no official communication has yet 
 been made to us of this event. ^ Mr. Gallatin, on receiving 
 intelligence of the issue of his nomination in the Senate, 
 determined not to wait for official dispatches announcing 
 it; but as he has no other means of returning to the United 
 States than by the Neptune^ and as we have been daily ex- 
 pecting the information from this government which will 
 authorize the departure of Mr. Bayard, he has been waiting 
 hitherto, until the state of the roads and the advancement 
 of the season have induced him to conclude upon his de- 
 parture without longer delay. ^ 
 
 The British government through an indirect channel have 
 offered to treat with the American envoys directly, either 
 at Gothenburg or in England, and intimated to them an in- 
 vitation to London for that purpose. As we have no powers 
 to treat otherwise than under the mediation, we could not 
 accept this invitation, but Mr. Gallatin and Mr. Bayard 
 propose to avail themselves of it to stop in England on their 
 
 1 Cathcart communicated the refusal of the British government to the Russian 
 government September 25, 181 3. 
 
 * On the next day, January 3, Gallatin proposed to go near the Emperor's head- 
 quarters at Toplitz, and ask his intentions on the British proposals, a measure dis- 
 couraged by Adams. See Adams, Memoirs, January 3, 1814. 
 
i8i4l JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 3 
 
 return home, and to ascertain in a manner involving no 
 responsibility what the views of the British government are 
 in relation to a peace with the United States. These views 
 have, indeed, been made known to us in a manner sufficiently 
 intelligible to leave me little expectation that my colleagues 
 will find a favorable opportunity for bringing an accommoda- 
 tion to a successful issue; but the desire of our country 
 and of our government is so strong for peace that no honor- 
 able opportunity for attempting to accomplish it ought to 
 be neglected. 
 
 As the military and political revolutions in the north 
 of Europe have now opened a communication from this 
 country to England by the way of Holland, Mr. Gallatin 
 and Mr. Bayard intend to take that course instead of going 
 to Gothenburg, They propose ordering the Neptune to 
 Falmouth, and going by land themselves to Amsterdam. 
 The packets already pass between Helvoetsluys and Har- 
 wich, and will furnish them the means of conveyance to 
 England. As Mr. Gallatin takes his departure first, he will 
 make his visit to Switzerland, and meet Mr. Bayard again 
 in Holland. 
 
 Mr. Payne Todd,^ Mrs. Madison's son, and Colonel Milli- 
 gan,' who came out with Mr. Bayard, are going through 
 Sweden to Gothenburg, there to embark for England, in- 
 tending to wait for the arrival of other gentlemen there, 
 and it is by them that I now have the opportunity of writing 
 to you. 
 
 1 John Payne Todd, son of John Todd, of Philadelphia, and " Dolly " Payne. 
 " George Milligan. 
 
4 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 TO R. G. BEASLEY 
 
 St. Petersburg, 4 January, 18 14. 
 
 Sir: 
 
 I have to acknowledge the receipt of your favors of 22 
 October, 5 and 19 November, with their enclosures, and to 
 thank you for them. The intelligence contained in the last 
 is of a pleasing nature, though less favorable than re- 
 ports which had been for some days circulating here upon 
 the authority of later accounts in English newspapers. 
 We had been flattered with expectations that the issue of 
 General Proctor's campaign had been more decisive than 
 General Harrison's dispatch now warrants us in believing, 
 and that Sir James L. Yeo's Insulting charge against his 
 enemy of want of spirit had been answered more effectually 
 than by his seeking refuge in port from the pursuit of that 
 same enemy, and suffering his transports of troops and 
 convoys to be taken almost before his face, without attempt- 
 ing to protect them, 
 
 I know not upon what foundation any expectation can 
 be entertained in England of a speedy peace with the United 
 States. There is nothing in the English mode of carrying 
 on the war, and certainly nothing in their mode of meeting 
 the pacific overtures on our part, that has any tendency to 
 promote the return of peace. If they think the battle of 
 Leipzig, or even the dismemberment or partition of France, 
 will settle our question with them, they will find themselves 
 mistaken. If they have convinced themselves, as they have 
 labored to convince others, that we wage this war as allies 
 of Napoleon, they must find time to awaken from their 
 delusion. One of their poets remarks that a man may repeat 
 a tale so often as at last to credit his own lie. Some such 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 5 
 
 operation must have taken place in their minds to make 
 them consider us at this day as allies of Napoleon. . . . 
 I am, etc. 
 
 TO ABIGAIL ADAMS 
 
 St. Petersburg, 17 January, 1814. 
 I expected that Mr. Gallatin or Mr. Bayard would have 
 been the bearer of the last letter that I wrote you, which was 
 the close of the last year; but it was taken by Mr. Todd, 
 who with Colonel Milligan, Mr. Bayard's private secretary, 
 left this city about ten days since bound to England by the 
 way of Sweden. Mr. Gallatin's intention now is to go in a 
 week or ten days, but he takes his direction through Ger- 
 many to Holland. Perhaps he may go by the way of the 
 Emperor Alexander's headquarters. He has already taken 
 leave at court ^ and has his passports. Mr. Bayard has not, 
 but they will probably go together. Mr. Gallatin goes 
 upon the information he has received of the vote of the Sen- 
 ate upon his nomination, although he is yet without any 
 official communication of the fact. Mr. Bayard waits, be- 
 cause we have not yet received from this government any 
 official notification that the Emperor's offer of mediation 
 has been rejected by the British cabinet. His patience is 
 however so nearly exhausted that he intends to ask an 
 audience to take leave of the Empress mother and for his 
 passports, in time to take his departure with Mr. Gallatin 
 in the course of the next week.^ It will be yet many months 
 before they can reach the United States. Their journey to 
 Holland will scarcely be performed in less than six weeks. 
 Their purpose is to go from thence to England where Mr. 
 
 * On the 13th — the Russian New Year. 
 ' He took leave on the 23d. 
 
6 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 Bayard at least will wait for advices from our government. 
 They will scarcely get home before midsummer, and it may 
 be as long before you will receive this letter. I have no pros- 
 pect, however, of a shorter or of so safe a means of convey- 
 ance, and as I learn the cartels between the United States 
 and England are entirely stopped, I know not how I shall 
 find opportunities of writing to you hereafter. Hitherto 
 the occasions for transmitting the monthly letter have 
 never failed, and I can but hope that some new opening will 
 present itself to accomplish the same effect in future. 
 
 Your letter of 14 July is still the latest date that I have 
 directly from the United States. The only intelligence that 
 we receive from home is that which comes to us in the Eng- 
 lish newspapers; and how much of that is falsehood or mis- 
 representation we infer not only from the general character 
 of all paragraph-news in the British prints, but from the 
 lies which they have told about ourselves. Some time ago 
 they stated that the American envoys had asked to go to the 
 Emperor Alexander's headquarters and had been refused — 
 the Emperor alleging that there were no suitable accommo- 
 dations for their Excellencies. Since then they have asserted 
 that Lord Walpole had declared to this government that 
 the British ministry, having rejected their mediation, would 
 be well pleased that the American envoys should be dis- 
 missed, and that he was instructed to say so. Both these 
 paragraphs are totally unfounded. We have good reason 
 to conclude that almost all their news from America is 
 equally distorted from the truth. They have not been able 
 however to suppress the event of the naval action upon 
 Lake Erie. I have not seen Commodore Perry's account of 
 that affair; but it has been published in the English papers 
 and Sir George Prevost's letter announcing it to his govern- 
 ment contains a circumstance certainly not intended by 
 
I8I4J JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 7 
 
 him to honor his enemy, but to which the annals of English 
 naval glory will not readily furnish a parallel. He says that 
 he has the knowledge of the facts only from the American 
 Commodore's dispatch, published in the American papers; 
 that he himself has no official report of It and can expect 
 none for a very long time, the British commander and all 
 his officers having been either killed or so disabled that 
 there was not one left to tell the tale. 
 
 This same Sir G. Prevost and Sir James L. Yeo, the British 
 Commodore on Lake Ontario, in their official reports have 
 charged Commodore Chauncey's squadron with want of 
 spirit. I believe it to be a mere hectoring bravado on the 
 part of Yeo, and I pray as fervently as Sir George himself 
 that Yeo may have had his opportunity of meeting Chauncey, 
 and not the opportunity of running away from it. We have 
 the account of Proctor's retreat and a report that his whole 
 force, excepting himself and about fifty of his men, had been 
 destroyed or taken. But of this hitherto no official confirma- 
 tion. 
 
 From the style and tone of Sir G. Prevost's dispatches I 
 suspect he has very much exaggerated the forces of Generals 
 Wilkinson, Hampton, and Harrison opposed against him. 
 If he has not, they ought before this to have given a very 
 good account of him and his province. But experience has 
 taught me to distrust our land operations, and I wait with 
 an anxiety predominating over my hopes the further ac- 
 counts that must soon be received concerning them. 
 
 One of the advantages which we may derive from this 
 war (and from so great an evil we ought to extract all the 
 good we possibly can) is that of acquiring military skill, 
 discipline, and experience. No nation can enjoy freedom 
 and Independence without being always prepared to defend 
 them by force of arms. Our military incapacity when this 
 
8 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 war commenced was so great that a few more years of peace 
 would have extinguished every spark of martial ardor 
 among us. All our first attempts upon Canada were but 
 sources of humiliation to us.^ The performances of the year 
 just now elapsed so far as we know them have certainly been 
 less disgraceful and in some particulars have been highly 
 honorable, there is yet much room and much occasion for 
 improvement. God grant that it may not be lost. 
 
 If I fill the pages of my letters to you with American news 
 it will indicate to you the subject nearest to my heart. 
 The great scenes of action in Europe are now so remote 
 from this country that the knowledge of them will reach the 
 United States nearly as soon as we receive it here. After 
 all the bloody tragedies which have been acting on the face 
 of Europe these two and twenty years, France is to receive 
 the law and constitution from the most inveterate of her 
 enemies. She abused her power of prosperity to such excess 
 that she has not a friend left to support her in the reverse 
 of her fortune. What the present coalition will do with her 
 
 ^ "I was really in hopes, and I do not yet despair of the object, that this war 
 would be the means of obtaining by conquest or cession the provinces of Canada. 
 Not that I am ambitious for the extension of territory, but of security. I believe 
 a permanent peace cannot be maintained with the northern savages so long as a 
 European power holds the possession and government of those provinces. That 
 was the opinion of Britain when we were colonists, and that was also then the 
 opinion of our ancestors. If we obtain the Canadas, they will afford a pledge on 
 the part of the British government to preserve peace with us, by subjecting their 
 West India islands to a greater degree of dependence on the United States for 
 breadstuffs and lumber than if they held those provinces. The annual exports of 
 Canada for several years in the single article of wheat averaged half a million of 
 bushels, a portion of which no doubt was raised in the United States. Whilst 
 Britain holds the Canadas, it will be difficult for the United States at any time, 
 however necessary, to enforce an embargo or non-importation law. I had therefore 
 rather purchase the Canadas of Britain than not have them. We want them and 
 sooner or later they must and will be annexed to us." William Plumer to John 
 Quincy Adams, January 24, 1814. Ms. 
 
,8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 9 
 
 is yet very uncertain, but there is no question in my mind 
 that they will do with her what they please. 
 
 TO THOMAS BOYLSTON ADAMS 
 
 St. Petersburg, 24 January, 1814. 
 
 You will know long before this letter can reach you that 
 the Prince of Orange has returned to Holland, where instead 
 of resuming the title of Stadtholder, he has taken that of 
 "Sovereign Prince of the United Netherlands." The old 
 constitution of States General, States of the Provinces, and 
 Sovereign Cities, has therefore been totally abandoned. 
 The Prince in one of his proclamations says they shall have 
 a constitution, and a previous proclamation by a sort of 
 Revolutionary Committee of his friends, says that it is to 
 be prescribed by him. The English government have sent 
 troops there to support him, and according to common 
 report his son, the Hereditary Prince of Orange, who has 
 distinguished himself in Portugal and Spain under Lord 
 Wellington, is to be the husband of the future Queen of 
 England. 
 
 I am informed that one of the first acts of the government 
 formed under the Prince's authority was an informal notifi- 
 cation to Mr. Bourne that his functions as Consul General 
 of the United States had ceased. The same notification was 
 given to Mr. Forbes at Hamburg when that city was in- 
 corporated as a part of the French Empire, and it may be 
 principally a matter of form, or an expedient to obtain a 
 recognition of the new government. There is certainly 
 among the people of Holland no disposition unfriendly to 
 
lo THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 America, and I can suppose none in the Prince. But what 
 his engagements with England may be time only can dis- 
 close. All the other allies of England have remained neutral 
 to her war with America. There may be motives, and among 
 them the strongest will be the clear, manifest and important 
 interest of Holland to remain neutral, for prompting the 
 British government to deny the Hollanders the benefit 
 of neutrality. By the measures with which the Prince 
 commences his career connected with the proposed marriage, 
 it may be the project in England to make Holland hereafter 
 an appendage to the British Empire in form as well as sub- 
 stance. Perhaps they will discover that Holland is an 
 alluvion of Hanover, a hint which they may take from their 
 friend the Ruler of France. To whatever disposition they 
 may adopt Holland must be, as she has been ever since the 
 first year of Batavian Liberty (with which you were so well 
 acquainted), altogether passive. 
 
 The events of the last two years opened a new prospect 
 to all Europe, and have discovered the glassy substance of 
 the colossal power of France. Had that power been acquired 
 by wisdom, it might have been consolidated by time and 
 the most ordinary portion of prudence. The Emperor Na- 
 poleon says that he was never seduced by prosperity; but 
 when he comes to be judged impartially by posterity that 
 will not be their sentence. His fortune will be among the 
 wonders of the age in which he has lived. His military talent 
 and genius will place him high in the rank of great captains; 
 but his intemperate passion, his presumptuous insolence, 
 and his Spanish and Russian wars, will reduce him very 
 nearly to the level of ordinary men. At all events he will 
 be one of the standing examples of human vicissitude, 
 ranged not among the Alexanders, Caesars, and Charle- 
 magnes, but among the Hannibals, Pompeys, and Charles 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS ii 
 
 the 1 2th. I believe his romance is drawing towards its 
 close and that he will soon cease even to yield a pretext 
 for the war against France. England alone will be "afraid 
 of the gunpowder Percy though he should be dead." 
 
 By the return of Mr. Gallatin and Mr. Bayard you will 
 have ascertained, what I suppose you have already sufficient 
 reason to expect, that we are to have no peace with England 
 by the means of a mediation.^ These gentlemen intend to 
 touch in England upon their return home. If there is any 
 prospect of obtaining peace by a direct negotiation they will 
 have the opportunity of promoting it; but the successes of 
 the British in their other wars have not been calculated to 
 prepare them for the termination of that with America. . . . 
 
 TO ROBERT FULTON 
 
 St. Petersburg, 29 January, 18 14. 
 
 Sir: 
 
 I have now the pleasure of inclosing to you a translation 
 of a rescript from the Emperor, addressed to the Minister 
 of the Interior, directing him to issue the patent for your 
 steam boats. It was sent me by Count Romanzoff, with a 
 request that I would give him notice for the information of 
 the Minister of the Interior, of the person empowered by 
 you to carry the design into execution here. I answered the 
 Count that I was authorized by your letter of 19 June, 1813, 
 to take out the patent in your behalf, and was ready upon 
 the delivery of it to me to pay on your account the 1500 
 rubles required conformably to the rescript; that I could not 
 
 iSee Gallatin's letter to Count Romanzoff, 13/25 January, 1814, in Adams, 
 Writings of Gallatin, I. 598. He and Bayard left St. Petersburg January 25, and 
 reached Amsterdam March 4. 
 
12 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 name the person who would be charged with the execution 
 of the plan here by you, as your letter had only mentioned 
 your intention of sending your chief engineer here for the 
 purpose; that if the Minister of the Interior thought a more 
 formal power than that in your letter to me indispensable 
 for the delivery of the patent, he might keep it in his hands 
 until I could inform you of its being ready for delivery to 
 you or your agent duly authorized. I afterwards saw the 
 Minister of the Interior himself, who told me that he should 
 not hesitate to deliver the patent to me upon the authority 
 given by your letter to me to receive it, but that the patent 
 itself could not be completed without a specification and a 
 model of your boat. Of course it will remain with him until 
 you can furnish these, and I acquiesced the more readily in 
 this arrangement as it occasions no loss of time to you. In 
 sending here your engineer for the construction of the first 
 boat you will be enabled at the same time to transmit the 
 model and specification, as well as the regular power to take 
 out the patent in your name. I am etc. 
 
 TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE 
 
 No. 128. [James Monroe] 
 
 St. Petersburg, 5 February, 1814. 
 Sir: 
 
 In a separate letter I have informed you of the interview 
 which I had on the 1st instant with the Chancellor, Count 
 RomanzofF, at his request, of the dispatch from Count 
 Lieven ^ which he showed me, of the note which I wrote him 
 
 ^No. 260, November 26/December 5, 1813. See Adams, Memoirs, February I, 
 1814. 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 13 
 
 the next morning, asking for a copy of that dispatch or a 
 particular statement of its contents, and of his answer to 
 my note which as you will observe complies with neither of 
 my requests, but refers me to you for the purport of Lord 
 Castlereagh's letter to you, of which I had not said a word 
 in my note to him. I think a more particular account of this 
 interview due to the President for his information; but must 
 request that it may not be made public for several considera- 
 tions, and chiefly for the consequences which its publicity 
 might draw personally upon the Chancellor in a country 
 where there is no shelter for the subject from the displeasure 
 of his sovereign. 
 
 The Count had requested me to call upon him at nine 
 o'clock in the evening and at his own private house, to 
 which he had removed at the close of the year from the 
 hotel belonging to the Emperor, and assigned by him for 
 the residence of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. He apolo- 
 gized to me for having sent to me to come to him at undue 
 hours, and observed to me that as he was on the point of 
 abdicatifig, he had thought it best to continue to the last in 
 his habits of frankness and confidence with me, and that he 
 could do no better than to show me the dispatch Itself which 
 he had received the day before from Count Lieven, which 
 was brought with a multitude of other packets by a courier 
 from the Emperor's headquarters, but without a line upon 
 the subject either from the Emperor or from Count Nessel- 
 rode. 
 
 The dispatch contained a very distinct allusion to the re- 
 fusal by Great Britain of the Emperor's mediation. From 
 the long silence of the Emperor, and from the caution with 
 which the Count had avoided any written communication 
 of this fact to us, I suspected that he would neither give me 
 a copy of the dispatch, nor a statement of its contents in 
 
14 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 writing. I therefore purposely forbore asking him verbally 
 for the copy, because it was only by asking it in writing that 
 I could have a written answer, which would better ascer- 
 tain whether the withholding of this communication by the 
 Russian government was the effect merely of neglect or 
 of design.^ 
 
 It was apparent from the tenor of the Count's conversa- 
 tion that a mere dismission from the Emperor's service was 
 not his principal apprehension. He had had recent and re- 
 peated assurances of the regard and affection of the Emperor 
 in his own hand, and which I have seen; but they have not 
 altogether tranquillized his mind. He told me that in send- 
 ing to the Emperor the treaty of peace with Persia, he had 
 taken that opportunity to renew the request which he had 
 already previously made that he might be permitted to re- 
 sign his office. That the Emperor in answering his letter 
 had expressed himself highly satisfied with the Persian 
 peace, and fully sensible of the Importance of that trans- 
 action, and had concluded by saying that there was at the 
 close of the Count's letter an idea to which he, the Emperor, 
 could not reconcile himself. 
 
 Upon which, said the Count, I have replied and insisted upon 
 resigning. I have recalled to the Emperor's recollection that 
 when after the peace of Tilsit, with which I had nothing to do, he 
 laid his commands upon me to take the Department of Foreign 
 Affairs, I urged him to excuse me from a situation which I felt 
 to be above my powers. That he persisted in his commands, and 
 told me that he had already two wars upon his hands, with Turkey 
 and with Persia, and had just contracted the engagement of 
 commencing two others, with Sweden and with England. I have 
 observed that these four wars, being now all terminated, had 
 
 ^ For Lord Walpole's statement, see Adams, Memoirs, April 2, 1814; and that of 
 RomanzofF, in lb., April 23. 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 15 
 
 brought my administration to a natural conclusion, and that the 
 peace with Persia, being the last transaction relating to them, 
 furnished him with a suitable occasion to dismiss me with kindness. 
 That I have in fact nothing to do. The Emperor when he left this 
 place chose to correspond with me, directly and exclusively. But 
 he has contracted new engagements. He not only commands his 
 own armies, but he oversees and superintends the interests of the 
 allies. All his time is absorbed; insensibly he has dropped the 
 habit of writing to me altogether, and I can get no answers from 
 headquarters upon business of any kind. The emperor is always 
 intending to write me tomorrow, or the next day, and here the 
 term fixed for exchanging the ratifications of the peace with 
 Persia is past, and I have not received them. Multitudes of letters 
 come from headquarters saying that on this, that and the other 
 affair the orders will be sent me in two or three days, and the orders 
 never come. In the meantime I am chained down here. I cannot 
 sleep out of St. Petersburg. I cannot give my time to my private 
 concerns; I cannot visit my estates, as I earnestly desire to do. 
 To be Chancellor of the Empire for the sake of signing passports 
 and giving answers about law suits is not worth while. I have 
 therefore left the hotel of the foreign department and removed 
 to my own house, expecting hourly the Emperor's answer to my 
 last request, which might indeed have been already here, but not 
 more than four or five days ago, and prepared as a kinswoman of 
 mine,^ turned of eighty, told me once she was determined to do 
 after two years more, to turn over a new leaf in my life. I am not 
 so old as she was, but I am more infirm in health, and at sixty shall 
 without waiting two years more turn over my new leaf. I can say 
 that my heart is American, and were it not for my age and infirm- 
 ities, I would now certainly go to that country; but as it is, I 
 wish only to retire to bless the Emperor for his past favors and 
 to wish him all future happiness and prosperity. 
 
 It was not the first time that the Count had suggested 
 
 ^ It was his grandmother. 
 
i6 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 that the idea of going himself to America was floating in his 
 mind. He had mentioned it before, both to Mr. Gallatin 
 and Mr. Bayard, and, considered in connection with his 
 remark that he had solicited of the Emperor to dismiss him 
 zvith kindness, I have imagined that among his anticipa- 
 tions in his present situation he may expect that his dis- 
 mission may be accompanied with a permission to travel, in 
 which case there is not a spot in all Europe where he could 
 set his foot, with a hope of finding a friendly reception or a 
 comfortable residence. The Count is a sincere and genuine 
 Russian patriot. Of the statesmen with whom it has been 
 my fortune to have political relations, I never knew one 
 who carried into public life more of the principles and senti- 
 ments of spotless private honor. His integrity is irreproach- 
 able; but his enemies are numerous and inveterate in pro- 
 portion to the importance and elevation of the station he 
 has held. A powerful and implacable English influence, 
 political and commercial, has been incessantly working 
 against him, exasperated by the well-founded opinion that 
 he has been a steady and able adversary to the British mari- 
 time tyranny, and that he has been the principal instru- 
 ment in rescuing his country from the commercial servitude 
 to which the English had reduced the Russians in their own 
 cities. Among his own countrymen the very sunshine of 
 imperial favor, the very radiance of his own integrity, has 
 been brewing the tempest that now blackens over his head. 
 The connections of this country with France, although 
 completely formed before he came into office, are all as- 
 scribed to him; the compliances which were so long con- 
 tinued to avert the war are imputed solely to his counsels, 
 and the unfortunate issue of those connections and com- 
 pliances in the unjust and frantic war which France finally 
 waged against this country, have accumulated upon him a 
 
i8i4l JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 17 
 
 degree of popular odium, like that which from precisely 
 similar sources burst upon the head of John De Witt in 
 Holland in 1672. From popular excesses the Count here has 
 nothing to fear. But he may know that about the person 
 of the Emperor efforts will not be wanting to deprive him 
 of more than his place. The advice to journey into a foreign 
 country may be a middle term upon which the Emperor's 
 will may settle, between a dismission with kindness and an 
 act of rigor more uncongenial to his personal character, but 
 to which he may be urged. All Europe is either in alliance 
 or at war with the Emperor. Into the countries of his 
 enemies the Count could not go; in those of his allies the 
 Count would find enmities and resentments against him as 
 bitter as those he would leave behind him at home. It is 
 only in America that he could hope to find an asylum from 
 the persecutions which will be the reward of his virtues and 
 of his services to his country. 
 
 In my letter to you. No. 118 of 8 September last, I men- 
 tioned to you the French, Russian and German translations 
 which I had procured to be made of the President's message 
 and the report of the Committee of Foreign Relations, 
 containing our manifesto on the declaration of war against 
 Great Britain, upon the Count's promise that they should be 
 published here in the same gazettes which had published 
 the English Regent's manifesto of 9 January, 181 3, and 
 that I had consented to the postponement of the publica- 
 tion at the Count's request on the arrival of Messrs. Gallatin 
 and Bayard here, and upon conciliatory principles. At this 
 interview I reminded the Count of his promise and claimed 
 its fulfilment. He said that he thought that upon this new 
 proposal from Lord Castlereagh for a direct negotiation the 
 same motive for avoiding any publication of an irritating 
 nature still continued. I answered that I had originally 
 
i8 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 asked and he had promised this publication only as the coun- 
 terpart to that of the English manifesto in the same papers. 
 He said that if I absolutely insisted upon it, they should be 
 published; but that he knew it would be imputed entirely 
 to him. I replied that placing it upon the footing of a per- 
 sonal favor to him, I would press the subject no farther; but 
 that I hoped I should see no further publication of English 
 statements injurious to my country in the Russian gazettes. 
 He said he would accept my forbearance on the ground 
 upon which I placed it, of a personal favor to him, and the 
 more readily, because Lord Walpole had already reproached 
 him for a publication in the gazettes relative to the American 
 mission, and that there should be, so far as depended upon 
 him, no publication on the subject of our war which could be 
 offensive to us. In the Count's situation I could ask no 
 more of him. I have no doubt that the publication now of 
 those papers would aggravate the peril of his condition, 
 and it would probably be of no service to our cause. ^ I am 
 etc. 
 
 TO JOHN ADAMS 
 
 St. Petersburg, 17 February, 1814. 
 My Dear Sir: 
 
 There are still here a small number of Americans who 
 came to this country upon commercial pursuits and who after 
 bringing their affairs to a conclusion successively take their 
 departure to return home, and thereby afford us opportuni- 
 ties of writing to our friends. One of them is Mr. Hurd ^ 
 
 ^ Cf. Adams, Memoirs, February i, 1814. On the 23d Adams received the cir- 
 cular letter from Count Romanzoff announcing his temporary inability to conduct 
 the duties of the Department of Foreign Affairs. 
 
 2 John R. Hurd. 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 19 
 
 of Boston, who goes to Gothenburg there to embark directly 
 for the United States, and by whom I propose to send this 
 letter. 
 
 I wrote to you by Mr. Gallatin and Mr. Bayard, who left 
 this city the 25th of last month, and to my dear mother by 
 Mr. Harris, who followed them on the 9th instant. As they 
 intended to travel not very rapidly Mr. Harris expected to 
 overtake them by the time they reach Berlin. Their object 
 is to go to Amsterdam and thence to England, where they 
 expect to receive a new commission and powers to treat of 
 peace with the British government directly. Since their de- 
 parture I have additional reason for expecting that such new 
 powers will be transmitted to them, knowing that Lord 
 Castlereagh has written to the American Secretary of State 
 making the formal proposition of such a negotiation.^ 
 Whether I shall be associated In this new commission or not 
 Is to me extremely doubtful. I have a multitude of very 
 substantial reasons for wishing I may not be, and only one 
 for an inclination to the contrary. My negative reasons are 
 not of a nature to be committed to paper. My positive 
 reason Is, because the voyage to England would be just so 
 much performed of my voyage to the United States, and be- 
 cause it would make my return home as certain, as direct 
 and as early as I could desire. From your letters which were 
 brought me by Mr. Gallatin I perceived you had been in- 
 formed of a subsequent destination which was intended for 
 me had the mediation terminated In a peace. As however 
 It has scarcely resulted even In a negotiation, other clrcum- 
 
 ' "Since I wrote you by Mr. Harris, Lord Walpole has told me that Lord Castle- 
 reagh's letter to Mr. Monroe, he believed, was written in consequence of what he 
 had communicated to Castlereagh, after his arrival here. If so, it must have been, 
 according to the information in Count Lieven's dispatch, about the beginning of 
 December, and not in October, as was supposed in London." To Albert Gallatin, 
 February i8, 1814. Ms. 
 
20 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 stances will naturally lead to other views. That in the pres- 
 ent situation of Europe, or rather in that which must in- 
 fallibly and very shortly be the situation of Europe, a peace 
 between the United States and Great Britain may be con- 
 cluded, I have little doubt. A general peace, at least some- 
 thing which will pass under that name, is highly probable 
 in the course of a few months. According to all present 
 appearances the catastrophe of the French Revolution is at 
 hand. The Bourbons will at last be restored, not as the 
 Stuarts were in England by the spontaneous and irresistible 
 voice of the nation, but by the dictates of a foreign coalition. 
 But the allied powers in conferring this blessing upon France 
 will claim the reward of their generosity, and be specially 
 careful to reduce her within dimensions which will carry 
 with them what they may consider as a guaranty of future 
 tranquillity, and in their solicitude to effect this as well as 
 in the distribution of the spoils of conquest the seeds of 
 further wars will in every probability be thickly disseminated. 
 That a peace, however, of some kind will very soon take 
 place is not to be doubted, from the total inability now 
 manifested by France to resist the invasion of the allied 
 armies. The allies proclaim to the world that they are wag- 
 ing war not against France but against Napoleon Bonaparte, 
 and the French people are as willing to believe them as the 
 other nations of Europe were to believe the Jacobins when 
 they promised liberty, equality and fraternity to every 
 people, and declared war against individual kings and princes. 
 The throne of Napoleon was built upon his fields of battle. 
 Its only solid basis was victory. So long as he was victorious 
 the French nation was submissive, but with his fortune all 
 his ties upon them have dissolved. If it were possible for 
 any conqueror to possess a hold upon the affections of man- 
 kind, it would be an exception to a general rule, and of all 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 21 
 
 conquerors he is the last who would be entitled to it. In 
 the real moment of distress it was not to be expected that 
 the French people would make any effort or sacrifice for his 
 sake. That they will make none is perfectly ascertained, 
 and the wisdom of a woman may perhaps not be necessary 
 to persuade them to deal with him as the Israelites of Abel 
 dealt with Sheba the son of Bichri, and to propitiate their 
 invaders by throwing over to them his head. At the disso- 
 lution of his government France will be in the hands of the 
 allies, and their intention is undoubtedly to restore the 
 Bourbons, who must of course subscribe to any terms which 
 may be required of them. Peace therefore cannot be remote, 
 and a peace in Europe will leave the war between us and 
 England without any object but an abstract principle to 
 contend for. Neither of the parties will be disposed to con- 
 tinue the war upon such a point, and the predisposition to 
 peace which will really influence both I hope and believe 
 will make the peace not very difficult to be accomplished. 
 The object for which the war was declared was removed at 
 the very time when the declaration was made. I do not 
 believe it possible now to make a peace which shall settle 
 the point upon which the war has been continued. It seems 
 to me, and I indulge the idea with pleasure, that the new and 
 unexpected prospect opening to Europe will take away great 
 part of the interest which Great Britain has in the question. 
 She will neither have the need of such a navy, nor the means 
 of maintaining it, as will constantly supply the temptation 
 to recruit for it by such an odious practice as that of impress- 
 ment upon the seamen of a foreign power. But I see no 
 probability that she will yield the principle, and as to the 
 modifications to render it palatable to us, if the government 
 of the United States are of my opinion, they will not suffer 
 their negotiators to listen for a moment to any modification 
 
22 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 whatsoever; because any modification, be it what it will, 
 must involve a concession of the principle on our part. I 
 would sooner look forward to the chance of ten successive 
 wars, to be carried on ten times more weakly than we have 
 the present one, than concede one particle of our principle 
 by a treaty stipulation. The only way of coming to terms 
 of peace with England therefore at this time, which I sup- 
 pose practicable and in any degree admissible, is to leave 
 the question just where it was, saying nothing about it. 
 But I know such a peace would not satisfy the people of 
 America, and I have no desire to be instrumental in con- 
 cluding it. If our land warriors had displayed a career of 
 glory, equal to that of our naval heroes, we should be war- 
 ranted in demanding more even after all the changes that 
 have happened in Europe. If we can obtain more by con- 
 tinuing the war, we are in duty bound to continue it. At 
 this distance, and with the communications interrupted as 
 they are, I am incompetent to decide this question. It must 
 be settled at home, and may the spirit of wisdom inspire 
 the determination! . . . 
 
 TO ABIGAIL ADAMS 
 
 St. Petersburg, 30 March, 18 14. 
 Since I wrote you last, i February, I have had no oppor- 
 tunity of putting a letter even on its way to reach you when 
 it should please heaven. The ordinary intercourse between 
 this country and England by the way of Gothenburg has 
 been suspended from the 24th of December until this day 
 by the freezing of the harbors, and there are now 22 mails 
 due from London. The same cause has prevented travellers 
 from hence going in that direction, and I now write you 
 
isi4l JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 23 
 
 without any immediate prospect of a conveyance for my 
 letter, but in adherence to the rule of suffering no month 
 to pass without renewing at least the token of my affection 
 and duty. 
 
 Your letter of 14 July, 18 13, is still the last date that I 
 have received from Quincy or from any part of the United 
 States, but by the means of newspapers we have some very 
 recent accounts from America. By private letters too from 
 England which have found their way through Holland, and 
 by others from Holland, we have learnt the acceptance by 
 the President of the United States of the proposal made by 
 the British government to treat for peace at Gothenburg, 
 and the appointment of four American commissioners for 
 the negotiation. I am informed that a Mr. Strong ^ has 
 arrived in England, charged with dispatches for the two of 
 the commissioners now in Europe, and that he was proceed- 
 ing as speedily as possible to Gothenburg, for which place 
 he has the appointment of consul. But I have not heard 
 from Mr. Strong himself, and Gothenburg will probably be 
 still for a week to come inaccessible on the waterside. Mr. 
 Bayard I trust will receive the dispatches in Holland and 
 from thence may communicate them to me. 
 
 I feel an inclination almost irresistible to give my father 
 the whole budget of my feelings and opinions upon this new 
 effort to reconcile two countries which seem incapable of 
 living either at peace or at war with each other. But mind- 
 ful of an admonition in one of his last letters, I must re- 
 serve my thoughts until they can be imparted without 
 restraint, in the freedom of direct conversation. I may 
 simply add that I expect to have this pleasure before the 
 close of the year. Whatever may be the issue of the in- 
 tended conferences at Gothenburg, I hope and believe they 
 
 * Nathaniel W. Strong. 
 
24 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 will not spin out beyond the bounds of the ensuing summer; 
 and at all events I conclude it is not the President's inten- 
 tion that I should return to this place. If left to my own 
 option I certainly shall not. After five winters passed at 
 St. Petersburg, I have no wish to try in my own person, or 
 to expose my family to the experience of this climate any 
 longer. There is not at present nor is there likely to be in 
 future any object of public concernment which could oc- 
 cupy me here in a manner satisfactory to myself or useful 
 to my country. Many other considerations will combine 
 to draw me home, and if the negotiation at Gothenburg 
 terminates as I have every reason to believe it will, I flatter 
 myself that it will be the means of restoring us to our friends 
 and country before the next New Year's day. 
 
 We are given to understand that Mr. Gallatin is not in- 
 cluded in the new commission, which to me is a subject of 
 regret. Before his arrival here my personal acquaintance 
 with him was so slight that I could scarcely say I knew him 
 otherwise than as a public man. From the relations in which 
 we were placed together here, his character, and especially 
 his talents, gained ground upon my opinion. His desire to 
 accomplish the peace was sincere and ardent. I had several 
 opportunities of observing his quickness of understanding, 
 his sagacity and penetration, and the soundness of his judg- 
 ment.^ I should have relied very much upon him had the 
 negotiation taken any serious effect, and shall be sorry not 
 to have the benefit of his assistance in that of which the 
 
 * "I will ever retain a grateful sense of yours and Mrs. Adams's civilities and 
 kindness at St. Petersburg; but I fear that bad health and worse spirits made me 
 still more dull than usual and prevented my showing what I felt on the occasion. 
 Permit me to add that I am happy to have made your acquaintance and to have 
 learned how to appreciate your merit. Present me affectionately to Mrs. Adams and 
 also to Mr. and Mrs. Smith; and accept the assurance of my sincere respect and 
 consideration." Albert Gallatin to John Qutncy Adams, March 6, 1814. Ms. 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 25 
 
 prospect is before us. Of the two new colleagues said to be 
 joined with us at present I know Mr. Clay by having served 
 with him one session in the Senate, and Mr. Russell ^ by a 
 frequent and very agreeable correspondence with him while 
 he was charge d'affaires in France and in England. With 
 what feelings, dispositions or instructions those gentlemen 
 will come, I can only infer from their sentiments as they 
 have been heretofore made public and from conjecture. Of 
 the three former commissioners I should probably have 
 been the first to stop in the career of concession to secure 
 the main object of the mission. The newcomers, If they have 
 had no change in their opinions since I had last an oppor- 
 tunity of knowing them, will be of sterner stuff than myself.- 
 
 1 Jonathan Russell (1771-1832). 
 
 2 "Mr. Clay, the late speaker of the House and Mr. Russell will be the bearers of 
 this letter. They will carry to you all the intelligence respecting the affairs of our 
 nation which may be necessary for you to know, and that with more accuracy than 
 I can relate them. The appointment of Mr. Clay in lieu of Mr. Gallatin is not a 
 more popular measure with a certain set in this quarter than that of Mr. Gallatin; 
 and the inviting of Mr. Russell in the commission is said by the croakers [to be] de- 
 signed to defeat the whole negotiation, which I have not a doubt many wish for." 
 Abigail Adams to John Quincy Adams, February 5, 1814. Ms. "The last appoint- 
 ment of Mr. Clay and Russell gave much discontent to the federal party here, who 
 were sure it was done to defeat the negotiation, and in great urbanity towards you, 
 declared that the interests of the United States would be much safer in the single 
 hands of Mr. Adams than in all the rest of the ministers. I know the party well, 
 and with all their professions, they would make no scruple to sacrifice Mr. Adams, 
 as you have before experienced, and as your father before you has done, if any 
 measure you should agree to come in opposition to their views of interest or ambi- 
 tion. I forgive them. They have been amply rewarded for their blindness, their 
 ingratitude, and grasping ambition, and their unbounded thirst for gain. Their 
 humiliation has been manifest to the world by the loss of their consequence and 
 weight in the Union. Long, long will it be, if ever they recover again their former 
 consequence. And to this cause may be ascribed their wish to separate and dis- 
 solve the Union. I speak not of all those who style themselves federalists, but of 
 those designated by the Junto." lb., May i, 1814. Ms. In the Life and Corre- 
 spondence of Rufus King, V. 321, Armstrong is given as authority for the statement 
 that Daschkoff, Gallatin and Girard were intriguing to have Gallatin appointed 
 
26 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 From the continual claim of unexpected and unexampled 
 success which has been attending the British cause both in 
 arms and in negotiation from the hour that their war with 
 us commenced, we have anything to anticipate but a spirit 
 of concession in them. They have little to boast of in the 
 progress of their war with us hitherto, but the chances of 
 war have all turned up prizes to them everywhere else. 
 France, after having been twenty years the dictatress of 
 Europe, has now in the course of two campaigns been brought 
 completely at the feet of those enemies whom she had so 
 often vanquished and so long oppressed. Six weeks ago an 
 allied army of at least three hundred thousand men was 
 within two days easy march of Paris, and by the latest ac- 
 counts received from thence was again within the same dis- 
 tance, or nearer. In the interval they had met with some 
 opposition which occasioned a momentary check upon their 
 operations and a short retreat to concentrate their forces. 
 There is little reason to doubt that they are at this moment 
 in possession of Paris, and that the Empire of Napoleon is 
 in the Paradise of Fools. While the allies were in the heart 
 of France, a negotiation as hypocritical and as fallacious as 
 the Congress of Prague, was affected to be opened at Chatil- 
 lon, without any intention perhaps on any side, certainly 
 not the side of the allies, that it should result in a peace.^ 
 Their object is in giving peace to France to make her at the 
 same time a present of the Bourbons; but even in the ex- 
 tremity to which France is reduced there have been very 
 few and trifling manifestations of a disposition in any part 
 of her people to receive them. 
 
 to Russia; Russell for Sweden might give one vote in the Senate against Gallatin; 
 and Clay had been named as third commissioner, but was displaced for Gallatin. 
 On the influences at work for Russell's appointment, see lb., 328-330. 
 
 * A conference of the allied sovereigns opened at Chatillon-sur-Seine, February 5. 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 27 
 
 As I am In daily expectation of receiving the order to re- 
 pair to Gothenburg, I may possibly be there as soon as this 
 letter, or be obliged to take it on there with me. It is now 
 of the whole year the worst time for undertaking the journey, 
 and the passage of the Gulf between this and Sweden will 
 probably for some weeks be impracticable. It is however 
 very doubtful whether I shall be able to go before the break- 
 ing up of the ice, in which case I shall endeavor to get a 
 passage directly by water. But the navigation from hence 
 is very seldom open before the first of June. . . . 
 
 TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE 
 
 No. 131. [James Monroe] 
 
 St. Petersburg, 7 April, 1814. 
 Sir: 
 
 On the 31st ultimo Mr. Strong arrived in this city and 
 brought me your favor (triplicate) of 8 January last, and a 
 letter from Mr. Bayard at Amsterdam, enclosing a copy of 
 your joint dispatch of the same 8 January, sent to him and 
 me; and the printed message of the President of 6 January, 
 and documents relating to the proposal of a negotiation for 
 peace at Gothenburg. Mr. Strong informs me that he was 
 also charged with several packets of documents and news- 
 papers from the Department of State which by unavoidable 
 accident were left on board the packet in which he crossed 
 from England to Holland. 
 
 I received at the same time and from Mr. Strong a letter 
 from Mr. Beasley dated i March, in which there is the 
 following paragraph: 
 
 It has been rumored for some days past, but I have not been 
 able to trace it to any satisfactory source, that this government 
 
28 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 has come to the determination not to enter upon any negotiation 
 until our government shall have restored to the ordinary state of 
 prisoners of war, all the British officers held in the United States 
 as hostages to answer in their persons for the safety and proper 
 treatment of those prisoners who have been sent to this country 
 for trial. I hope it may not be so, but I should not be surprised 
 at the adoption of any measure calculated to prolong the war with 
 us, especially if there should be an immediate peace on the con- 
 tinent of which there is a fair prospect at present. 
 
 A report of the same kind, that the British government 
 had determined not to enter upon this negotiation, had been 
 generally circulated here among the English merchants, and 
 derived some countenance from the fact that so late as the 
 first of March no appointment of British commissioners was 
 known to have been made, although they had been nearly 
 a month before apprized that the President had accepted 
 the Prince Regent's proposal for the negotiation. Under 
 these circumstances It might be questionable whether it was 
 not my duty to delay the execution of the instructions to re- 
 pair to Gothenburg, until something more certain of the 
 intentions of the British Government should be known. 
 But in considering that the Instructions themselves are 
 peremptory, that the wanton violation of good faith In the 
 refusal to carry Into effect their own proposal was not to be 
 credited upon mere rumors and surmises, and that If such 
 could be the Intention of the British government I might 
 furnish them with a pretext for It by not repairing to the 
 appointed place, I concluded to proceed upon the journey as 
 speedily as possible and by the road most likely to be the 
 shortest at this season of the year. I hope to leave this city 
 in the course of a fortnight, and to be at Gothenburg by the 
 loth of May. 
 
 You will have learnt probably ere this that Mr. Harris 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 29 
 
 left this place shortly after Messrs. Gallatin and Bayard, 
 and with the intention of accompanying them in their con- 
 templated visit to England.^ As Mr. Strong informs me 
 that he had no written dispatch for Mr. Harris, I know not 
 whether he has yet been informed that the charge of our 
 affairs here in my absence is to be committed to him. If 
 he has, his arrival here may be hourly expected. I have 
 already written to him under cover to Mr. Bourne to inform 
 him of this arrangement, and urging the expediency of his 
 return hither. He had left a power to transact the ordinary 
 official business of the consulate with Mr. Thomas W. Nor- 
 man, a citizen of the United States. ^ But Mr. Norman 
 himself is on the point of departing from this country and, 
 having no power of substitution in his authority from Mr. 
 Harris, both the legation and the consulate will be vacant 
 until that gentleman's return. I am etc. 
 
 TO SENATOR WEYDEMEYER ' 
 
 The undersigned. Envoy Extraordinary and Minister 
 Plenipotentiary of the United States of America, deeply 
 regretting the indisposition of His Excellency Mr. Weyde- 
 
 i"I scarcely know what authority to give to Mr. B[ayard] and G[allatin]'s 
 opinions concerning Peace. Without communication with those who only could 
 impart correct information concerning the views of the English government, they 
 could form no better opinion in England than in Russia. Neither of those gentle- 
 men, in the present situation of the two countries, had any business in England. 
 Had they felt upon this point as they ought, they would not have appeared in 
 England, where they are liable on mere suspicion to be confined, or to be sent with 
 ignominy out of the country." Rujus King to Christopher Gore, July ii, 1814. 
 Life and Correspondence of Rufus King, V. 396. 
 
 2 See Adams, Memoirs, February i, 18 14. 
 
 » Senator, member of the Council of His Imperial Majesty and of the College of 
 Foreign Affairs. 
 
30 
 
 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 meyer, which deprives him of the honor of conferring with 
 him for the present as he had requested, has now that of 
 addressing to him this official note, to inform him of the 
 orders which he has just received from his government. 
 
 His Royal Highness, the Prince Regent of England, having 
 accompanied his refusal of the mediation offered by His 
 Imperial Majesty for terminating the war between the 
 United States and England with a proposal, transmitted to 
 the government of the United States by His Britannic 
 Majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, to open a 
 negotiation either at Gothenburg in Sweden or at London, 
 to treat directly of peace, the President of the United States 
 has accepted this proposal, and has fixed upon Gothenburg 
 as the place where the conferences are to be held. 
 
 The President could not see without strong regret the ob- 
 stacle to the commencement of a negotiation for peace inter- 
 posed by the resolutions of the English government, to 
 reject the mediation of a sovereign whose uprightness and 
 impartiality were known to the whole world, and whose offer 
 of mediation had been inspired by the sentiments of the 
 sincerest friendship for both the belligerent parties, of the 
 humanity which so eminently distinguishes the character of 
 His Imperial Majesty, and of attention to the interests of 
 his people which were suffering by this war, and could not 
 but derive advantage from the restoration of peace. 
 
 This refusal, having nevertheless taken place, the President 
 of the United States, always animated with the sincere 
 desire so constantly manifested of terminating this war 
 upon conditions of reciprocity consistent with the rights 
 of both parties as sovereign and independent nations, has 
 thought proper to accept the proposal for a direct negotiation. 
 In determining upon this measure it would have been the 
 more satisfactory to the President, if by the communications 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 31 
 
 from the Envoys Extraordinary of the United States then 
 at the court of His Imperial Majesty, he could have known 
 with certainty that it would be agreeable to the Emperor. 
 But to avoid all delay, and from the known character of the 
 Emperor and the benevolent views with which his mediation 
 had been offered, in no wise doubting that His Majesty 
 would see with satisfaction the concurrence of the United 
 States in an alternative which under existing circumstances 
 afforded the best prospect of obtaining the object for which 
 the Emperor's good offices had been offered, he acceded to 
 the Prince Regent's proposition, and immediately took the 
 measures on the part of the United States for carrying It into 
 effect. 
 
 The undersigned feels himself bound on this occasion to 
 observe that the proposal for this direct negotiation was 
 made by a note from His Britannic Majesty's Ambassador, 
 addressed to His Excellency Count Nesselrode at His Im- 
 perial Majesty's headquarters at Toplitz, dated the ist of 
 September of the last year,^ and that in transmitting to the 
 United States a copy of this note my Lord Castlereagh, 
 His Britannic Majesty's Secretary for Foreign Affairs, de- 
 clares that the Ambassador, Lord Cathcart, had acquainted 
 him "that the American Commissioners at St. Petersburg 
 had Intimated in reply to that overture, that they had no 
 objection to a negotiation at London, and were equally de- 
 sirous as the British government had declared itself to be, 
 that this business should not be mixed with the affairs of the 
 continent of Europe, but that their powers were limited to 
 negotiate under the mediation of Russia." ^ 
 
 * Cathcart to Nesselrode, September i, 1813. American State Papers, Foreign 
 Relations, III. 622. 
 
 * Castlereagh to the Secretary of State, November 4, 18 13. American State Papers, 
 Foreign Relations, III. 621. "What does Lord Cathcart mean in saying that the 
 
32 
 
 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 The undersigned remaining alone of the envoys of the 
 United States then at the court of His Imperial Majesty 
 knows not whence the error of my lord Castlereagh upon this 
 subject can have proceeded; but he cannot abstain from de- 
 claring that the envoys of the United States never gave to 
 this overture the answer which he has attributed to them. 
 That they never could have given to it any answer whatso- 
 ever, inasmuch as it was never communicated to them, and 
 above all, that they never could have manifested the desire 
 that this business should not be mixed with the affairs of 
 the continent of Europe, because they had no knowledge of 
 this declaration of the British government that such was their 
 desire, and because there never had been an idea suggested, 
 either in His Imperial Majesty's offer of mediation, or in 
 its acceptance by the President of the United States, of 
 mixing this business with the affairs of the continent of 
 Europe. The undersigned, in his own name and in that of 
 his colleagues, requests that this formal disavowal of an 
 answer ascribed to them which they never gave, may be 
 made known to His Majesty the Emperor. 
 
 The President of the United States, having thought fit 
 to name the undersigned one of the envoys on the part of 
 the United States for the proposed negotiation, has directed 
 him to repair for that purpose as soon as possible to Gothen- 
 burg, and to leave during his absence from St. Petersburg 
 Mr. Levett Harris charged with the affairs of the United 
 States at His Imperial Majesty's court. Mr. Harris is at 
 this moment absent but his return may be daily expected. 
 The other envoys of the United States for this mission may 
 
 American plenipotentiaries in reply to an overture (which never was made to them) 
 expressed among other things their reluctance to have American affairs blended 
 with those of the continent? The subject was never to my knowledge even al- 
 luded to in conversation. Can you not obtain an explanation or a disavowal?" 
 Albert Gallatin to John Quincy Adams, March 6, 1814. Ms. 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 33 
 
 have arrived already at Gothenburg/ and the undersigned 
 is obliged to hasten as much as possible his departure. He 
 will in a few days have the honor of asking of His Excellency 
 Mr. Weydemeyer the passports necessary for his journey, 
 and has now that of requesting him to solicit an audience for 
 him to take leave of Her Imperial Majesty the Empress 
 Mother. He also desires the honor of being presented to 
 Her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess Ann for the same 
 purpose. 
 
 In conclusion the undersigned has the honor to remark to 
 His Excellency Mr. Weydemeyer, that he has the express 
 orders of the President of the United States to make known 
 to the Emperor his sensibility to His Majesty's friendly dis- 
 position manifested by the oifer of his mediation, his regret 
 at its rejection by the British government, and his desire 
 that In future the greatest confidence and cordiality, and 
 the best understanding may prevail between His Maj- 
 esty's government and that of the United States. 
 
 The undersigned requests his Excellency Mr. Weyde- 
 meyer to accept the assurance of his very distinguished 
 consideration. 
 
 St. Petersburg, March 26 / April 7, 1814. 
 
 ^ Clay and Russell arrived at Gothenburg April I2, after a passage of fifty-six 
 days. 
 
34 THE WRITINGS OF I1814 
 
 TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE 
 No. 132. [James Monroe] 
 
 St. Petersburg, 15 April, 18 14. 
 
 Sir: 
 
 Immediately after receiving your favors of 8 January by 
 Mr. Strong, I requested an interview with Mr. Weydemeyer, 
 now the official organ of communication with the foreign 
 ministers at this court, with the intention of making known 
 to him the instructions I received, and of testifying to him 
 my surprise at the statement in Lord Castlereagh's letter 
 to you of a supposed answer given by the American envoys 
 at St. Petersburg to the overture for a negotiation at London 
 or Gothenburg, made by Lord Cathcart's note of I Septem- 
 ber to Count Nesselrode at the Emperor's headquarters at 
 Toplitz. 
 
 Mr. Weydemeyer was so unwell that he could not see me 
 for several days, and on the 7th instant I addressed to him 
 an official note, of which, and of its translation, I have the 
 honor herewith to enclose copies. After the note was written, 
 and before it was sent, I received notice from Mr. Weyde- 
 meyer that he would see me the next day; but he still was so 
 much indisposed that our conference was very short, and 
 consisted on my part chiefly in a recapitulation of the 
 contents of the note, and on his, in the promise that he would 
 immediately dispatch it to the Emperor, and in general 
 assurances of the satisfaction with which His Majesty would 
 receive the testimonials of the friendly dispositions of the 
 American government. 
 
 The answer ascribed to the American envoys will doubtless 
 occasion no less surprise to you than it did to my colleagues 
 
i8i4l JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 35 
 
 and myself, when you are informed that, until after the 
 departure of Messrs. Gallatin and Bayard from this place, 
 we neither had nor could obtain any official information that 
 any such overture as that of Lord Cathcart's note had ever 
 been made. It had been intimated to us through indirect 
 channels that such an offer would be communicated to us; 
 and as early as the month of August, Count Romanzoff had 
 put the question to me, whether we could treat in London, if 
 such a proposal should be made by the British government. 
 In the same informal manner that government had received 
 notice that we had no objection to treat either at London or 
 Gothenburg, but that our powers were limited to treat under 
 the mediation. We also very well knew the aversion which 
 the British Cabinet felt to the idea of having their disputes 
 with America at all connected with the affairs of the conti- 
 nent of Europe; but we had certainly never expressed our 
 opinion upon the subject, and in all our transactions with 
 Russia relative to the mediation, nothing about the affairs 
 of Europe had ever been said. Nor did we know that the 
 British government had ever declared their sentiments in 
 relation to that point. 
 
 It was apparently the object of the British Cabinet, in 
 rejecting the Russian mediation, to withhold, if possible, 
 from the public eye all evidence, not only of that rejection 
 and of the motives upon which it was founded, but even 
 that the offer had been made. In the first instance they 
 gave no positive answer, but expressed doubts whether the 
 mediation would be accepted in America. In their labors 
 to persuade others they had succeeded to convince them- 
 selves that the American government was under French 
 influence, and calculating that the mediation of a sovereign 
 at war with France and in close alliance with them could not 
 be acceptable to the President, they trusted that a refusal 
 
36 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 on his part would release them from the necessity of coming 
 to a decision upon the proposal. It was therefore not made 
 at that time formally and in written communications, but 
 merely in personal conferences between the Chancellor and 
 Lord Cathcart here, and between Count Lieven and Lord 
 Castlereagh at London. When it was found not only that 
 the mediation was accepted by the President, but that the 
 envoys from the United States were appointed for the mis- 
 sion, a positive answer to Russia became absolutely neces- 
 sary, and Count Lieven was told that the question with 
 America involved principles of internal government in Great 
 Britain which were not susceptible of being discussed under 
 any mediation. Lord Cathcart was instructed to explain 
 the matter verbally at the Emperor's headquarters, and had 
 a conversation with the Emperor himself upon the subject 
 at Bautzen, between the 12th and 20th of May. Still there 
 was nothing written to prove the refusal of the mediation, 
 nor would there perhaps ever have been anything, but for 
 the renewed proposal which the Emperor by Count Ro- 
 manzoif's advice directed to be made by Count Lieven, the 
 official note of which was sent from hence to Count Lieven, 
 and a copy of which has been transmitted to you by us. 
 Before this note was received by Count Lieven, Lord Castle- 
 reagh had learnt that it would come, and then, that is about 
 the last of July, Lord Cathcart was instructed to decline 
 the mediation in a written note. This note he presented at 
 Toplitz on the ist of September. So that when Count Lieven 
 received his instructions to renew the offer of mediation, 
 he was told by Lord Castlereagh that it had already been 
 refused, and all the grounds of refusal fully set forth to the 
 Emperor at headquarters. Count Lieven therefore did not 
 present the note according to his instructions, and whatever 
 Lord Cathcart's verbal elucidations of the motives of refusal 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 37 
 
 may have been to the Emperor, he has only referred to, 
 without stating them in the written note. That they were 
 not satisfactory to the Emperor I well know, for I have seen 
 a letter in His Majesty's own hand writing, dated at 
 Toplitz, 8 September O. S., that is twenty days after Lord 
 Cathcart's note, and in express terms approving completely 
 Count Romanzoff's instruction to Count Lieven for the 
 renewal of the offer of mediation. 
 
 In the policy of suppressing as much as possible, the evi- 
 dence of the refusal to accept the mediation, it cannot now 
 be questioned that the Russian government has either con- 
 curred with, or acquiesced in the views of the British. The 
 importance of preserving the reality of harmony between 
 them at the most eventful crisis of their great common 
 cause against France urged alike upon both parties the 
 necessity of preserving the appearances of it in regard to 
 all objects of minor concernment. The flat refusal of the 
 mediation of a prince whose partialities, if he could have 
 been susceptible of entertaining any while performing the 
 office of mediator, must have been all in favor of England, 
 could not but have upon the public opinion of the world an 
 operation in no wise advantageous to the British govern- 
 ment. The Emperor on his part might not incline to expose 
 to the world how very little consideration the British had 
 for him beyond the precise points in which his cause was 
 their own. He might be advised that in making public such 
 a signal and groundless mark of distrust on the part of his 
 ally, the sentiment of his dignity would require that he 
 should take some notice of it, which at this time would not 
 be expedient. It might also be admitted that the very 
 proposal in Lord Cathcart's note was of a nature which 
 would have assumed a singular appearance, if communicated 
 by the Russian government to the American envoys. Lord 
 
38 THE WRITINGS OF [1S14 
 
 Cathcart's language to Russia is "We will not negotiate 
 with America under your mediation^ but we ask your good 
 office to prevail upon America to negotiate with us with- 
 out it." The delicacy of this procedure towards Russia was 
 I suppose duly reflected upon before Lord Cathcart pre- 
 sented his note; but I acknowledge that when I first read it 
 among the printed documents with the President's message 
 of 6 January, I was not surprised that the Russian govern- 
 ment should have declined performing the office of mediator 
 merely to announce that her mediation was refused. 
 
 However this may be, certain it is that the note never was 
 communicated to us. We never answered the overture con- 
 tained in it, because although we received indirect intima- 
 tions that it would be made, yet it never was actually made. 
 And we never said anything about mixing the affair with 
 those of the continent of Europe, because nothing was ever 
 said to us about it. To the opinion of my colleagues upon 
 this subject I cannot speak; but for myself, I do not consider 
 the questions at issue between the United States and Great 
 Britain as questions in which the continent of Europe has 
 no interest — not even the question of impressment. In 
 every naval war waged by Great Britain, it is the interest 
 and the right of her adversary that she should not be per- 
 mitted to recruit her navy by man-stealing under the name 
 of impressment from neutral merchant vessels. Nor should 
 I have felt at all inclined to indulge the pretension on the 
 part of Britain had it been disclosed to us in the shape of a 
 declaration that her contests with us were nothing to the 
 continent of Europe. 
 
 I thought it necessary, therefore, in my note to Mr. Weyde- 
 meyer pointedly to disavow the answer which Lord Castle- 
 reagh says he had been informed by Lord Cathcart that we 
 had given to the overture in his note of i September. It will 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 39 
 
 be for Lord Cathcart to explain whence he derived his in- 
 formation. I am etc. 
 
 TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE 
 
 No. 133. [James Monroe] 
 
 St. Petersburg, 25 April, 18 14. 
 
 Sir: 
 
 • ••••• • 
 
 I propose to leave this city in two or three days for Gothen- 
 burg. My intention is to go to Reval and there embark for 
 Stockholm. The passage by the way of Finland is now im- 
 practicable, and there are twenty-five English mails known 
 to be at Grislehamn waiting for the possibility of passing 
 the gulf. The harbor of Reval is itself not yet open, and by 
 information which I have obtained from thence will probably 
 not be so before this day week, by which time I hope to be 
 there. I have concluded upon this course as likely to be the 
 shortest to the place of my destination. 
 
 I have a letter from Mr. Harris dated 14 March at Amster- 
 dam. He did not then know that the charge of our affairs 
 here was to be left with him, and was expecting to go to 
 England with Mr. Gallatin and Mr. Bayard. I wrote him 
 on the 4th instant under cover to Mr. Bourne, and have 
 since written again under cover to Mr. Beasley, informing 
 him of the President's order concerning him and urging his 
 return hither. It is not probable he can arrive before some 
 time in June. 
 
 In the uncertainty whether Mr. Clay or Mr. Russell might 
 arrive in Sweden before me, I thought it a proper mark of 
 respect to the Swedish government to give them notice of 
 
40 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 the commission to Gothenburg, and of my intention in pur- 
 suance of my instructions to proceed thither. I therefore 
 wrote to Count Engestrom, the Swedish Minister of Foreign 
 Affairs, with whom I have been long personally acquainted 
 and had already been in correspondence. As my letter went 
 by the mail, and the passage of the Gulf is impracticable, 
 it may perhaps not arrive sooner than myself; but the 
 Swedish commercial agent here will furnish me a pass- 
 port. . . 
 
 I have continued to make the payment and the charge for 
 a Secretary of Legation. I shall do the same for the present 
 quarter, and Mr. Smith with whom I shall leave the papers 
 and seal of the Legation will continue to perform the office 
 of secretary until Mr. Harris's return. He will then embark 
 for Gothenburg, and thence return to the United States. 
 From the time of my own departure from this place I shall 
 be without the assistance of any secretary, upon which I 
 beg leave to submit to your candor and the President's con- 
 sideration some remarks which I deem not unimportant to 
 the public interest. 
 
 For a commission of three or four members, upon a trust 
 so momentous as that of a negotiation for peace between the 
 United States and Great Britain, it is not only expedient, 
 but for the responsibility of each individual member of the 
 Commission Indispensable, that he should have a copy of 
 every document relating to the negotiation. There must 
 therefore be not only as many letter books as there are com- 
 missioners, but copies must be made in them of many papers 
 received as well as of all those which are dispatched. The 
 mere manual labor is more than can be performed by one 
 secretary to the commission, and either he must employ 
 clerks for the work, or each commissioner must make the 
 copies for himself, or by the hand of a private secretary. 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 41 
 
 In the case of the extraordinary mission here, both these 
 expedients were used. Mr. Gallatin and Mr. Bayard had at 
 first private secretaries, and afterwards Mr. Harris em- 
 ployed a clerk. The result of this is that all the papers of the 
 most confidential nature come to the knowledge of all the 
 persons thus employed. 
 
 The salary of an American Minister in Europe will not 
 admit of the expense of supporting a private secretary, in 
 any manner confidential. The employment of a common 
 clerk at daily or monthly wages is not without strong in- 
 conveniences from the motives of a breach of trust to which 
 such persons would be accessible. There would be no diffi- 
 culty in obtaining all the assistance of this kind which could 
 be desired without any expense, and offers to this effect have 
 been made to me; but I know they were founded upon pro- 
 jects of commercial speculation in which use would be made 
 of the information thereby to be obtained, and I do not think 
 it ought to be so used. I shall therefore take no secretary 
 with me and shall do as much of the copying as I can myself. 
 But I may be compelled to employ a copying clerk at Gothen- 
 burg, and to take such a person for it as I may have the 
 fortune of finding there. I must also request, if I am to re- 
 turn here, that a secretary to this legation may be ap- 
 pointed. I am etc.^ 
 
 1 "The war in Europe at present appears to be at an end. The Bourbons are 
 restored to France and Spain, and the dreams of an universal republic or an uni- 
 versal monarchy have ended in the conquest of France by the allies, and the ab- 
 dication of Napoleon Bonaparte, against whom the allies have of late professed to 
 make war. It seems to me hardly credible that the allies should very soon discover 
 that there are other objects of contention besides Napoleon, but hitherto all has 
 gone on smoothly since they are in possession of Paris. Napoleon has not only been 
 constitutionally deposed; but he has formally abdicated and renounced all pre- 
 tensions to the throne of France and Italy. The Bourbons are to receive France, 
 and France is to receive the Bourbons, as presents from the allies; and the allies 
 must necessarily dictate the terms upon which these generous donations are to be 
 
42 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 TO ABIGAIL ADAMS 
 
 Reval, 12 May, 18 14. 
 
 • ••••■ • 
 
 The coalition of Europe against France has at length been 
 crowned with complete success. The annals of the world 
 do not, I believe, furnish an example of such a reverse of 
 fortune as that nation has experienced within the last two 
 years. The interposition of Providence to produce this 
 mighty change has been so signal, so peculiar, so distinct 
 from all human operation, that in ages less addicted to 
 superstition than the present it might have been considered 
 as miraculous. As a judgment of Heaven, it will undoubt- 
 edly be considered by all pious minds now and hereafter; 
 and I cannot but indulge the hope that it opens a prospect 
 of at least more tranquillity and security to the civilized 
 part of mankind than they have enjoyed the last half cen- 
 tury. France for the last twenty-five years has been the 
 scourge of Europe; in every change of her government she 
 has manifested the same ambitious, domineering, oppressive, 
 and rapacious spirit to all her neighbors. She has now 
 fallen a wretched and helpless victim into their hands, de- 
 throning the sovereign she had chosen, and taking back the 
 
 granted. That all parties should ultimately be satisfied with the issue may reason- 
 ably be doubted. The allies have not yet declared how much of the guaranty 
 which they thought necessary- to secure them against the unbridled ambition of 
 Bonaparte, they will hold it prudent to relax in favor of the pacific and unaspiring 
 house of Bourbon. If the paroxysm of generosity holds out to the end, they will 
 soon find another coalition necessary-. If, as is far more probable, they finish by 
 availing themselves of their advantages, to impose severe and humiliating terms 
 upon France, besides forfeiting the pledge they have given to the world of modera- 
 tion and magnanimity, they will leave a germ of rancor and revenge which cannot 
 be long in shooting up again. But for the present the war in Europe is terminated." 
 To John Adams, May 8, 1814. Ms. 
 
1814] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 43 
 
 family she had expelled, at their command; and ready to be 
 dismembered and parcelled out as the resentment or the 
 generosity of her conquerors shall determine. The final re- 
 sult is now universally and in a great degree justly im- 
 putable to one man. Had Napoleon Bonaparte, with his 
 extraordinary genius and transcendent military talents, 
 possessed an ordinary portion of judgment or common 
 sense, France might have been for ages the preponderating 
 power in Europe, and he might have transmitted to his 
 posterity the most powerful empire upon earth, and a name 
 to stand by the side of Alexander, Caesar and Charlemagne, 
 a name surrounded by such a blaze of glory as to blind the 
 eyes of all human kind to the baseness of its origin, and even 
 to the blood with which it would still have been polluted. 
 
 I But if the catastrophe is the work of one man, it was the 
 spirit of the times and of the nation which brought forward 
 that man, and concentrated in his person and character the 
 
 ' whole issue of the revolution. "Oh! it is the sport (says Shake- 
 speare) to see the engineer hoist by his own petar." The 
 sufferings of Europe are compensated and avenged in the 
 humiliation of France. It is now to be seen what use the 
 avengers will make of their victory. I place great reliance 
 upon the moderation, equity, and humanity of the Emperor 
 Alexander, and I freely confess I have confidence in nothing 
 else. The allies of the continent must be governed entirely 
 by him, and as his resentments must be sufficiently gratified 
 by the plenitude of his success, and the irretrievable down- 
 fall of his enemy, I hope and wish to believe that he has 
 discerned the true path of glory open before him, and that 
 he will prove inaccessible to all the interested views and 
 rancorous passions of his associates. The great danger at 
 the present moment appears to me to be that the policy of 
 crippling France, to guard against her future power, will be 
 
44 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 carried too far. Of the dispositions of England there can be 
 no question; of those which will stimulate all the immediate 
 neighbors of France there can be as little doubt; and France 
 can have so little to say or to do for herself, that she begins 
 by taking the sovereign who is to seal her doom, from the 
 hands of her enemies. The real part for the Emperor Alex- 
 ander now to perform is that of the umpire and arbitrator of 
 Europe. To fill that part according to the exigency of the 
 times, he must forget that he has been the principal party 
 to the war; he must lay aside all his own passions and resist 
 all the instigations of his co-operators. He must discern 
 the true medium between the excess of liberality which 
 would hazard the advantages of the present opportunity to 
 circumscribe the power of France within bounds consistent 
 with the safety and tranquillity of her neighbors, and the 
 excess of caution which the jealousy of those neighbors, and 
 perhaps his own, would suggest, to secure them at all events, 
 by reducing France to a state of real impotence, and thus 
 leaving her future situation dependent upon their discre- 
 tion. I have no doubt that the Emperor will see all this in 
 the general principle, and I wait not without anxiety to ob- 
 serve its application to his measures. . . . 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 Reval, May 1/13, 1814. 
 . . . The oracle of political news here is a Riga gazette, 
 called the Tushauer, that is, the Spectator. It comes twice 
 a week, and Mr. Rodde has the obliging attention of sending 
 it to me. I find in It news enough — as much as I am desirous 
 to know. The war in France has ended in such a singular 
 manner that I am perfectly at a loss what to think about It. 
 
iSi4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 45 
 
 They say that in the typhoons of the East India seas, there is 
 sometimes an instantaneous transition from a previous 
 hurricane to a total calm. It is the aptest emblem of the 
 present moment. But the calm is as dangerous as the 
 storm, and it is generally very quickly followed by a tempest 
 equally tremendous from the opposite quarter. In neither 
 of these respects do I apprehend that the parallel will hold; 
 but when Napoleon shall be fairly and completely out of 
 the way, and out of the question (which he is long before 
 this) we shall have the opportunity of ascertaining whether 
 the allies have really been thinking they had nothing to do 
 but to crush him, and whether the peace of the world is to 
 be secured by his removal. . . . 
 
 Stockholm, May 31, 1814. 
 ... It is not yet known here that there has been any 
 appointment in England of commissioners to meet those of 
 the United States. Mr. Gallatin and Bayard, instead of 
 coming to Gothenburg, have remained in England. The 
 proposal has been made, somewhere, to remove the seat 
 of the negotiations to Holland, and although I do not approve 
 of this step, it may have been carried so far that I shall be 
 under the necessity of acquiescing in it. If it should be so, 
 possibly Mr. Clay, Mr. Russell and myself will go by water 
 in the John Adams^ from Gothenburg to Amsterdam. If 
 on the other hand, as is my earnest wish, we should finally 
 meet the British commissioners at Gothenburg, I fully expect 
 to return to you, by water from Gothenburg, and hope to 
 accomplish the voyage and be with you at latest by the 
 first of September. . . . 
 
 Stockholm, June 2, 1814. 
 . . . The English mail of May 13 arrived here yesterday. 
 The British government have appointed commissioners 
 
46 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 to meet us — Admiral Lord Gambier, Mr. Adams, and Mr. 
 Goulbourn.^ It was expected that a proposition would be 
 made from the English side, to change the place of the con- 
 ferences, and meet In Holland. My colleagues were prepared 
 to accede to this proposal upon condition that It should be 
 made from the other side, and I expect that on arriving at 
 Gothenburg I shall find It all so settled as to have no alter- 
 native left but to go on.^ As It was all done without consult- 
 ing me, I trust I shall not be answerable for it. I dislike 
 it for a multitude of reasons, to speak In the New England 
 styles, too tedious to mention; but In matters of much more 
 importance I shall cheerfully sacrifice any personal conven- 
 iences and any opinion as far as my sense of the public In- 
 terest will admit, to the accommodation and inclinations of 
 my colleagues. . . . 
 
 The letters from England say that there is a most extraor- 
 dinary stagnation there of all commerce; no demand from 
 anywhere either of colonial produce or their manufactures; 
 exchanges all against them, and all going down. What will 
 perhaps surprise you Is, that If we had asked to go to England 
 it would not have been allowed; because it was not wished 
 that we should be so near to certain visitors ^ expected there. 
 This I believe is "more strange than true." . . . 
 
 * Their instructions were not given until July 28, and are printed in Letters and 
 Despatches of Lord Castlereagh, X. 6"/. 
 2 See Adams, Memoirs, June I, 1814. 
 ^ Emperor Alexander. 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 47 
 
 TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE 
 
 No. 134. [James Monroe] 
 
 Stockholm, 28 May, 1814. 
 Sir: 
 
 On the 28th of last month I left St. Petersburg and pro- 
 ceeded to Reval, where I embarked in a merchant vessel 
 bound to this place. After much detention by adverse 
 winds and by the ice with which the Gulf of Finland is yet 
 obstructed, I landed here on Wednesday the 25th instant.^ 
 Upon my arrival I found that of the five commissioners 
 Mr. Clay alone was at Gothenburg. That Mr. Gallatin and 
 Mr. Bayard have remained in England and have written to 
 propose a removal of the place of negotiation from Gothen- 
 burg to Holland or to London. That Mr. Clay and Mr. 
 Russell have conditionally consented to the removal to 
 Holland, and that the reply of Mr. Gallatin and Mr. Bayard 
 has not yet been received here, but is expected by the first 
 mail from England.^ 
 
 In reflecting upon the instructions to the mission and upon 
 the proposal of removing to Holland the seat of the confer- 
 ences, which has probably proceeded too far to be revoked, 
 I have concluded not without hesitation to go on to Gothen- 
 burg. For the motives to this hesitation I beg leave to refer 
 you to my letter of 22 November, 1813, and to the evidence 
 upon which my opinion there expressed was founded, which 
 evidence was transmitted to you by the same conveyance 
 with my letter. As there is no alteration in the principle of 
 our instructions, and I have no reason to believe that there 
 
 ^ The incidents of the journey are given in Adams, Memoirs. 
 ^ See Adams, Writings of Gallatin, I. 606, 608. 
 
48 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 has been any alteration, at least any favorable alteration In 
 the dispositions of the British government, I cannot enter- 
 tain a doubt that our conferences, wherever held, will be 
 arrested at the threshold by an utter impossibility of agree- 
 ing upon the basis of negotiation. Under these circumstances 
 I should have thought it my duty to return forthwith to my 
 post at St. Petersburg, but for the hope that we shall receive 
 before the conferences can commence new instructions upon 
 which the conclusion of a peace may become possible. 
 
 Mr. Russell and myself intend leaving this place In two 
 or three days for Gothenburg, where I shall take the earliest 
 opportunity of writing you again. In the meantime I re- 
 main etc. 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 United States Corvette John Adams 
 Below Mingo, Sunday, 12 June, 1814. 
 . . . The servant ^ whom I took with me from St. Peters- 
 burg has left me, and Is a serious loss. I offered to take 
 him with me, but he had no inclination to go so far from 
 Sweden and Russia; and he objected that he could not be 
 very useful to me In a country where he would be a total 
 stranger, and ignorant of the language. This was very 
 true, and for the same reason I have deferred engaging an- 
 other man until we come to some landing. But Mr. Hughes,^ 
 the Secretary of the Legation, had left a Norwegian boy, and 
 Mr. Shaler ^ (an attache) an Otaheitean, to go on the ship, 
 and they are to serve me instead of a valet de chambre until 
 
 ^ Axel Gabriel Gahbroos. 
 
 - Christopher Hughes (i 786-1 849.) 
 
 ^ William Shaler, afterwards in the consular service. 
 
i8i4l JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 49 
 
 we come to the place of meeting. I had a very urgent and 
 even importunate solicitation yesterday morning from a 
 Frenchman, whose great desire was to go to America, and 
 I beHeve I should have taken him but for his extraordinary 
 talents. For he assured me that he was one of the greatest 
 coiffeurs that ever was bred at Paris; that he had dressed 
 the head of the Crown Prince and of all the royal family 
 at Stockholm; that he could make one a wig that it would 
 be a pleasure to wear; and besides that he had a most un- 
 common talent pour la danse. He had been four years in 
 this country, but the climate did not agree with his health, 
 and he must say, there was no encouragement or reward for 
 talents in Sweden. The man appeared really distressed, and 
 I was more than half inclined to take him upon trust, until 
 he disclosed his skill pour la danse, and menaced me with a 
 wig. ... 
 
 The officers of this ship are by no means of this class 
 [non-combatants]. Captain Angus ^ was with Truxtun when 
 they took the Vengeance and distinguished himself last 
 summer In the war upon the Lakes of Canada. The first 
 lieutenant, Yarnall, was Perry's first lieutenant in the 
 glorious victory on Lake Erie; and the second lieutenant, 
 Cooper, was in the Hornet when she sunk the Peacock, and 
 on board that vessel at the time of the catastrophe. There 
 are on board the ship fourteen midshipmen. Captain Angus 
 assures me that we have now In the navy seventy officers, 
 regularly bred and perfectly competent to the command of 
 a ship; If they had the ships I have no doubt but that in 
 less than seven years they would form seven times seventy, 
 prepared to meet on equal terms any captain in the British 
 navy. . . . 
 
 1 Samuel Angus (1784-1840), of the John Adams. 
 
50 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, June 25, 1814. 
 . . . You are sufficiently acquainted with my disposi- 
 tion to know that it was some, and not inconsiderable 
 gratification to my feelings to find myself the first here. It 
 was unavoidable that some of us should wait a few days for 
 the others; and I am very sure there was not one member of 
 the commission so anxious to avoid waiting as I was to 
 avoid being waited for. Even my detention at Reval, so 
 mortifying and vexatious to myself, has not for one hour 
 delayed the movements of my colleagues, nor retarded the 
 time of our meeting at this place. One consequence it has 
 however had, which I deeply regret. I have told you here- 
 tofore that Colonel Milligan was sent by Mr. Bayard as a 
 special messenger to Gothenburg to propose the alteration 
 of the place, and that Messrs. Clay and Russell consented to 
 it, upon condition that the proposition should come in form 
 from the English side. It was accordingly so made and 
 accepted, and I found myself destined to Ghent instead of 
 Gothenburg, without having had any voice in the question. 
 Had I not been so unfortunately detained at Reval, I should 
 have been at Gothenburg when Colonel Milligan arrived 
 there upon his embassy, and in that case none of us would 
 ever have come to Ghent. For myself, at least, I answer. 
 I never would have consented to come here. If a majority 
 of my colleagues had concluded upon the measure, I would 
 have returned immediately to St. Petersburg, and left them 
 to conclude the peace as they saw fit. At this hour I should 
 have been with you. If in consequence of my adhesion to 
 Gothenburg, the conclusion had been to meet there, I have 
 no doubt that at this moment the whole business would have 
 
1814] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 51 
 
 been finished. We could have been all assembled before 
 the first of this month, and what we have to do could not 
 have taken three weeks of time. I should now have been 
 on my way to join you. I still believe, as I wrote you from 
 Stockholm, that we shall not all be here sooner than the 
 middle of July. The change of plan has thus wasted nearly 
 two months, and in my full conviction, to no useful purpose 
 whatever. ... 
 
 My aversion to this new arrangement arises, however, 
 from considerations solely and exclusively of the public 
 interest. For myself I must acknowledge that my second 
 voyage and journey has been far more agreeable than the 
 first. It was in the first place more expeditious. I received 
 the notification to come here, within thirty miles of Stock- 
 holm, and that day three weeks I was on the spot. I had 
 been nearly six weeks in going from St. Petersburg there, 
 certainly not half the distance. It was also in all its cir- 
 cumstances more pleasant. The voyage from Gothenburg 
 to the Texel was like a party of pleasure — a large, comfort- 
 able and fast sailing ship, excellent fare and agreeable com- 
 pany. From the Texel to this place the roads are all good, 
 and the country at this season is one continual garden. We 
 have all the time been approaching to the summer, while 
 the summer has been approaching us. The weather has 
 been exactly such as a traveller could wish for — not so cold 
 as to be uncomfortable, nor so warm as to be oppressive, 
 to the horses or to ourselves. I have revisited a country 
 endeared to me by many pleasing recollections of all the 
 early stages of my life — of infancy, youth, and manhood. 
 I found it in all its charm precisely the same that I had first 
 seen it; precisely the same that I had last left it. Sweden 
 since I saw it before has changed, greatly changed; and by 
 no means for the better. It was then, though a poor, ap- 
 
52 
 
 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 parently a happy country. It is now a picture of misery. 
 But if there is anything upon earth that presents an image 
 of permanency, it is the face of Holland. The only change 
 that I could perceive in it is an improvement. The cities 
 and the country around them have, I think, an appearance 
 rather more animated and flourishing than I ever witnessed 
 heretofore. Their connection with France has infused into 
 them a small portion of the French activity and vivacity. 
 In this country the change has been much greater. Antwerp, 
 when I first saw it, was a desolation, a mournful monument 
 of opulence in the last stage of decay. It is now again what 
 it had once been, a beautiful and prospering city. But an 
 English garrison in possession of the place, and English 
 commissaries daily expected to carry away in triumph one- 
 third of the formidable fleet floating on the river, and to 
 demolish all the ships on the stocks, the precious hopes of 
 futurity, a present fearful foreboding of what Antwerp will 
 soon be again. The fate of Belgium is yet undecided. Aus- 
 tria, Prussia, Holland, France and England, all covet its 
 possession, and the prospect now is that the gold of England 
 will turn the scales. The Netherlands will be a British 
 province. 
 
 ■r* • • 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, June 28, 1814. 
 . . . When I told you in my last letter that I had found 
 nothing changed in Holland, I had forgotten the visit which 
 I made at Amsterdam to the venerable old Stad-house, 
 which has been metamorphosed first into a royal, and now 
 into a sovereign-princely palace. I took no pleasure in the 
 transformation, and wished they would turn it back again 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 53 
 
 Into a Stad-house. The upper floor has become a formal 
 gallery of pictures, and has a number of excellent paintings 
 of the Dutch school. Some of the best are large historical 
 pieces which belonged to the city of Amsterdam, and have 
 always been there. The royal apartments are on the lower 
 floor, furnished with elegance, but with not much splendor. 
 They are now appropriated to the use of the Sovereign 
 Prince and his family, when at Amsterdam. Their residence 
 for the present, however, is at the Hague, and will doubtless 
 continue there. The traces of the Napoleon family have 
 been removed as fully as the convenience of the moment 
 would admit. There was a large full-length portrait of the 
 Emperor in one of the rooms : the place where it stood is yet 
 marked out by the different color of the damask wainscoting 
 which was covered by its frame, and thus protected from 
 fading. There is one of the fashionable timepieces with a 
 bronze figure of him standing by its side; but as his name was 
 not under it, and it could be recognized only by the re- 
 semblance, it was a good economical principle not to lose 
 a handsome piece of furniture for a trifle, and the spectator 
 is not bound to know that the figure is the Image of Bona- 
 parte. A square of window-glass within the walls of the 
 palace still bears the inscription written with a diamond 
 "Vive Louis Napoleon Roi de Hollande"; but to remove it 
 would cost a new square of glass, and why should that ex- 
 pense be incurred.^ It is the happiness of that country, and 
 has saved them perhaps from many a calamity, that all 
 their political enthusiasm during the convulsions from which 
 Europe is emerging has been invariably kept subordinate 
 to the steady manners and national spirit of good husbandry. 
 I have heard them talk like their neighbors of liberty, of 
 equality, of fraternity, and of independence. I have seen 
 them change the orange for the three-colored cockade, and 
 
54 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 the three-colored again for the orange. They have had since 
 my remembrance a stadtholder and States General, a 
 National Convention, a Grand Pensionary, a king of the 
 Napoleon manufacture; have been travestied into a province 
 of France, and have lastly got a Sovereign Prince. All these 
 changes have been effected successively, without bloodshed, 
 without internal convulsion, without violence. They have 
 stretched and have shrunk like the piece of india rubber that 
 you use in drawing; but throughout all their changes, the 
 sober, cautious, thrifty character of the nation has invaria- 
 bly maintained its ascendancy, and of all Europe they are 
 unquestionably the people who have suffered the least from 
 the hurricane of its late revolution. The willow has weath- 
 ered by bending to every gale as it shifted, the storm which 
 has prostrated the sturdiest oaks 
 
 dont la tete aux lieux etoient prochaine 
 et dont les pieds touchoient a I'Empire des morts. 
 
 The evening before we left Amsterdam I went to the 
 French theatre. In the interval between the plays, the 
 orchestra struck up a Dutch air. There was a gentleman 
 sitting by me, whose eyes brightened at the sound, and he 
 told me that it was a national air. Some few persons clapped 
 their hands, but he observed that the first enthusiasm had 
 somewhat cooled down. Immediately afterwards they 
 played "God Save the King." There was no clapping of 
 hands. I turned to my friend and asked him, if that too 
 was a national air.'' He hung his head and said. No! . . .^ 
 
 ^ "Here we have listeners and lookers-on in abundance. Never in my life did I 
 find myself surrounded by so much curiosity." To Abigail Adams, June 30, 1814. 
 Ms. 
 
1814] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 55 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, July 2, 1814. 
 
 . . . The Emperor Alexander may now be truly called 
 the darling of the human race. Concerning him, and him 
 alone, I have heard but one voice since I left his capital; not 
 only in his own dominions, not only here and in Holland, 
 but even in Sweden, where it was least to be expected that 
 a Russian sovereign should be a favorite. In France, per- 
 haps, his popularity is at the highest. Even those who at 
 heart do not thank him for the present he has made them 
 cannot deny his moderation, his humanity, his magnanimity. 
 Of all the allies he was the one who had been the most 
 wantonly and cruelly outraged. Of all the allies he was the 
 only one who took no dishonorable revenge, who advanced 
 no extravagant pretensions. 
 
 It is well understood that he alone protected Paris from 
 the rapacity of those who had marched with Napoleon, and 
 shared the plunder of Moscow. He has redeemed his pledge 
 to the world. He has shown himself as great by his for- 
 bearance and modesty in prosperity as by his firmness in 
 the hour of his own trial. But the Ethiopians have not 
 changed their hue, nor the leopards their spots. They are 
 already wrangling about the spoils; and we hear people 
 talking as familiarly about the guerre de partage, as if it was 
 already commenced. . . . 
 
56 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE 
 
 No. 135. [James Monroe] 
 
 Ghent, 3 July, 1814. 
 Sir: 
 
 On the 2nd of June I left Stockholm, and on the 6th 
 arrived at Gothenburg. I met on the road Mr. Connell, 
 who had been dispatched by Mr. Clay to give Mr. Russell and 
 me information of the change of the place of negotiation 
 which had been proposed by the British government, and 
 assented to by Mr. Bayard and Mr. Gallatin on the part of 
 the American ministers. Instead of some place in Holland 
 which had been previously intimated as the wish of the 
 British government, they had finally fixed upon this city, 
 the effect of which as we have now reason to believe will be 
 to remove us from neutral territory to a place occupied by a 
 British garrison. 
 
 There are as yet no British troops here, but they are at 
 Antwerp and Brussels, and are expected here in the course 
 of a few days. In proposing this place as a substitute for 
 one unequivocally neutral, it appears to me it was incumbent 
 on the British government to give notice to the American 
 ministers of the change in the condition of the place, which 
 it must have been at that time contemplated by them to 
 make. 
 
 Mr. Clay had determined to come from Gothenburg by 
 land, and had left that city before I arrived there. Mr. 
 Russell was detained a few days longer at Stockholm, but 
 reached Gothenburg on the lOth of June. The next day we 
 embarked on board of the John Adams, and on the i8th 
 landed at the Helder. From thence we came by land to this 
 
1814] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 57 
 
 city, where we arrived on the 24th. ^ Mr. Bayard was here 
 on the 27th, and Mr. Clay on the 28th. Mr. Gallatin comes 
 from London by way of Paris and we expect him here to- 
 morrow. . . . 
 
 TO LEVETT HARRIS 
 
 Ghent, 9 July, 1814. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 Mr. Gallatin on his arrival ^ here delivered me your favor 
 from London of 21 June, and I had previously received in 
 Sweden that of 8 May. I had delayed answering this one 
 because I was not authorized to communicate officially with 
 Count Nesselrode, and because I knew the Emperor would 
 before his arrival in London have been apprised through the 
 regular channel, the Department of Foreign Affairs, of your 
 charge at St. Petersburg. I had notified it in an official 
 communication to Mr. Weydemeyer on the 7th of April, 
 and Mr. Weydemeyer had assured me that my note should 
 be immediately transmitted to the Emperor. 
 
 ^ I have been most unnaturally occupied; for I have accomplished two voyages 
 by sea, and two journies by land. Have crossed the Gulf of Finland and Baltic 
 from Reval to Stockholm, and the North Sea from Gothenburg to the Texel. Have 
 traversed the Kingdom of Sweden and the sovereign princedom of the Netherlands; 
 and here I am in the city of Charles the 5th waiting with my four colleagues, until 
 it shall please the mistress of the world, as she now fancies herself, to send her 
 deputies for the purpose, as she imagines, of receiving our submission. 
 
 "Submission, however, thus much I can assure you, is neither our temper, nor 
 that of our masters. The only question that can possibly arise among us is, how 
 far we can abandon the claim which we have upon our adversary for concession 
 upon her part. And with this disposition on both sides at the very opening of con- 
 ferences, I am well assured the work to which we have been called, that of con- 
 ciliating British and American pretensions, will be found more unnatural than your 
 and my wandering life." To John Adams, July 7, 1814. Ms. 
 
58 THE WRITINGS OF I1814 
 
 I learnt with much pleasure that Mr. Gallatin and you 
 obtained of the Emperor a private audience in London,^ and 
 that he retains unimpaired his friendly sentiments and dis- 
 positions towards the United States. I am not surprised 
 that the Emperor should inquire pourquoi Gand? et pourquoi 
 Gothenburg.? but these questions can be answered only by 
 the British government. Both the places were proposed by 
 them, and both barely acquiesced in on our part. We should 
 much have preferred treating at St. Petersburg. But our 
 own government, with good reason as I believe, determined 
 that it should not be at London. Not that I imagine that the 
 place of negotiation will have the weight of a straw upon its 
 result. The questions at issue between the United States 
 and Great Britain, my dear sir, and the temper prevailing, 
 on both sides, you may rely upon it, are not to be affected 
 by such insignificant incidents as the place where the con- 
 ferences are to be held, or the official documents interchanged. 
 Your information upon this subject, from authority however 
 high,'^ must he erroneous. Queen Mab's thimble would have 
 been a fire-bucket to extinguish the flames of Moscow, 
 just as important as the place where we should meet the 
 British commissioners was to the issue of the negotiation. 
 But the President of the United States felt, and it was a 
 feeling worthy of the Chief Magistrate of an independent 
 and spirited people, that the metropolis of our enemy was 
 not a suitable place to be substituted for the capital of a 
 common friend and impartial mediator. Nor do I precisely 
 think with you that the selection of Ghent was a judicious 
 choice on the part of the British government. Their mo- 
 tives for the choice are indeed obvious enough. They mani- 
 
 1 June 18. See James Gallatin, Diary, 24. 
 
 2 Harris had spoken of Count Munster, the friend and companion of the Prince 
 Regent. 
 
i8i4l JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 59 
 
 fest at once a fear of the American commissioners, and a 
 distrust of all their own allies, obviously excessive, and which 
 a profound policy would have been cautious not to disclose. 
 The Crown Prince of Sweden and the Sovereign Prince of 
 the Netherlands may say pourquoi Gand? as pointedly as 
 the Emperor Alexander, and the question conveys the 
 bitterest of sarcasms upon the selection made by the Re- 
 gent's ministers. . . . 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, July 12, 1814. 
 My Dear Wife, 
 
 When I told you in my last letter that the whole American 
 mission extraordinary was here, I ought to have excepted 
 Mr. Carroll and Mr. Todd, who are still lingering at Paris. 
 Mr. Carroll is attached to the mission as private secretary 
 to Mr. Clay, and Mr. Todd is of this legation, as he was of 
 the former, a gentilhomme d^ambassade, quite independent 
 in his movements, and very naturally thinking Paris a more 
 agreeable residence than Ghent; notwithstanding the bon 
 mot of Charles the 5th, which the good people of this city 
 delight to repeat, that he would put Paris into his glove. 
 
 We are all in perfect good understanding and good humor 
 with one another, and fully determined if we stay here long 
 enough to make a removal from the inn where we all lodge 
 expedient, to take one house and live together. All the 
 attaches are now upon such a footing of independence that 
 some of them may perhaps leave us and return home in the 
 John Adams. I think it more probable, however, that they 
 will await the issue, which I still think will not be long de- 
 layed. Scarcely an hour passes without accumulating evi- 
 
6o THE WRITINGS OF I1814 
 
 dence to my mind that our antagonists are fully resolved not 
 to make peace this time, notwithstanding which, I live in 
 hope, and trust in God. I must at the same time acknowl- 
 edge that none of my colleagues agree with me in opinion 
 that our stay here will be short. They calculate upon three 
 or four months at least, and incline even to the prospect of 
 passing the winter here, which I hold to be utterly impossi- 
 ble. I mention it to you now, because it was since I wrote 
 you last that the first idea has been suggested, and because 
 if upon the arrival of the British commissioners there should 
 be a rational ground for the belief that we shall pass the 
 winter here, I shall then propose to you to take your passage 
 in the first good vessel bound from Cronstadt to Amsterdam 
 or Rotterdam, to break up altogether our establishment at 
 St. Petersburg, and to come with Charles and join me here. 
 We should then have it at our option in the spring to return 
 to St. Petersburg or to America. I am, however, so far 
 from entertaining any expectation of wintering here, that I 
 only speak of it now, that if such should eventually be the 
 result, the notice may not come too suddenly upon you. I 
 shall not leave you an hour in suspense, after having any- 
 thing ascertained upon which I myself can depend. 
 
 We continue to have a constant supply of American 
 visitors, but as, after all, Ghent is not the most fascinating 
 place for a long residence, many of our countrymen seem to 
 come here only to see how we look, and take their departure 
 for elsewhere. Mr. Edwards and Mr, Howland are already 
 gone to Paris, but have been succeeded by two others, 
 whose names I have not discovered, but who are undoubt- 
 edly Yankeys. We have now here Captain Jones ^ of the 
 Neptune, with young Nicholson and Dr. Lawton. Mr. Rus- 
 sell's son George, too, found his school at Amsterdam so 
 
 * Lloyd Jones. 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 6i 
 
 tiresome that he has prevailed upon his father to let him 
 come here. I remember what a Dutch school at Amsterdam 
 was thirty-four years ago enough to sympathize with George; 
 but he appears to me so fine a boy, and to be at an age when 
 time is so important, and instruction so vital to his hereafter, 
 that I think his danger is of finding his father too indul- 
 gent. . . . 
 
 Captains Angus and Jones, and the other commissioners 
 now here, dined with us yesterday, and to my no small 
 mortification Mr. Bayard remembered and toasted the day} 
 It was however, done by him with so good a disposition that 
 I took it as kindly as it was meant. He has uniformly been 
 since our arrival here in the most friendly humor, and we 
 appear all to be animated with the same desire of harmo- 
 nizing together. ... 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, July 15, 1814. 
 My Dear Wife, 
 
 The stream of high and mighty travellers from London 
 through this place has been incessant since the passage of 
 the Emperor Alexander. The two sons of the King of Prus- 
 sia, and his brothers, the Princes Henry and William, the 
 second son of the Sovereign Prince of the Netherlands, 
 Count Nesselrode, and lastly Field Marshal Prince Bliicher, 
 have all been successively here. Most of them have stopped 
 either to dine or to pass the night at the house where we 
 lodge, but I have not had the fortune to see any one of them. 
 The King of Prussia and the Duchess of Oldenburg went 
 directly from Calais to Paris. The Prince of Orange, who 
 
 ' His birthday. He was forty-seven years of age. 
 
62 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 was to have married the Princess Charlotte of Wales, landed 
 at Helvoetsluys and went on immediately to the Hague. 
 The marriage, you know, is broken off, and according to the 
 newspapers the Prince was treated in England with very 
 little respect. The rupture however is ascribed principally 
 to the lady herself, who is said to have been so averse to 
 going out of the Kingdom that she insisted upon making an 
 article of the contract of marriage that she should not. And 
 the Prince having consented to this, she then required that 
 he should also subject himself to the same interdiction. It 
 is probable that she was resolved to raise obstacles more 
 perseveringly than he was prepared to remove them. And 
 there were other considerations of a political nature, which 
 might contribute to the separation of these royal lovers. The 
 project of uniting this country with Holland, under the 
 authority of the Sovereign Prince was perhaps connected 
 with that of the marriage, and is likely to be dissolved with 
 it. In the new combinations of European politics arising 
 from the restoration of the Bourbons and the dismember- 
 ment of France, England is apparently tending to the policy 
 of a close alliance with Austria, and will eventually restore 
 this country to her. The late allies are understood to be not 
 very cordially affected towards one another, and there is 
 much talk of a new war, but I believe it to be without foun- 
 dation. . . . 
 
 TO ALEXANDER HILL EVERETT 
 
 Ghent, July 16, 18 14. 
 ... I mentioned in my last letter to you that I had re- 
 ceived and read with poetical pleasure your brother's [Ed- 
 ward] ^ ^ K poem,^ though I had not been equally gratified by 
 
 * American Poets, 1812. 
 
1814] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 63 
 
 its political complexion. I have learnt since then, from my 
 mother, that he has assumed the arduous and honorable 
 task of succeeding our lamented friend Buckminster; an 
 occasion upon which he might emphatically say "who is 
 sufficient for these things? " I have the satisfaction of being 
 one of the proprietors in that Church, and I look forward 
 with pleasure to the period when, with my family, I shall 
 be an habitual attendant upon his administration. I will 
 not promise to agree with him in politics, nor even in re- 
 ligious doctrine; but there is one, and that the most essential 
 point, upon which I am confident we shall never disagree — 
 I mean Christian charity. 
 
 I regret that with your letter I had not the pleasure of 
 receiving the copy of your address to the Charitable Fire 
 Society,^ and I have heard from other quarters of certain 
 political speculations of yours, which I have more than one 
 reason for wishing to see. As your design of entering upon 
 the field of public discussion has been carried into execution, 
 and as American principles are the foundation of the system 
 to which you have pledged your exertions, you will not 
 doubt the interest which I shall take in every step of your 
 career. Notwithstanding the inauspicious appearances 
 of the present moment, I humbly trust in God, that Ameri- 
 can principles will ultimately prevail in our country. But 
 should it be otherwise in the Inscrutable decrees of divine 
 providence, should the greatness and prosperity to which 
 the continuance of the Union cannot possibly fail of exalting 
 our native country, be deemed too great for mortal man to 
 attain; should we be destined to crumble into the vile and 
 miserable fragments of a great power, petty, paltry prin- 
 cipalities or republics, the tools of a common enemy's 
 malice and envy, and drenching ourselves age after age in 
 
 ^ Delivered May 28, 18 13, and printed for the Society. 
 
64 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 one another's blood; far preferable should I deem it to fall 
 in the cause of Union and glory, than to triumph in that of 
 dismemberment, disgrace and impotence. As Christians, 
 whatever befalls us or our fellow men we must submit to 
 the will of heaven; but in that case I should be tempted to 
 say with Lucan, "Victrix causa dis placuit, sed victa 
 Catoni." . . . 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, July 19, 1814. 
 . . . We have contracted to take a house, where the 
 five members of the mission, and the Secretary, Mr. Hughes, 
 will all reside together. We engage it for one month, and 
 it is to be furnished ready for us to go into next Saturday. 
 This has been a negotiation of some delicacy; for although, 
 as I wrote you, we had all agreed as it were par acclamation 
 to live together, yet when it came to the arrangement of 
 details, we soon found that one had one thing to which he 
 attached a particular interest, and another another, and it 
 was not so easy to find a contractor who would accommodate 
 himself to five distinct and separate humors. It is one of 
 your French universalists who has finally undertaken to 
 provide for us. He keeps a shop of perfumery, and of mil- 
 linery, and of prints and drawings; and he has on hand a 
 stock of handsome second hand furniture. But then he was 
 brought up a cook, and he is to supply our table to our 
 satisfaction; and he is a marchand de vin, and will serve us 
 with the best liquors that are to be found in the city. This 
 was the article that stuck hardest in the passage; for one 
 of us, and I know you will suspect it was I, was afraid that 
 he would pass off upon us bad wine, and make us pay for 
 
1814] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 65 
 
 it as if it was the best. Tiie bargain was very nearly broken 
 off upon the question whether we should be obliged to take 
 wine from him, or, if we supply ourselves from elsewhere, 
 to pay him one franc a bottle for drawing the cork. We 
 finally came to a compromise, and are to begin by taking 
 wine from him. But they must be at his peril such as we 
 shall relish; for if not, we shall look further, and draw the 
 corks without paying him any tax or tribute for it at all. . . . 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, July 22, 1814. 
 ... If the change of place of negotiation had been, 
 as was first suggested, to the Hague, it would certainly have 
 been personally to me, considering only the circumstance 
 of individual accommodation, far more agreeable than either 
 Gothenburg or Ghent. Ghent is to us all a more agreeable 
 residence than I think Gothenburg would have been. The 
 great and essential objection which there was in my mind 
 was the great and unnecessary delay, which I knew it must 
 occasion. I suppose this was really the precise object of the 
 enemy in proposing the change. He wanted a pretext for 
 delay, and I would not have allowed it. He began by talk- 
 ing of the Hague, and he finished by giving us Ghent. The 
 change of the place gave him two months, and now he still 
 delays without even offering a pretext. The hostility of the 
 Little Lord ^ is a mere sympathy. It is like the whispering 
 gallery at St. Paul's. You whisper on one side of the dome, 
 and the listener at the other side hears the sound. Lord 
 Castlereagh whispers at Paris or London, and more than 
 echoes talk along the walls of the maison Demidoff. If we 
 
 * Sir William Schaw Cathcart (1755-1853), the British ambassador to Russia. 
 
66 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 had stuck to Gothenburg as I would have done, this paltry 
 shuffling would long before this have been at an end. The 
 true negotiators, as his Lordship said, were the bayonets 
 from Bordeaux. It is with them that our country must treat, 
 and it is by disposing properly of them that she can alone 
 produce a pacific disposition in England. 
 
 What you have heard of the character and temper of 
 Mr. Clay coincides exactly with all the experience I have 
 had of them hitherto; * but the other report of a public 
 breach and misunderstanding between two other gentlemen 
 is altogether unfounded. So far from it that we now lodge 
 all together in one house, and have a common table among 
 ourselves; that we have engaged, as I wrote you before, a 
 house, where we shall still lodge and dine together, and that 
 there is on all sides a perfect good humor and understanding. 
 The junior attaches, who were last year in Russia, appear 
 to me both much improved. They are, I believe, both wholly 
 independent of their former patrons, and can therefore have 
 no collisions with them. Their pretensions are not so saliant 
 as they were, and their deportment is consequently more 
 pleasing. The Colonel is not only reconciled to the Chevalier 
 [Bayard], but more assiduous to him than ever. The Cheva- 
 lier himself is entirely another man, with good health, good 
 spirits, good humor, always reasonable, and almost always 
 as you have seen him in his most amiable moments. Whether 
 there was something baleful in the waters of the Neva, I 
 know not; but our last year's visitors, all here, seem of an- 
 other and a much better world. 
 
 When I wrote you that I hoped to be with you by the first 
 of September, it was on the supposition that we should do 
 
 ^ "Mr. Clay, I understand, is one of the most amiable and finest temper'd men 
 in the world, and I am told you will be delighted with him. Young Lewis is lavish 
 in his praise." Louisa Catherine Adams to John Quincy Adams, June lO, 1814. Ms. 
 
1814] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 67 
 
 our business at Gothenburg. I can no longer entertain such 
 I a hope. You know the situation in which we are now here, 
 and the promise we had that the other party should be here 
 to meet us in the first days of this month. I am aware how 
 painful it will be to you to be left so long in suspense, whether 
 I can go to you, or you are to come to me, and only ask you 
 to recollect that sharing all your anxieties in this respect, 
 I have the further mortification of feeling the same tardiness 
 of our adversaries as a purposed insult upon our coun- 
 try. . . . 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, July 29, 1814. 
 . . . There was last week, on the 20th, a debate in 
 the House of Commons, in which notice was taken of the 
 delays of the British government relating to the negotiation 
 with America. Mr. Whitbread asked Lord Castlereagh, 
 "Whether the persons sent to Gothenburg from the Amer- 
 ican government were quite forgotten by His Majesty's 
 Ministers, or whether any one had been appointed to treat 
 with them?" His Lordship answered that persons had been 
 appointed to treat with them. The report of the rest of the 
 debate on the subject, whether purposely or by the blunders 
 of the reporter, is so expressed that it is impossible to make 
 sense of it. The substance however is, that Mr. Whitbread 
 stated as the general impression in public that there was 
 not that alacrity in the British government to meet the 
 overtures from America which he thought it important 
 should be manifested. Lord Castlereagh answered that 
 there was no disposition on the part of England to delay the 
 negotiations with America; that the departure of the British 
 
68 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 commissioners had been regulated so that they might find 
 the American mission all assembled here, but that by his 
 last advices from Paris, Mr. Gallatin was still there. Now, my 
 dear friend, we have the most substantial reason for know- 
 ing that besides all the London newspapers which had an- 
 nounced Mr. Gallatin's departure from Paris the 4th of this 
 month, Lord Castlereagh had special and precise informa- 
 tion that he had been here at Ghent, a full fortnight, on the 
 day of that debate. So much for Lord Castlereagh's candor. 
 But the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Vansittart, in the 
 same debate was more ingenuous; for he said "that the war 
 with America was not likely to terminate speedily, and might 
 lead to a considerable scale of expense." Mr. Canning 
 some time before in another debate had enjoined upon the 
 ministry not to make peace without depriving America of 
 her right to the fisheries; and one of the Lords of Admiralty 
 is reported to have said in the same House of Commons, that 
 the war with America would now be continued to accomplish 
 the deposition of Mr. Madison. An article in the Courier, 
 the ministerial paper, of the 22d, countenances the same 
 idea. It states that the federalists in America are about 
 taking a high tone; that they will address Congress for the 
 removal of Mr. Madison, preparatory to his impeachment; 
 on the ground that England will never make peace with 
 him. . . .^ 
 
 ^ "Further communications from America inform us, that the Federal party as- 
 sume a very high and decided tone. Addresses to Congress are to be set on foot 
 throughout all the eastern states for the removal of Mr. Madison from office, pre- 
 paratory to his impeachment. It is represented that he has displayed the most 
 notorious incapacity; that he has deceived and misled his countrymen by gross mis- 
 representations; that he has abused their confidence by secret collusion with the 
 late Tyrant of France; and that no fair and honourable terms of peace can be ex- 
 pected from Great Britain, so long as she is to treat with a person from whom she 
 has received such unprovoked insults, and such deliberate proofs of injustice." 
 The Courier, July 22, 1814. 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 69 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, August i, 1814. 
 
 Yesterday was the day of our removal from the Hotel 
 des Pays-Bas, on the Place d'Armes, to our own house in 
 the Rue des Champs. Among the important consequences 
 of this revolution, it has produced that of a state of separa- 
 tion between the primary members of the mission and the 
 attaches. Those gentlemen found they could accommodate 
 themselves with lodgings more to their taste, and as the 
 principle of their attachment is independence, they have 
 followed their humor without any interference or dissatis- 
 faction on our part. We should have been gratified to have 
 had Mr. Hughes with us, but his inclination did not pre- 
 cisely correspond with ours; or rather, after a choice of 
 apartments to accommodate five principals, the chambers 
 that were left were not so inviting as others that were to 
 be found in the city. I regret the loss of his society; for he 
 is lively and good-humored, smart at a repartee, and a 
 thorough punster, theory and practice. He has not for- 
 given us, and I have the most to answer for in the offense, 
 for calling him before he thinks it was necessary from Paris, 
 and he has a project of making another excursion, while 
 there is not much to do. He tells me that his brother-in-law, 
 our old friend, J. S. Smith, is to be married this summer to 
 Miss Nicholas.^ 
 
 Mr. Dallas intended to have gone in the John Adams, and 
 still so intends, if another passport is obtained. Mr. Gal- 
 latin is very anxious that Mr. Todd should also return by the 
 same vessel; but Todd likes Paris, perhaps as much as 
 Mr. Hughes, and feels no obligation to yield obedience to 
 
 ^ Caryanne, daughter of Wilson Cary Nicholas. She died in 1832. 
 
70 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 the summons of departure from it. Hughes (and it is a good 
 sample of his wit) always calls him Monsieur Toad. 
 
 Mr. Hughes has this day a letter from Mr. Beasley men- 
 tioning that the departure of the British commissioners 
 would probably be postponed until after the great fete, 
 which takes place on this day.^ If we were but sure they 
 would come then, we should not have much longer to wait. 
 They are making and circulating all sorts of reports to ac- 
 count for these delays. Among the rest they pretend that 
 we ourselves had proposed that further time should be 
 taken, that we might receive new instructions from our 
 government. This is not true. 
 
 I believe I have suggested the true cause of their waiting. 
 They have taken measures to strike a great blow in America, 
 and they wish to have the advantage of the panic which they 
 suppose it will excite. Among the rumors of the time I have 
 heard that they intended not to treat with us, until the Con- 
 gress which is to meet at Vienna. That, you know, was to 
 have been on this day, and was afterwards postponed to the 
 first of October. Lord Castlereagh lately promised the 
 English nation a long, profound, unsuspicious peace in 
 Europe, which is certainly more than will be realized. The 
 peace will be neither profound nor unsuspicious, but it may 
 very possibly be long; that is, it may last several years. As 
 to the talk of a new war in October, I hold it to be perfectly 
 absurd. The Congress at Vienna will prevent a war if there 
 is now a prospect of one; and the policy of England now and 
 then will be to use all her influence to prevent it. . . . 
 
 ' The "grand jubilee," being tiie centenary of the accession of the House of 
 Brunswick to the English throne and the anniversary of the battle of the Nile. 
 
 II 
 
i8i4l JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 71 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, August 5, 1814. 
 
 ... I know not who it was who so positively assured 
 you that there were to be no British commissioners ap- 
 pointed to meet us; but it must have been somebody deep 
 in the secrets of the British Cabinet. I wrote you on the 2d 
 of June from Stockholm that British commissioners were 
 appointed and gave you their names. Lord Castlereagh on 
 the 20th of July told the House of Commons that commis- 
 sioners were appointed, though the Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer gave at the same time a broad hint that it was not 
 intended they should make peace. Now for something 
 nearer at hand. We have a letter from Mr. Beasley, dated 
 29 July, this day week. He says he has just seen Mr. Hamil- 
 ton, under secretary of state for foreign affairs, who in- 
 formed him that the British commissioners had kissed the 
 Prince Regent's hand the day before, and that they would 
 certainly leave London for Ghent in all this week. Mr. Ham- 
 ilton, to be sure, had before written to Mr. Irving that they 
 would leave London on or about the first of July; but the 
 ceremony of taking leave of the Regent looks more as if 
 they were in earnest. I now confidently expect them within 
 a week from this day. 
 
 I was almost as much gratified with your account of the 
 entertainment at Pavlowski as if I had been one of the party 
 myself. You do not mention the occasion of it, but I find 
 upon recurring to the calendar that it was the Grand Duke 
 Nicholas' birthday. I congratulate you upon your having 
 got so well through the day, and rejoice that you have had 
 that occasion for enlivening your summer. The Emperor 
 has, I presume, before this reached St. Petersburg, and now 
 
72 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 will be the time for fetes and rejoicings. The newspapers 
 say that he has declined accepting the title that was offered 
 him of the Blessed, and has referred it to posterity to erect a 
 monument in honor of him, if he deserve it. This answer 
 is so conformable to his character that I believe it to be in 
 substance true, and it is among the strongest proofs that he 
 deserves both the title and the monument. It shows a mind 
 unsubdued by prosperity, as it had already proved itself 
 superior to adversity. It indicates a just estimate of the 
 honors that can be conferred upon an absolute sovereign by 
 his co-temporaries, and of those which may be conferred 
 by prosperity. 
 
 Mr. Beasley has sent us some of the latest American 
 papers that have been received ; they are to the 20th of June, 
 and exhibit no indication of the intentions announced by the 
 British gazettes on the part of the federalists to address 
 Congress for the removal and impeachment of Mr. Madison. 
 Quite the contrary. The New York election has given a 
 great accession of strength to the government of the United 
 States; and the Massachusetts governor and legislature are 
 retreating and boast of their forbearance. There has been a 
 new religious festival in Boston ^ upon the fall of Bonaparte 
 and the restoration of the Bourbons. The State House and 
 a few private houses were illuminated, but the Chronicle says 
 it did not take; that it was only a solemn festival, for they 
 could not get so much as a shout from the boys in the streets. 
 That they asked for what the State House was illuminated.^ 
 and some said it was because Bonaparte had been bribed 
 with 6 millions to give up France to the English; and others 
 said it was because Governor Strong was chosen instead of 
 
 * June 15. The resolutions are given in Boston Gazette, June i6, but do not answer 
 to the description in this letter. The Chronicle did not print them, but the refer- 
 ence may be to the London Chronicle. 
 
1814] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 73 
 
 Samuel Dexter. At this same religious festival several 
 resolutions were proposed by Mr. Gore, about as wise as the 
 festival itself. One of them is merely a lamentation that 
 on account of the war, they cannot express as they wish they 
 could their admiration of a certain hero who must be name- 
 less. There is a speech made in the Senate of Massachusetts 
 by a Mr. Holmes,^ in which he bears down upon the junto 
 as Perry did upon the British on Lake Erie. There has been 
 nothing like it for many years. The federal papers say that 
 Mr. Otis upheld to it with a torrent of eloquence, but they 
 have not yet published his speech. That of Holmes is entire 
 in the Chronicle of 20 June, and its main points are too 
 stubborn for Otis's torrent to overwhelm. It appears that 
 Otis must have resigned his seat as a judge, by his being 
 again in the Senate. . . . 
 
 We begin to be weary, not of one another, but of our bar- 
 gain for the house. You will not be surprised at this when 
 I tell you that our landlord is Mr. Lannuyer. We find him 
 as tiresome as his name. I shall complain as little as possible, 
 but shall perhaps at the close of the month return to the 
 Hotel des Pays-Bas. ^ 
 
 • • 
 
 ' John Holmes, of York. 
 
 2 "We have the satisfaction of living in perfect harmony; the discontents of our 
 domestic arrangements are all with our landlord, and none with one another. Even 
 he gives us better satisfaction than he did. Mr. Hughes and the private secretaries 
 all dine with us every day. One of our troubles you must know was that this house 
 was haunted, and its ill-fame in this respect was so notorious, that the servants and 
 the children of our party were very seriously alarmed before, and when we first 
 came in. The perturbed spirits have all forsaken the house since we entered it, 
 and we hope they are laid for ever." To Louisa Catherine Adams, August 12, 1814. 
 Ms. 
 
74 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, August 9, 18 14. 
 . . . The British commissioners arrived here on Satur- 
 day evening the 6th inst., and yesterday we had our first 
 conference with them. Their manner is polite and conciha- 
 tory. Their professions both with regard to their govern- 
 ment and themselves, liberal, and highly pacific. But they 
 have not changed the opinion which I have constantly had 
 of the result. Of the prospects you may judge with more 
 certainty from the speech of the Speaker of the British 
 House of Commons, than from the professions of the com- 
 missioners. Last week the session of Parliament closed. 
 The Regent in his speech said that he regretted the contin- 
 uance of the war with the United States; that notwithstand- 
 ing the unprovoked oppression upon their part, he was 
 willing to make peace on terms honorable to both nations; 
 but that in the meantime the war would be carried on with 
 increased vigor. But the Speaker undertook to dictate 
 terms in his speech, and roundly declared that the House of 
 Commons could never consent to terminate the war but by 
 the establishment of the maritime rights of Great Britain. You 
 will now receive in the most exclusive confidence whatever 
 I shall write you on this subject. Say not a word of it to 
 any human being, until the result shall be publicly known. 
 At present I do not think that the negotiation will be of 
 long continuance. At the same time I cannot yet speak on 
 the subject with perfect certainty. 
 
1814] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 75 
 
 TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE ^ 
 
 No. 2. [James Monroe] 
 
 Ghent, August 11, 1814. 
 Sir, 
 
 The British Commissioners arrived in this city on Satur- 
 day evening the 6th inst. They are Admiral Lord Gambier, 
 Henry Goulburn, Esq., and Dr. WilHam Adams. ^ The day 
 after their arrival Mr. Baker, the secretary to their com- 
 mission called upon one of us (Mr. Bayard) and notified to 
 us that event, with the proposal from them to meet us the 
 day succeeding at one o'clock afternoon, at their lodgings. 
 We were of opinion that unless they should think fit to hold 
 
 ^ A draft by Adams of a dispatch to be signed by the commission. The 
 dispatch sent is dated August 12, and is printed in American State Papers, Foreign 
 Relations, III. 705. On August 9 Adams was charged to prepare the draft of a 
 dispatch to the Secretary of State on the two conferences with the British pleni- 
 potentiaries. This draft was taken by the other commissioners. Bayard prepared 
 an entire new draft, which was substituted for that of Adams, but was found to be 
 so imperfect that Gallatin drew up a new paper, finally accepted with some amend- 
 ments. Adams, Memoirs, August 9-17, 18 14. The words in italics were under- 
 scored probably by members of the commission questioning the propriety of using 
 them. 
 
 ^ "The British commissioners are said to be personally men of moderate princi- 
 ples and their deportment has hitherto been of a conciliatory character. Lord 
 Gambier was in Boston in the year 1770, when his uncle commanded there. He 
 was himself then a boy, but he recollected having seen my father at that time. Dr. 
 Adams is an admiralty lawyer. His family, he told me, some generations ago came 
 from Pembrokeshire in Wales; but has for many years been settled in the county 
 of Essex. I think we have neither Essex kindred, nor Welsh blood in our pedigree. 
 His arms are a red cross. Ours I think are no other than the stripes and stars." 
 To Abigail Adams, August 18, 18 14. Ms. Gallatin was not "impressed with the 
 British" commissioners, as "men who have not made any mark and have no in- 
 fluence or weight, . . . but puppets of Lords Castlereagh and Liverpool." 
 He "felt quite capable of dealing with them." Diary of James Gallatin, 28. 
 
76 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 the first conference at our dwelling house, It would be more 
 expedient to hold It at a third place. The option of either 
 was offered them, and they assented to the proposal of meet- 
 ing at a third place. We met accordingly at one o'clock on 
 Monday the 8th Inst, and on the proposal of the British 
 commissioners agreed to hold the future conferences at each 
 other's houses alternately, and until they shall have taken 
 a house, entirely at ours.^ 
 
 We have the honor to enclose herewith copies of the full 
 powers produced by them at the first conference, and of the 
 protocol of the first and second conferences as ultimately 
 agreed to by mutual consent. They opened the subject of 
 our meetings by assurance that the British government had 
 a sincere and earnest desire that the negotiation might 
 terminate In the conclusion of a solid and honorable peace; 
 and particularly that no events which had occurred since 
 the first proposal for this negotiation had produced the 
 slightest alteration either In the pacific dispositions of Great 
 Britain, or In the terms upon which she would be willing to 
 concur In restoring to both countries the blessings of peace. 
 
 These professions were answered by us, for our govern- 
 ment and ourselves, with expressions of reciprocal earnest- 
 ness and sincerity In the desire of accomplishing a peace, 
 and of the satisfaction with which we received those they 
 had addressed to us. With regard to the first point stated 
 by them as a proper subject for discussion, that of Impress- 
 ment and allegiance, they intimated that the British govern- 
 ment did not propose this, as one which they were desirous 
 of discussing; but that In adverting to the origin of the war. 
 It was one which they could not overlook, among those which 
 they supposed likely to arise. ^ 
 
 • This paragraph, except the first sentence, was struck out. 
 
 * "In submitting this as the first topic we stated that we had no intention of offer- 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 77 
 
 The principal stress of their instructions appeared to have 
 been concentrated upon the second point — the Indian paci- 
 fication and boundary. Their statement of it in the first 
 
 Ij instance was in terms not conveying altogether the full im- 
 port of its meaning. The motive which they appeared to 
 
 Ij impress upon our minds as that of the British government 
 in this proposal, was fidelity to the interests of their Indian 
 aUies; a generous reluctance at concluding a peace with the 
 United States, leaving their auxiliaries unprotected from the 
 resentments of a more powerful enemy, and a desire by the 
 establishment of a definite boundary for the Indians to lay 
 the foundation of a permanent peace, not only to the In- 
 dians, but between the United States and Great Britain. 
 
 They expressly disclaimed any intention of Great Britain 
 to demand an acquisition of territory for herself. But upon 
 being questioned, whether it was understood as an effect of the 
 proposed Indian boundary that the United States and the 
 Indians would be precluded from the right they have hitherto 
 exercised of making amicable treaties between them, with- 
 out the consent of Great Britain; whether for example the 
 United States would be restricted from purchasing and they 
 from selling their lands; it was first answered by one ^ of the 
 commissioners that the Indians would not be restricted from 
 selling their lands, but the United States would be restricted 
 from purchasing them; and on reflection another ^ of the 
 commissioners observed that it was intended that the Indian 
 territories should be a barrier between the British posses- 
 sions and those of the United States; that both Great Britain 
 
 ing any specific proposition on this subject. We did it because the subject had 
 been put forward by the American government in such a manner as led us to sup- 
 pose that they would make it a principal topic of discussion." British Commis- 
 sioners to Lord Castlereagh, August 9, 1 8 14. Ms. 
 
 1 Goulburn. 
 
 2 William Adams. 
 
78 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 and the United States should be restricted from purchasing 
 their land, but that the Indians would not be restricted from 
 selling them to a third party. 
 
 On the point respecting the fisheries they stated that this 
 was regarded by their government as an object of minor 
 importance. That it was not intended to deny the right of 
 the Americans to the fisheries generally; but with regard to 
 the right of fishing within the limits of their jurisdiction, and 
 of landing and drying fish upon their territories, which had 
 been conceded by the treaties of peace heretofore, those 
 privileges would not be renewed without an equivalent. 
 
 They manifested some desire to be informed even at the 
 first meeting whether the American commissioners were in- 
 structed to treat with them upon these several points, and 
 they requested us to present to them such further points as 
 we might be instructed by our government to offer for dis- 
 cussion. They assented however to the desire expressed on 
 our part to consult together among ourselves, previous to 
 answering them in relation to the points presented by them, 
 or to stating those which we should offer on our part. This 
 was done at the second conference, and in the interval be- 
 tween the two we received the originals of your letters of 
 25 and 27 June, the duplicates of which have since then also 
 come to our hands. 
 
 At the second meeting ^ after answering that with re- 
 gard to the two points of the Indian pacification and bound- 
 ary, and the fisheries, we were not instructed to discuss them, 
 we observed that as they had not been objects of controversy 
 between the two governments heretofore, but were points 
 entirely new, to which no allusion had even been made by 
 Lord Castlereagh in his letter to you proposing this negotia- 
 tion, it could not be expected that they should have been 
 
 ' August 9. 
 
t ■ 
 
 1814I JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 79 
 
 ■anticipated by the government of the United States. That 
 it was a matter of course that our instructions should be con- 
 fined to the subjects of difference in which the war origi- 
 nated, and to the topics of discussion known by our govern- 
 ment to exist. That as to peace with the Indians, we con- 
 sidered that as an inevitable consequence of peace with 
 Great Britain; that the United States would have neither 
 interest nor motive for continuing the war against the Indians 
 separately. That commissioners had already been appointed 
 by the American government to treat of peace with them, 
 and that very possibly it might before this have been con- 
 cluded. That the policy of the United States towards the 
 Indians was the most liberal of that pursued by any nation. 
 That our laws interdicted the purchase of lands from them 
 by any individual, and that every precaution was taken to 
 prevent the frauds upon them which had heretofore been 
 practised by others. We remarked that this proposition to 
 give them a distinct boundary different from the boundary 
 already existing, a boundary to be defined by a treaty be- 
 tween the United States and Great Britain, was not only 
 new, it was unexampled. No such treaty had been made 
 by Great Britain, either before or since the American Revolu- 
 tion. No such treaty had to our knowledge ever been made 
 by any other European power. 
 
 In reply to the remark that no allusion had been made 
 to these new and extraordinary points in Lord Castlereagh's 
 letter to you. It was said that It could not be supposed that 
 Lord Castlereagh, in a letter merely proposing a negotiation, 
 should have enumerated the topics which might be proper 
 for discussion in the course, since those would naturally be 
 determined by the events which had subsequently occurred. 
 And this remark was made by the same gentleman,^ who 
 
 ' Goulburn. 
 
8o THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 had the day before assured us, zvith sufficient solemnity of 
 manner, that no events which had taken place since the 
 proposal of the negotiation had in the slightest degree altered 
 the pacific dispositions of the British government, or the 
 terms upon which she would be willing to conclude the peace. 
 
 Upon the observation from us that the proposition for an 
 Indian boundary was unexampled in the practice of civilized 
 nations, it was answered, that the Indians must in some 
 sort be considered as sovereigns, since treaties were concluded 
 with them both by Great Britain and the United States. 
 To which we replied by marking the obvious distinction be- 
 tween making treaties WITH them, and a treaty between two 
 civilized nations defining a boundary FOR them. 
 
 We informed the British commissioners, that we wished 
 to receive from them a statement of the views and objects 
 of Great Britain upon all the points, and expressed our readi- 
 ness to discuss them all. They inquired, whether, if they 
 should enter further upon discussion, and particularly on 
 the point respecting the Indian boundary, we could expect 
 that it would terminate by some provisional arrangement 
 which we could conclude subject to the ratification of our 
 government. 
 
 We said that as any arrangement to which we could agree 
 upon the subject must be without specific authority from 
 our government, it was not possible for us previous to dis- 
 cussion to decide whether an article on the subject could 
 be formed which would be mutually satisfactory, and to 
 which we should think ourselves, under our discretionary 
 powers, justified in acceding. [The difficulty that we felt we 
 stated in its full force from a principle of perfect candour. 
 They would perceive that nothing could be easier for us 
 than to admit that an article might be formed which we 
 would provisionally sign, and yet to break off upon the 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 8i 
 
 details of any article which we might discuss.] ^ That our 
 motive in asking the discussion was, that even if no arrange- 
 ment could be agreed to upon this point which was pre- 
 scribed to them as the sine qua non of a treaty, the govern- 
 ment of the United States might be possessed of the entire 
 and precise intentions of that of Great Britain upon it; and 
 the British government be fully apprised of all the objec- 
 tions on the part of the United States to any such arrange- 
 ment. That if unfortunately the present negotiation must 
 be broken off upon this preliminary, the two governments 
 might be aware of each other's views, and enabled to judge 
 of the expediency of a renewal of the negotiation. 
 
 The British commissioners objected that it would be wast- 
 ing time upon an unprofitable discussion, unless we could 
 give them the expectation that we should ultimately agree 
 to an article on this subject. They proposed an adjourn- 
 ment of an hour that we might have an opportunity of con- 
 sulting between ourselves, whether we could give them this 
 pledge of a possible assent on our part to their proposal. 
 We needed no time for such consultation, as there was no 
 hesitation upon the mind of any one of us with regard to it, 
 and we declined the adjournment. They then proposed to 
 suspend the conferences until they could consult their own 
 government on the state of things. They sent off a special 
 messenger the same evening, and we are now waiting for 
 the result.^ 
 
 1 The words In brackets were struck out. 
 
 2 "Under these circumstances it would be satisfactory to us to be furnished with 
 instructions of the most specific kind how far His Majesty's Government would be 
 disposed to accept of a provisional article as to an Indian boundary, subject to [the] 
 very dubious contingency of its ratification by the President of the United States; 
 and also whether His Majesty's Government would wish the negotiations to pro- 
 ceed upon any and what points in the event of no provisional article of this kind 
 being agreed to, which latter contingency, unless specific instructions are received 
 
82 THE WRITINGS OF (1814 
 
 It was agreed upon their proposition that a report should 
 be drawn up of the proceedings at these two meetings, by 
 each party, and that we should meet the next day to com- 
 pare and collate them together, and from the two form a 
 final protocol agreed to on both sides. The paper marked 
 (C) ^ is a copy of the report thus drawn up on our part. 
 We inclose it to make known to you the passages, to the 
 Introduction of which the British commissioners at this third 
 meeting objected. Their objections to some of the passages 
 were that they appeared rather to be argumentative, and 
 that the object of the protocol was to contain a mere state- 
 ment of facts. But they also objected to the insertion of 
 the fact, that they had declared the conferences suspended, 
 until they could obtain further Instructions from their 
 government. Such was nevertheless the fact, and the re- 
 turn of their messenger may perhaps disclose the motive of 
 their reluctance to Its appearing on the record. 
 
 We have the honor, etc. 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, August 16, 18 14. 
 American news presses upon us with an interest still in- 
 creasing and which will soon be but too powerful. It is im- 
 possible that the summer should pass over without bringing 
 Intelligence which will make our hearts ache; though I hope 
 and trust that nothing will or can happen that will break the 
 
 from the United States, appear to us by no means unlikely to happen." British 
 Commissioners to Lord Castlereagh, August 9, 1814. Ms. See also Goulburn to Earl 
 Bathurst, August 9, 18 14, in Wellington, Supplementary Despatches, Correspondence 
 and Memoranda, IX. 178. Castlereagh gave further instructions on August 14. 
 They are in Letters and Despatches of Lord Castlereagh, X. 86. 
 * Printed in American State Papers, Foreign Relations, III. 708. 
 
1814] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 83 
 
 spirit of our nation. We are but just now receiving the ac- 
 counts of the arrival of the reinforcements sent out in the 
 spring. Those of their operations must soon follow. In 
 Canada we have done nothing, while the superiority of force 
 was unquestionably on our side! What are we to expect 
 when an overwhelming superiority will be on that of the 
 enemy .^ We are catching at the straws of such trifles as the 
 affairs of Sandy Creek and Niagara, while the blow hangs 
 over us which we are told is to 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. 
 
 We had last Friday all the Americans in the city to dine 
 with us. We sat down to table twenty-two. The next 
 morning Captain Angus and Mr. Connell left the town. 
 The Captain returns to his ship, which is to sail on the 25th 
 inst. Connell could not obtain passage in her, nor any other 
 person, but those expressly named, or charged with dis- 
 patches. The morning they went away. Captain Angus said 
 to Mr. Shaler, "Well, I am going home and what shall I 
 say.'' The people will all be crowding about me for news — 
 what shall I tell them.'"' Says Shaler, tell them that the 
 day before you left Ghent you dined with the commissioners 
 and all the Americans in the place, and that at the dinner 
 Mr. A[dams] gave for a toast "Lawrence's last words." 
 Why, says Angus, "Do you think he meant anything by 
 it.?" "Tell them the fact," says Shaler, "and leave them 
 to judge of that." It is true that Mr. A. did give the toast, 
 but it is very strange that Shaler should have noticed and 
 recollected it! If he had meant anything, was it not much 
 more probable that it would have been instantly felt by 
 Captain Angus, himself a naval officer, than by a non- 
 combatant landsman.'' Angus did however finally sus- 
 
84 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 pect that Mr. A. meant something. What Is your opin- 
 ion.^ . . . 
 
 The ministerial English papers still tell us we are not to 
 have peace. An expedition said to be of 14,000 men is fitting 
 out, to sail by the first of September, bound to America. 
 Lord Hill ^ has the command of it, and at a dinner last week 
 promised the company that he would humble the Yankees, 
 and reduce them immediately to submission. . . . 
 
 TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE 
 
 No. 137. (James Monroe] 
 
 Ghent, 17 August, 1814. 
 Sir: 
 
 I have had the honor of receiving the duplicate of your 
 favor of 2 May, 18 14, and the original of that of 23 June, 
 the former purporting to Inclose a copy of a proclamation of 
 Admiral Cochrane declaring the whole American coast to 
 be in a state of blockade. But the copy of the proclamation 
 was not Inclosed. I have transmitted to Mr. Harris a copy 
 of the letter, together with one of the proclamation as It 
 appeared In the American newspapers, requesting him to 
 present the subject to the attention of the Russian govern- 
 ment. Mr. Harris arrived at St. Petersburg on the 17th 
 of July. 
 
 It is no pleasing part of my duty to state to you my con- 
 viction that neither this nor any other remonstrance against 
 the maritime outrages of Great Britain will find, or be able 
 to rouse, either in Russia, or in any other European state, a 
 spirit of resistance against the British pretensions or prac- 
 
 * Rowland Hill, first Viscount Hill (1772-1842). 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 85 
 
 tices. All the great powers of Europe are dependent upon 
 the good will of the British government for the attainment 
 of objects more important in their estimation than any thing 
 connected with the maritime questions. They have all 
 tacitly, if not formally, stipulated not to bring any of those 
 questions into the discussions at the Congress of Vienna 
 which is to be held in October, ultimately to settle the new 
 balance of Europe. Mr. Gallatin had an audience of the 
 Emperor Alexander at London, an account of which will be 
 transmitted to you, and from which you will perceive that, 
 although regretting the disregard unequivocally manifested 
 by the British government to his repeated offers of media- 
 tion, and to his wishes for peace between Great Britain and 
 the United States, he candidly expressed his intention to 
 take no further active part in urging the settlement of their 
 differences. Sweden is not only destitute of all means of 
 asserting any maritime or neutral rights against the preten- 
 sions of Britain, but it is by the assistance of Britain alone 
 that she can expect to accomplish the conquest of Norway. 
 Holland Is so far from possessing the means even of remon- 
 strating against the British maritime code, that her mer- 
 chants without a murmur submit to purchase from the 
 British Ambassador at the Hague a license to send a ship to 
 any of their own colonies. Such is the ordinance prescribed 
 to them by their own sovereign prince, and with which they 
 think it no derogation to their national honor and independ- 
 ence to comply. France and Spain are yet equally dependent 
 upon the will of England for their Intercourse with their 
 colonies; none of those either of France or Holland have been 
 restored to them. There is even no immediate prospect of 
 their restoration. In the arrangements with Holland the 
 British government has explicitly avowed the policy of load- 
 ing the trade of the Dutch to their colonies with burthens 
 
86 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 equal to those under which the English are obliged to carry 
 on the same commerce. It is probable that this principle, 
 of suffering no other nation to carry on commerce less bur- 
 thened with duties and charges than their own, will hence- 
 forth be an essential feature of the English policy, and I 
 consider it as one of their motives for continuing the war 
 with us upon which they are undoubtedly determined. 
 
 The dispatches from you to the joint mission which I had 
 been so long and so anxiously expecting, were received by 
 us on the day of our first conference with the British com- 
 missioners.^ They were of the utmost importance, inasmuch 
 as without them it would have been impossible for us to 
 proceed one step in the negotiation upon the points on which 
 the war originated. But you will see by our dispatches that 
 the British commissioners at the first conference formally 
 and in the most peremptory manner placed the war and the 
 negotiation upon a ground entirely new. They appeared 
 to mention the subject of impressment, with which they 
 connected their doctrine of unalienable allegiance, as a point 
 which they supposed we should be desirous of discussing, 
 but which their government would willingly pass over in 
 silence. They spoke of the fisheries also, rather to warn us 
 that we should want an article to secure us in the continuance 
 of the liberties we had enjoyed by the stipulations in the 
 treaties of 1782 and 1783, than to signify that they had any 
 wish to bring the subject into discussion. But from the first 
 moment they declared that the including of the Indians in 
 the peace, and the settling of an Indian boundary line, was 
 made by the British government a sine qua non to the con- 
 clusion of a treaty; and they attempted at the very first 
 meeting to entangle us in the alternative of conceding the 
 principle or of breaking off the negotiation. At the second, 
 
 ^ August 8. 
 
,8141 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 87 
 
 after they were informed that we had no instructions au- 
 thorizing us to treat with them on this point, they urged us 
 to the admission that we might agree to an article conceding 
 the principle, if they would open the discussion, and upon 
 our declining to make any such engagement, they instantly 
 proposed a suspension of the conferences until they should 
 consult their government. 
 
 So far as the intentions of the British government can be 
 collected from the newspapers it would appear that they 
 calculate upon an immediate rupture of this negotiation.^ 
 They have been taking up more than one hundred transports 
 for the conveyance of troops, and are stated to want more. 
 This object is a particular expedition, probably against 
 New Orleans, to be commanded by Lord Hill. They are to 
 be ready to sail from Cork on the first of September, and 
 their commander at a late dinner informed his table com- 
 panions that he was going to humble the Yankees, and re- 
 duce them immediately to terms of peace glorious to Great 
 Britain. 
 
 'This was also Gallatin's view. James Gallatin, Diary, 29. "But upon the 
 practicability of prosecuting the negotiation with any utility in the present im- 
 perfect state of the instructions of which the American negotiators avow them- 
 selves to be in possession, the whole seems to turn upon the point you have so 
 properly suggested: viz. whether the Commissioners will or will not take upon 
 themselves to sign a provisional agreement upon the points on which they have no 
 instruction. If they decline this, the British government sees no advantage in 
 prosecuting the discussions further, until the American negotiators shall have re- 
 ceived instructions upon these points. If on the contrary upon a candid explana- 
 tion of the principles upon which Great Britain is prepared to treat on these sub- 
 jects, they are willing upon their own responsibility to sign a provisional agree- 
 ment, the negotiation may proceed, and the treaty when concluded may be sent 
 with the British ratification to America, to be at once exchanged, if the American 
 government shall think fit to confirm the act of their Commissioners. The British 
 government cannot better evince their cordial desire for peace than by placing the 
 negotiation upon this issue." CastUreagh to the British Commissioners, August 14, 
 1814. 
 
88 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 The Sovereign Prince of the Netherlands has provision- 
 ally taken possession of the Belgic provinces, and by a proc- 
 lamation issued at Bruxelles has signified to the people of 
 this country that they are ultimately to be united with 
 Holland under his government. In this arrangement the 
 inclinations of the people have been as little consulted as in 
 the transfer of Norway to Sweden. There is no destination 
 which could be given to the inhabitants of Belgium to which 
 they would be so averse as that of being annexed to Holland. 
 France is also said to be strongly dissatisfied with this event, 
 and France begins to show symptoms of recovering her 
 voice in the general affairs of Europe. There are many 
 rumors of approaching war which, if not altogether un- 
 founded, will probably be dispelled by the negotiations at 
 the Congress of Vienna. The interest of all the European 
 powers except France is peace; and although France has a 
 strong interest and a stronger passion for an immediate re- 
 newal of the Continental war, her fear of England with the 
 undoubted bias of the present government will at least for 
 some time control the spirit of the nation and especially of 
 the army. 
 
 I am etc. 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, August 19, 18 14. 
 . . . Since I wrote you last we have neither seen nor 
 heard from the British commissioners. After the second 
 conference they sent off a messenger to London, to inquire 
 of their government whether they should have anything 
 more to say to us. Their messenger returned the evening 
 before last, but we have not a word from them yet. The 
 conferences have now been ten days suspended, and I may 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 89 
 
 say to you it is by no means clear that they will be renewed. 
 On our part we have never occasioned or asked the delay of 
 an hour. Between the first and the second conference we 
 received dispatches from the Secretary of State, which 
 Mr. Gallatin, Mr. Hughes and myself sat up until one the 
 next morning to decypher. This encroached something upon 
 my hour of retirement, which Is now regularly at 9 o'clock. 
 Hitherto we have had no evenings. We dine all together at 
 four, and sit usually at table until six. We then disperse to 
 our several amusements and avocations. 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 in other busi- 
 ness. We breakfast separately, each in his own chamber, 
 and meet almost every day for an hour or two between 
 breakfast and dinner. We are not troublesome to one an- 
 other, and If our landlord was not quite so anxious as he is 
 to fatten upon us too fast, we should live with as much satis- 
 faction as I believe would be possible at Bachelor's Hall. 
 We pay him a very liberal and generous price; but he was 
 to furnish the house completely and elegantly, which he 
 has not done; and as for the boarding part we give him a 
 fixed price by the head and the day; he requires a scolding 
 once or twice a week to make him provide us with tolerable 
 fare. 
 
 If, as It would appear by the preparations for the Man 
 Mountain (Lord HIll)'s expedition, the British government 
 mean to break us up before the first of September, our resi- 
 dence here will not extend beyond the month for which we 
 
90 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 positively took the house, and which has already more than 
 half elapsed; but as the autumn advances and the nights 
 lengthen if we are to stay here we shall find changes in our 
 condition, which to me particularly will be no improvement 
 of it. I find myself already compelled to abridge my walk 
 after dinner, and shall soon be obliged to give it up al- 
 together. I hope we shall have no winter evenings to dis- 
 pose of. . . . 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, August 23, 1814. 
 We had last Friday, after my letter of that day to you was 
 closed, a conference with the British commissioners at their 
 request, which will probably be the last. Lord Castlereagh 
 himself had arrived here the night before, and left this place 
 on his way to Bruxelles the day after. We did not see him,^ 
 but at the conference it is scarcely a figure of speech to say 
 that we felt him. Our opponents were not only charged 
 fourfold with obnoxious substance, they threw off much of 
 the suavity of form which they had observed before. ^ After 
 they had opened upon us their new battery from England, and 
 answered some questions put on our part, I told them, and 
 we all agreed on our side that our proceedings were now suffi- 
 ciently matured for us to be ready to receive from them a 
 written communication. They promised it to us without 
 
 ^ "During my stay of the greater part of two days at Ghent I did not see any 
 of the American Commissioners. They did not call upon or desire to see me, and 
 I thought my originating an interview would be considered objectionable and 
 awkward by our own Commissioners." Castlereagh to the Earl of Liverpool, Au- 
 gust 28, 1814. Wellington, Supplementary Despatches, IX. 192. Yet James Gal- 
 latin reports that Castlereagh saw Gallatin, and the son was present at the inter- 
 view. Diary, 30. 
 
 ^ See Gallatin to Monroe, August 20, 1814, In Adams, Writings of Gallatin, I. 637. 
 
,8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 91 
 
 delay, and sent it the next morning.^ We shall send our 
 answer in a day or two, and I believe we shall need to wait 
 no longer than for their reply. That may be sent to us in 
 an hour, or it may be delayed a week; the difference of which 
 will depend upon its length or its laconism. Everything 
 here has proceeded precisely as I had expected. It is not 
 possible that we should be detained beyond the last of this 
 month, unless it be for the arrangement of our papers. 
 
 Messrs. Bayard, Clay and Gallatin expect to return this 
 autumn to America. But their project now is to order the 
 Neptune round to Cherburg, Brest, or L'Orient; and to go 
 there by land to embark. They will thus have the oppor- 
 tunity of visiting Paris again. They suppose that by this 
 arrangement they may yet sail as early as the first of Octo- 
 ber; but it is much more likely they will not get away before 
 the first of November. Then an American coast in Decem- 
 ber will be very disagreeable. Some of them will run a great 
 risk of passing another winter in Europe. 
 
 Messrs. Delprat and Todd arrived here together on Satur- 
 day. Todd was to have gone in the John Adams, but on 
 reaching this city he received a letter from his mother 
 [Mrs. Madison], urging him at all events not to stay longer 
 in Europe than Mr. Gallatin. Todd's argument is that in 
 compliance with his mother's request, he must stay in 
 Europe as long as Mr. Gallatin, so he has postponed his 
 voyage until the departure of the Neptune, and talks of 
 
 1 "We accordingly made on this subject also [a revision of the frontier] an 
 explicit communication to the American plenipotentiaries at a conference which 
 took place on the 19th inst., at which the American plenipotentiaries confined 
 themselves to requiring from us mere explanations upon some incidental points 
 connected with the subject of our verbal communications to them. In conformity 
 with a wish expressed by them to receive a written statement on the subject we 
 addressed to them the note of which a copy is inclosed." British Commissioners to 
 Lord Castlereagh, August 26, 18 14. Ms. The note was dated August 19. 
 
92 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 returning Immediately to Paris. He has a very Important 
 motive to this step, for an oculist there has promised him, 
 if he will put himself for a few weeks under his hands, he 
 will make him look straight. He had also after all the mis- 
 fortune to fail of being presented. Mr. Crawford had 
 an audience, and delivered his credentials last Tuesday. 
 Todd was to have been presented at the same time, but the 
 Introducteur des Ambassadeurs forgot to send him notice in 
 time, so that he was disappointed. 
 
 Colonel Milligan has just returned from an excursion of 
 two days with Mr. Hughes to Antwerp. The Colonel is 
 going upon a visit to his relations in Scotland, with the In- 
 tention however of returning wherever the Neptune may 
 be In time to go by her. This place continues to be the 
 thoroughfare of all the Americans in Europe. They come and 
 look at us, and are off in such rapid succession that sometimes 
 I hear nothing of them until they are gone. Mr. Joseph 
 Russell departs this day for Paris. He desires me to re- 
 member him with his most particular respects to you. 
 
 We are not confined exclusively to visitors from our 
 country. Last Friday our old friend de Cabre came and 
 spent the evening with us. He Is going as Secretary of the 
 French legation to Copenhagen, and came round by this 
 city, twelve leagues out of his way, merely for the pleasure 
 of seeing us, and especially his intimate friend Hughes. 
 If besides that he came to reconnoitre, we know nothing of 
 It. I put him one or two prying questions, but he was as 
 ignorant as a simpleton. He knew nothing. . . .^ 
 
 ^ On the 23d, the Commissioners met at a dinner given by the Intendant of the 
 city, and Goulburn reported on the same day: "It is evident from their conversa- 
 tion that they do not mean to continue the negotiations at present. Mr. Clay, 
 whom I sat next to at dinner, gave me clearly to understand that they had de- 
 cided upon a reference to America for instructions, and that they conceived our 
 propositions equivalent to a demand for the cession of Boston or New York; and 
 
1814] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 93 
 
 ANSWER TO THE BRITISH COMMISSIONERS ' 
 
 [August 24, 1814.] 
 The undersigned Ministers plenipotentiary and extraor- 
 dinary from the United States of America have given to the 
 official note which they have had the honor of receiving 
 
 after dinner Mr. Bayard took me aside and requested that I would permit him to 
 have a little private and confidential conversation. Upon my expressing my readi- 
 ness to hear whatever he might like to say to me, he began a very long speech by 
 saying that the present negotiation could not end in peace, and that he was de- 
 sirous of privately stating (before we separated) what Great Britain did not appear 
 to understand, viz. that by proposing terms like those which had been offered we 
 were not only ruining all prospects of peace, but were sacrificing the party of which 
 he was a member to their political adversaries. He went into a long discussion upon 
 the views and objects of the several parties in America, the grounds upon which 
 they had hitherto proceeded, and the effect which a hostile or conciliatory disposi- 
 tion on our part might have upon them. He inculcated how much it was for our 
 interest to support the Federalists, and that to make peace was the only method of 
 supporting them effectually; that we had nothing to fear for Canada if peace were 
 made, be the terms what they might; that there would have been no difficulty 
 about allegiance, impressment, etc.; but that our present demands were what 
 America never could or would accede to. This was the general tenor of his conversa- 
 tion, to which I did not think it necessary to make much reply, and which I only 
 mention to you in order to let you know at the earliest moment that the negotia- 
 tion is not likely now to continue." Goulburn to Earl Bathurst, August 23, 1814. 
 Wellington, Supplementary Despatches, IX. 190. Castlereagh found a difficulty in 
 making concessions "under present circumstances upon the chance of such a body 
 containing all the varieties of American party agreeing amongst themselves to any 
 measure of responsibility, and further, upon the imperfect security that if they did 
 so it would be approved at home." To the Earl of Liverpool, August 28, 1814. lb., 
 193. 
 
 1 A draft by Adams. For the paper as sent see American State Papers, Foreign 
 Relations, HI. 711. This draft was considered on August 21. "I found, as 
 usual, that the draft was not satisfactory to my colleagues. On the general view 
 of the subject we are unanimous, but in my exposition of it, one objects to the form 
 and another to the substance of almost every paragraph. Mr. Gallatin is for strik- 
 ing out any expression that may be offensive to the feelings of the adverse party. 
 Mr. Clay is displeased with figurative language, which he thinks improper for a 
 
94 
 
 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 from His Britannic Majesty's Commissioners, the deliberate 
 attention which the importance of the contents required, 
 and have now that of transmitting to them their answer on 
 the several points to which it refers. 
 
 They would present to the consideration of the British 
 Commissioners that in Lord Castlereagh's letter to the 
 American Secretary of State, dated on the 4th of November 
 last, and proposing the present negotiation, his Lordship 
 pledges the faith of the British government, that they were 
 "willing to enter into discussion with the government of 
 America, for the conciliatory adjustment of the differences 
 subsisting between the States, with an earnest desire on their 
 part to bring them to a favorable Issue, upon principles of 
 perfect reciprocity not Inconsistent with the established 
 maxims of public law, and with the maritime rights of the 
 British empire." 
 
 It will doubtless be within the recollection of His Britannic 
 Majesty's Commissioners, that at the first conference which 
 the undersigned had the honor of holding with them they 
 gave on the part of their government to the undersigned 
 the most explicit assurances that no events which have oc- 
 curred since the first proposal for this negotiation, had In 
 any manner varied either the disposition and desire of the 
 British government that It might terminate In a peace 
 
 state paper. Mr. Russell, agreeing in the objections of the two other gentlemen, 
 will be further for amending the construction of every sentence; and Mr. Bayard, 
 even when agreeing to say precisely the same thing, chooses to say it only in his 
 own language. It was considered by all the gentlemen that what I had written was 
 too long, and with too much argument about the Indians." On the 23d "about 
 one-half of my draft was agreed to be struck out;" and on the 24th, after hours of 
 "sifting, erasing, patching, and amending, until we were all wearied, though none 
 of us was yet satisfied with amendment," Adams believed his matter made one- 
 fifth of the accepted paper, and almost all he had written on the law of nations as 
 applied to the Indians and European settlements in America had been omitted. 
 Adams, Memoirs, August 21-24, 18 14. 
 
 
,8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 95 
 
 honorable to both parties, or the terms upon which they 
 
 (would be willing to conclude it. 
 These remarks the undersigned trust will suffice to relieve 
 ' the British government from the surprise which their Com- 
 missioners have been instructed to express that the American 
 government had not provided the undersigned with in- 
 structions, authorizing them to treat with British commis- 
 sioners for the interests or pretensions of Indians situated 
 within the boundaries of the United States. 
 
 The undersigned might justly ask in what established 
 maxim of public law the British government have found the 
 right of one civilized nation to interfere with the concerns 
 of the Indians included within the territories of another? 
 If Great Britain considers the Indians as her subjects, what 
 established maxim of public law will warrant her in extend- 
 ing her claim to their allegiance to tribes inhabiting the 
 territory of the United States? If she considers them as 
 independent nations, where is her authority to treat for 
 II them, or to bind them by her engagements? The Com- 
 missioners of His Britannic Majesty have produced to the 
 undersigned their full powers to treat on the part of Great 
 Britain. But they have not yet done them the honor to 
 communicate to them their Indian full powers. 
 
 The undersigned are persuaded that they will not be con- 
 tradicted in the assertion that no maxim of public law has 
 hitherto been more universally established among the powers 
 of Europe, possessing territories in America; and particularly 
 none to which Great Britain has more uniformly and inflexibly 
 adhered, than that of suffering no interposition of a foreign 
 power, in the relations between the sovereign of the terri- 
 tory and the Indians situated upon it. 
 
 The proposition to constitute the Indian tribes into 
 neutral and independent nations to serve as a barrier be- 
 
96 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 tween the dominions of two European powers is not in- 
 deed without example. It was proposed by France in the 
 abortive negotiation which preceded the peace of 1763, 
 and rejected by an administration to which the British 
 nation is accustomed to look back with pride and ven- 
 eration. 
 
 The undersigned deem it proper further to observe that 
 independent of the insuperable objections which may render 
 such a proposition inadmissible on the part of the United 
 States, they could not assent to it without injustice toward 
 the Indians themselves. In precluding perpetually the 
 Indians from the right of selling their lands, they would 
 deprive them of a privilege of the highest importance and 
 advantage to them. It cannot be unknown to the British 
 government that the principal if not the only value of lands 
 to the Indian state of society is their property as hunting 
 grounds. That in the unavoidable, and surely not to be 
 regretted, progress of a population increasing with unex- 
 ampled rapidity, and of the civilized settlements conse- 
 quent upon it, the mere approximation of cultivated fields, 
 of villages and of cities, necessarily diminishes and by de- 
 grees annihilates the only quality of the adjoining deserts, 
 which makes them subject of Indian occupancy. The 
 unequivocal interest of the Indians there is to cede, for a 
 valuable consideration the remnant of that right, which 
 from the nature of things he must shortly cease to enjoy; 
 to retire from the forest which has already been deserted 
 by his prey, [into remote recesses of the wilderness where] ^ 
 and to yield for a liberal compensation to the hand of tillage 
 the soil which can no longer yield to him, either the pleasures, 
 the profits, or the substance of the chase. Such a liberal 
 
 ^ These words appear to have been added, but break the continuity of the sen- 
 
 tence. 
 
i8i4l JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 97 
 
 compensation is provided for them by the system of legisla- 
 tion adopted by the United States in their relations with all 
 the Indian tribes within their territories. Under this system, 
 the undersigned have already had the honor of informing the 
 British Commissioners, that an uninterrupted peace had 
 subsisted between the people of the United States and all 
 the Indian tribes within their limits, for a longer period of 
 time than ever had been known since the first settlement of 
 North America. Nor would that peace have been inter- 
 rupted to this day, had not the British government drawn 
 some of the Indians, and compelled others, to take their 
 side in the war. With those Indians the United States, as 
 the undersigned have already declared, have neither in- 
 terest nor inclination to continue the war. They have 
 nothing to ask of them but peace. Commissioners on the 
 part of the United States have been appointed to conclude 
 it with them, and the pacification may before this have been 
 accomplished. To a provisional article, similar to what has 
 been stipulated in former treaties, engaging that the Indians 
 within the territories of either party shall be restrained from 
 committing hostilities against the citizens, subjects, domin- 
 ions, or Indians of the other, the undersigned might assent, 
 subject to the ratification of their government, as proposed 
 by the British Commissioners, but under the color of giving 
 to perhaps 20,000 Indians, and the tribes for which this 
 provision is proposed to be made cannot much exceed that 
 number, the rights of sovereignty, attributable only to 
 civilized nations, and a boundary not asked or consented to 
 by themselves, to surrender both the rights of sovereignty 
 and of soil, over nearly one-third of the territorial dominions 
 of the United States, the undersigned are so far from being 
 instructed or authorized by their government, that they 
 assure the British Commissioners it will never be conceded 
 
98 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 by the United States, so long as they are in a condition to 
 contest the last badge of submission to a conqueror. 
 
 The undersigned may be permitted further to suggest in 
 reference to the motive assigned by the British government 
 for this proposal of a permanent Indian boundary, that 
 nothing could be so ill-adapted to the purpose which it would 
 be intended to accomplish. To place a number of wandering 
 Indian hunters, comparatively so small and insignificant, in 
 a state of nominal independence, on the borders of a free 
 and civilized nation, chiefly of British descent, whose settle- 
 ments must correspond with their increasing numbers, and 
 whose numbers must increase in proportions unknown be- 
 fore in human annals, would be not only to expose both the 
 parties to those incessant and fatal collisions, to which the 
 unsettled relations between men in the civilized and the 
 savage state must always be liable, but it must ultimately 
 be to produce the total destruction of that party which such 
 a project professes to protect. Were it possible for Great 
 Britain at this moment to extort from the United States a 
 concession so pernicious and so degrading, can she imagine 
 that the growing multitudes of the American people would 
 long endure the shackles which the humiliating condition 
 would impose upon them? Can she believe that the swarm- 
 ing myriads of her own children, in the process of converting 
 the western wilderness to a powerful empire, could long be 
 cramped or arrested by a treaty stipulation confining whole 
 regions of territory to a few scattered hordes of savages, 
 whose numbers to the end of ages would not amount to the 
 population of one considerable city? Were the boundary 
 to remain even inviolable on the part of the United States, 
 it is neither in the right nor in the power of Great Britain 
 to secure it from transgression by the Indians themselves. 
 Incessant wars between the Indians and the borderers would 
 
1814] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 99 
 
 be the inevitable result, and of these wars all former ex- 
 perience and all rational forecast concur to prove that cruel 
 and inhuman as their operations would be to the American 
 settlers, they could only terminate in the total destruction 
 of their savage foes. 
 
 As little are the undersigned instructed or empowered to 
 accede to the propositions of the British government in re- 
 lation to the military command of the western lakes. If 
 they have found the proposal of an Indian boundary 
 wholly incompatible with every established maxim of public 
 law, they are no less at a loss to discover by what rule of 
 perfect reciprocity the United States can be required to 
 renounce their equal right of maintaining a naval force upon 
 those lakes, and of fortifying their own shores, while Great 
 Britain reserves exclusively the corresponding rights to 
 herself. That in point of military preparation, the British 
 possessions in North America ever have been, or in any time 
 of peace are ever likely to be in a condition to be termed 
 with propriety the weaker power in comparison with the 
 United States, the undersigned believe to be incorrect in 
 point of fact. In regard to the fortification of the shore, and 
 to the forces actually kept on foot upon those frontiers, they 
 believe the superiority to have always been, and on the re- 
 turn of peace again likely to be on the side of Great Britain. 
 If the relative strength of the parties were a substantial 
 ground for requiring that the strongest should dismantle the 
 forts upon her shores, strike forever her military flag upon 
 the lakes, and lay her whole frontier bare and defenceless in 
 the presence of her armed and fortified neighbor, that pro- 
 posal should have come in due consistency with the fact, 
 not from Great Britain to the United States, but from the 
 United States to Great Britain. The undersigned may safely 
 appeal to the bosoms of His Britannic Majesty's Commis- 
 
 \; 
 
loo THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 sioners for the feelings with which not only in regard to the 
 interests, but to the honor of their nation, they would have 
 received such a proposal. 
 
 The undersigned further perceive that under the alleged 
 purpose of opening a direct communication between two of 
 the British provinces in America, the British government 
 require a cession of territory forming a part of one of the 
 states of the American union, and that without purpose 
 specifically alleged, they propose to draw the future bound- 
 ary line westward, not like the present boundary from the 
 Lake of the Woods, but from Lake Superior. It must be 
 perfectly immaterial to the United States whether the object 
 of the British government in demanding the dismemberment 
 of the United States is to acquire territory as such, or for 
 purposes less liable in the eyes of the world to be ascribed to 
 the rapacity of ambition.^ Whatever the motive may be, 
 and with whatever consistency views of conquest may be 
 disclaimed, while demanding a cession of territory more ex- 
 tensive than the whole island of Great Britain, the duty 
 marked out for the undersigned is the same. They have no 
 authority to cede one inch of the territory of the United 
 States, and to no stipulation to that effect will they subscribe. 
 
 The undersigned deem it proper here to notice an in- 
 timation apparently held out towards the close of the note 
 of the British Commissioners as an amicable warning to 
 themselves. They are informed that unless they will, with- 
 out even referring to their government, sign a provisional 
 article on a point concerning which they had expressly de- 
 clared they were not Instructed, and to which they trust 
 they have proved it was Impossible they should be impowered 
 to accede, the British government "cannot be precluded by 
 
 1 See Russell to Clay, October 15, 1815, in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings, XLIV. 
 313- 
 
isi4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS iQi 
 
 anything that has passed from varying the terms at present 
 proposed, in such a manner as the state of the war at the 
 time of resuming the conferences may in their judgment 
 render advisable." The undersigned are well aware that 
 the British government cannot be precluded from varying 
 the terms proposed by themselves, whenever they think 
 proper; but they remind the British Commissioners that at 
 the very second day of their meetings with the undersigned, 
 they themselves found it advisable not to proceed in the 
 conferences, until they should have recurred for fresh in- 
 structions to their own government. That a reference of 
 plenipotentiaries to their government upon points which 
 could not have been foreseen, and in all respects of the most 
 extraordinary complexion, will justly warrant the other 
 party in varying the terms proposed by herself, the under- 
 signed can by no means admit. They believe it to be as 
 contrary to the usage of pacific negotiation as it is to the 
 spirit and purpose of peace. If by this admonition the 
 British government intended to disclose the suspicion that 
 the undersigned were seeking pretexts for delay, they trust 
 that the explicit nature of the present communication will 
 remove every such impression. If the object was to operate 
 upon the fears of the undersigned, to induce them by a 
 menace to sign in violation of their instructions the provi- 
 sional disgrace of their country, they flatter themselves the 
 British government will not be surprised to find them un- 
 prepared to purchase even the present moderation of Great 
 Britain by treachery to their liberty and their country. 
 
 It is well known to Great Britain and to the world that 
 the present war owed neither its origin nor its continuance to 
 any desire of conquest on the part of the United States; 
 that on the contrary its causes were, etc.^ 
 
 1 The Ms. ends thus abruptly. The British Commissioners drew up a proposed 
 
I02 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, August 26, 18 14. 
 . . . These embarrassments [Irregularities in post office], 
 however, will not be much longer troublesome to either 
 of us. There is no prospect, I might almost say, no possi- 
 bility, that I should be here to receive your answer to 
 
 reply to the American note of August 24, and sent it to Castlereagh. It is printed 
 in Wellington, Supplementary Despatches, IX. 194. Castlereagh, however, be- 
 lieved the reply to be made of such importance that it should be made under the 
 instructions of the Cabinet, and sent the papers to the Earl of Liverpool, who wrote 
 to the Duke of Wellington, September 2: "We had prepared an answer to the note 
 of the American Commissioners before we received Castlereagh's letter, and very 
 much in the spirit of the memorandum which he sent us. Copies of these papers 
 shall be transmitted to you in a few days. Our Commissioners had certainly taken 
 an erroneous view of the line to be adopted. It is very material to throw the rup- 
 ture of the negotiation, if it is to take place, upon the Americans, and not to allow 
 them to say that we have brought forward points as ultimate which were only 
 brought forward for discussion, and at the desire of the American Commissioners 
 themselves. 
 
 "The American note is a most impudent one, and, as to all its reasoning, capable 
 of an irresistible answer, which, if it should be necessary to publish, will, I am per- 
 suaded, have its proper effect in America." lb., 212. 
 
 Liverpool also wrote to Castlereagh on the same date: "If the negotiation had 
 been allowed to break off upon the two notes already presented, or upon such an 
 answer as they were disposed to return, I am satisfied the war would have become 
 quite popular in America. I was the more surprised at this circumstance as I 
 never read a paper more easy to answer, as to its reasonings, than the paper of the 
 American Commissioners. . . . We have avoided as much as possible com- 
 mitting ourselves on anything which is likely to create embarrassment hereafter; 
 and our reasoning on the subject of the avowed intentions of the American govern- 
 ment to conquer and annex Canada can hardly fail to make a considerable im- 
 pression on the reasonable people in the United States. 
 
 "We cannot expect that the negotiation will proceed at present, but I think it 
 not unlikely, after our note has been delivered in, that the American Commis- 
 sioners will propose to refer the subject to their government. In that case the nego- 
 tiation may be adjourned till the answer is received, and we shall know the result 
 of the campaign before it can be resumed. 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 103 
 
 this letter, unless detained by accident or some other cause 
 not to be foreseen. I fully expect that the negotiation here 
 will be terminated before the first of next month. I believe 
 it to be substantially terminated already. . . . 
 
 With the house itself we are now so well satisfied that we 
 should certainly keep it for another month if we had any 
 prospect of staying so long here. Our landlord now gives 
 us tolerable satisfaction, and we continue to harmonize per- 
 fectly well with one another. This harmony most happily ex- 
 tends to our public concerns no less than to our private re- 
 lations. We have had much and free deliberation; but with 
 regard to the great principles of our proceedings have been 
 constantly unanimous. Yesterday we sent our answer to 
 the British note, and shall, as we expect, have nothing more 
 to write to our adverse party on the substance of our busi- 
 ness. The forms of parting will be all that remains after 
 their reply. Of this, however, I cannot speak positively 
 until their reply comes. We might have had that now, for 
 it might be a card pour prendre conge. But as they could not 
 well send us that until after the dinner to which they have 
 invited us tomorrow, they may perhaps be waiting to get 
 that over. As however we have given them some reasoning 
 to dispose of, they may perhaps furnish us with some of the 
 same commodity in return. In that case we shall find it 
 necessary to rejoin and may be kept here a week longer. 
 From what has already passed it is impossible that the 
 negotiation should succeed. . . . 
 
 We have no news from America of any importance since 
 the taking of Fort Erie and the afi"air at Niagara. That was 
 
 "If our commander does his duty, I am persuaded we shall have acquired by our 
 arms every point on the Canadian frontier which we ought to insist on keeping." 
 
 The Cabinet draft of a reply to the American Commissioners, dated September i, 
 is in Wellington, Supplementary Despatches, IX. 245. 
 
I04 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 a brilliant action upon our side, but, as usual, not followed 
 up by any thing else. When our landsmen have struck one 
 lucky blow, they seem to think they have conquered the 
 world, and have nothing left to do but to slumber upon their 
 laurels. The English accounts from Halifax are to i Au- 
 gust — nothing worth telling. Could I but hope the same for 
 the next six months, how many heart-aches I should be 
 spared! It is a painful process that I am going through; 
 but It is some consolation that the part I am doomed to 
 perform in the prolongation of this tragedy has never re- 
 quired an instant of hesitation with respect to the path 
 pointed out by my duty, and that in this respect there has 
 not been a shadow of difference of opinion between any one 
 of my colleagues and me. . . . 
 
 TO WILLIAM HARRIS CRAWFORD 
 
 Ghent, 29 August, 18 14. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 I scarcely know how to apologize to you for having yet 
 to reply to your favor of 12 July, which was received by me 
 on the 1 6th. The simple fact has been that being without 
 the assistance of a secretary, and having to dispatch by the 
 John Adams the return of nearly a year's correspondence 
 from our own country, I postponed from day to day the 
 reply due to you, merely because it could at any day be 
 transmitted, until several weeks have elapsed leaving the 
 duty still to be performed. 
 
 I have been the less scrupulous in performing it sooner, 
 because I have known that some of our colleagues were more 
 punctual, and particularly that our excellent friend Mr. Clay 
 had kept you well informed of the progress of our negotia- 
 tion. The result has been such as was to be expected. 
 
,8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 105 
 
 It is natural we should feel, and we do all feel, a deep dis- 
 appointment at the failure of this attempt to restore to our 
 country the blessings of peace; especially as by changing the 
 grounds upon which the war is to be continued. Great 
 Britain has opened to us the alternative of a long, expensive, 
 sanguinary war, or of submission to disgraceful conditions 
 and sacrifices little short of independence itself. It is the 
 crisis which must try the temper of our country. If the 
 dangers which now hang over our heads should intimidate 
 our people into the spirit of concession, if the temper of com- 
 pounding for sacrifices should manifest itself in any strength 
 there will be nothing left us worth defending. But if our 
 countrymen are not all bastards, if there is a drop of the 
 blood flowing in their veins that carried their fathers through 
 the Revolutionary war, the prolongation of hostilities will 
 only be to secure ultimately to us a more glorious triumph. 
 I have not so ill opinion of them as to believe they will suc- 
 cumb immediately in the struggle before them; but I wish 
 the real statesmen among us may form, what I fear few of 
 them have yet formed, a true estimate of our condition. I 
 wish them to look all our dangers in the face and to their 
 full extent. The rupture of this negotiation not only frus- 
 trates all hope of peace for the present year, but at least also 
 for the next. All the present preparations in England are 
 calculated for operation the next campaign. The forces 
 they have sent out already, and those they are about to dis- 
 patch are so large, and composed of such troops that they 
 must in the first instance make powerful impressions and 
 obtain brilliant successes. The actual state of things both 
 in Europe and America, as well as the experience of our 
 former war, prove this to as full demonstration as if the 
 official accounts were already published in the London 
 Gazette. The spirit that is prepared for disaster is least 
 
io6 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 likely to be broken down by it when it comes. We must not 
 flatter ourselves with delusive estimates of our dangers, and 
 we must expect to pass through the career of British triumph 
 and exultation at our calamities, before we can lead them 
 to the result that they bring our enemy no nearer to his 
 object than his defeats. 
 
 Mr. Russell and myself have received an instruction of the 
 same tenor from the Secretary of State, to make a repre- 
 sentation against Cochrane's proclamation of blockade of 
 25 April last. I suppose you must have received a similar 
 instruction. It would be gratifying and perhaps useful for 
 us to know, whether this is the case; and, if so, whether you 
 have done anything under the instruction; and generally 
 what are the views of this subject entertained at the present 
 court of France. 
 
 You are informed that we have rejected the preliminary 
 sine qua non to which the adverse party has adhered. We 
 are only waiting for their official reply and shall not remain 
 here beyond a week or ten days. I am etc.^ 
 
 1 "I am inclined to think that the calm which now prevails in Europe will be of 
 short duration. The existence of combustible materials has never been so general 
 as at the present moment. The result of the conferences at Vienna is more likely 
 to kindle than to extinguish the smothered flame. The deranged state of the finan- 
 ces of all the continental powers calls for peace, but the impulse which the turbu- 
 lent spirits of these nations have received with the last two years will strongly im- 
 pel them to war. The different pretensions of the parties to the territory recovered 
 by their joint efforts, from France and in Italy, will not be easily reconciled. The 
 provisional governments established in the most of those countries will, by the 
 time that the Congress at Vienna shall have finished its labors, have greatly con- 
 tributed to the discontents already existing there. Perhaps the best security for 
 the peace of Europe will be found in the disaffection of the French troops, and the 
 general apprehension or rather horror, of further revolutions. I believe the Em- 
 peror Napoleon is much more popular now, in France, than he has been for several 
 years past. The total extinction of the liberty of the press, which still continues to 
 exist, will prevent the monarch from knowing or even suspecting, the increasing 
 popularity of the late occupant of his throne." Crawford to John Quincy Adams, 
 July 12, 18 14. Ms. 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 107 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, August 30, 1814. 
 
 . . . I should therefore from the commencement of 
 the ensuing month write you only once a week, if I had the 
 prospect of remaining here; but we shall all have evacuated 
 this place by the 15th. We are in hourly expectation of re- 
 ceiving the reply of the British plenipotentiaries to our notes 
 in answer to them, and we already know that it will con- 
 tain a refusal to continue the negotiation.^ I have not yet 
 ultimately fixed either the manner of my return to St. Peters- 
 burg, whether by land or by water, or if by land the road 
 by which I shall travel. ... If I lengthen the journey 
 upon my return, it will assuredly not be for amusement, or 
 to gratify my personal curiosity. . . . 
 
 We dined last Saturday ^ with the British plenipoten- 
 tiaries, and were entertained as courteously as was to be 
 expected. There was no other company but ourselves. 
 Mrs. Goulburn was the only lady present, and was agreeable; 
 
 ^ We have some days since [on the 31st] informed the Americans that we had 
 deemed it necessary to refer our answer to the government previous to sending it 
 to them; and although they pressed for the earliest possible answer, yet they had 
 nothing to say to this communication. Some one or other of them have called 
 daily since to know if we had got an answer. Indeed, their only anxiety appears 
 to get back to America. Whenever we meet them they always enter into unofficial 
 discussions, much of the same nature as the conversation with which Mr. Bayard 
 indulged me; but we have given no encouragement to such conversations, thinking 
 that they are liable to much misrepresentation; and cannot lead to any good pur- 
 pose. All that I think I have learnt from them is this: that Mr. Adams is a very 
 bad arguer, and that the Federalists are quite as inveterate enemies to us as the 
 Madisonians. Those who know anything of America or Americans probably knew 
 this before." Goulburn to Earl Bathurst, September 2, 18 14. Wellington, Supple- 
 mentary Despatches, IX. 217. He had talked with Adams on the previous day. 
 Memoirs, III. 24. 
 
 - August 27. 
 
io8 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 or, to speak more properly, very studious not to give offense. 
 I thought her handsomer than I had the day we had dined 
 at the Intendant's. There was a sufficient labor of attention 
 to us to show that they all meant to be well-bred, but the 
 success was not always equal to the effort. By some un- 
 accountable singularity, all the little occasional asperities 
 that have occurred in our Intercourse with the other party 
 have been between the Chevalier [Bayard] and the Doctors 
 Commons lawyer [Adams]. This personage has pretensions 
 to wit, and wishes to pass himself off for a sayer of good 
 things. The Chevalier, who is a sportsman, was speaking of 
 a fowling piece on a new construction, price fifty guineas, 
 which was primed with one grain of fulminating powder. 
 The Doctor thought that no fowling price could be good for 
 any thing that cost more than five guineas. He hinted to 
 the Chevalier that his fifty guineas musket was a gimcrack — 
 a philosophical whimsey, better for shooting a problem than 
 a partridge; and he was [as] liberal of his sarcasms uponi' 
 philosophy as he could have been, if delivering a dissertation 
 upon gun-boats and dry-docks. The choice of the person 
 upon whom this blunderbuss of law discharged Its volley of 
 ridicule against philosophy diverted us all, and you may 
 judge how much It delighted our colleague of the Treasury 
 [Gallatin.] The Chevalier pronounces our namesake to be 
 a man of no breeding. . . . 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 109 
 
 TO GEORGE JOY 
 
 ' Ghent, 31 August, 18 14. 
 
 Sir: 
 
 Your favors of 9, 12, and 26 August, have been duly re- 
 j ceived by me, and although I am sensible that an intercourse 
 by which valuable information is communicated on one side 
 while nothing is given in return cannot with a good grace 
 be requested, I still reply to your letters in the hope that 
 I your mundanism will overlook the disadvantages of the com- 
 pact, and make allowances for the reserve which official 
 duty may sometimes command, and official gravity some- 
 times affect. I know not anything that would give me 
 greater pleasure than your making a fortune by a peace, 
 unless it were to make the peace that should make your for- 
 tune; but for the prospects and adventures of the negotia- 
 j tion I must yet refer my correspondents in England to the 
 j Courier and the Morning Chronicle; or, if they are lovers of 
 I neutrality, to the Times, which as Times go I seldom see, 
 but which may be none the worse informed for that. 
 
 The solicitude which I manifested in a former letter, that 
 your opinions might not be mistaken for ours, arose not 
 merely from the possibility that such an error might arise, 
 but from the fact that on a point to which you had referred, 
 they were not the same. I have now seen the gentleman 
 with whom you had the correspondence and the conversa- 
 tion prior to his departure, and have had the opportunity 
 of forming my own opinion of his suavity and of his rigor. ^ 
 If we should not ultimately part the best friends in the world, 
 I shall use my best endeavors that we may not part foes, 
 either politically or individually. 
 
 '■ Dr. William Adams. 
 
no THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 The rise of cottons and tobacco on the 26th doubtless had 
 a cause, and I am obliged to you for the information of the 
 effect. But you know the Royal Exchange is the very focus 
 of great effects from little causes. I am etc. 
 
 TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE 
 No. 139. [James Monroe] 
 
 Ghent, 5 September, 18 14. 
 
 Sir: 
 
 On the 25th ultimo we sent in to the British plenipoten- 
 tiaries an answer to their note, and have every reason to 
 expect that before this day the negotiation would have been 
 terminated. Two days afterwards Mr. Bayard was ex- 
 plicitly told in a conservation with Mr. Goulburn that their 
 reply would be sent to us without delay, and that they should 
 have no occasion previous to sending it for any further refer- 
 ence to their government. On Wednesday, the 31st, Mr. 
 Baker called upon Mr. Gallatin with an apology for a delay 
 of a very few days, the British Plenipotentiaries having 
 concluded, in consideration of the great importance of the 
 thing, to send their note to England for the approbation of 
 their government before they transmitted it to us. The 
 next morning I had a conversation with Mr. Goulburn which 
 convinced me that the sole object of this reference was to 
 give a greater appearance of deliberation and solemnity to 
 the rupture.^ 
 
 ^ "I confess that I have little hopes of its producing any change in the decision 
 of the American plenipotentiaries. Many things have, ever since the commence- 
 ment of the negotiation, shown that their government had no real intention of 
 making peace, but had acceded to the proposal of negotiating with the sole view 
 
1814] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 11 1 
 
 Some of the particulars of this conversation render it In 
 my mind sufficiently Interesting for the substance of It to 
 be reported to you.^ I began It by expressing some satis- 
 faction at having learnt their reference to their government, 
 as It tended to encourage the hope that they would reconsider 
 some part of their proposals to the United States. He did 
 not think it probable, and in the whole tenor of his discourse 
 I perceived a spirit of Inflexible adherence to the terms which 
 we have rejected; ^ but, under the cover of a personal de- 
 portment sufficiently courteous, a rancorous animosity 
 against America which disclosed there was nothing like 
 peace at the heart. 
 
 The great argument to which he continually recurred In 
 support of the Indian boundary and the exclusive military 
 possession of the Lakes by the British, was the necessity of 
 them for the security of Canada. The American govern- 
 ment, he said, had manifested the intention and the de- 
 termination of conquering Canada. 
 
 And excepting you (said he) I believe it was the astonishment of 
 the whole world that Canada had not been conquered at the very 
 outset of the war. Nothing could have saved it but the excellent 
 
 of deriving from the negotiations some means of reconciling the people of America 
 to the continuance of war. The Indian boundary appears to them calculated to 
 answer this object, and their desire of negotiating is therefore at an end." Goulburn 
 to Earl Bathurst, September 5, 1814. Wellington, Supplementary Despatches, 
 IX. 221. 
 
 * See also Adams, Memoirs, September i, 1814. 
 
 * "He gave me every reason to believe that it [the answer] would vary nothing 
 from their former communications. In that case the delay will only be until the 
 return of their messenger. To say the truth, we ought to wish there may be no 
 variation. Success is out of the question, and it is impossible that we should fail 
 in a more advantageous manner than as the matter now stands. And I have an 
 inexpressible reluctance at being kept, to be turned off with the news upon which 
 they are reckoning from America." To Louisa Catherine Adams, September 2, 
 181A. Ms. 
 
112 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 dispositions and military arrangements of the Governor who com- 
 manded there. We were then not prepared for an attack upon 
 that province with such an overwhelming force. But now we have 
 had time to send reinforcements, and I do not think you will 
 conquer it. In order, however, to guard against the same thing 
 in future it is necessary to make a barrier against the American 
 settlements, upon which neither party shall be permitted to en- 
 croach. The Indians are but a secondary object. As the allies 
 of Great Britain she must include them in the peace, as in making 
 peace with other powers she included Portugal as her ally. But 
 when the boundary is once defined it is immaterial whether the 
 Indians are upon it or not. Let it be a desert. But we shall know 
 that you cannot come upon us to attack us, without crossing it. 
 The stipulation to maintain no armed force on the Lakes is for 
 the same purpose — the security of Canada. I can see nothing dis- 
 honorable or humiliating in it. The United States can never be 
 in any danger of invasion from Canada. The disproportion of 
 force is too great. But Canada must always be in the most immi- 
 nent danger of invasion from the United States, unless guarded by 
 some such stipulations as are now demanded. It can be nothing 
 to the United States to agree not to arm upon the Lakes, since they 
 never had actually done it before the present war. Why should 
 they object to disarming there where they had never before had 
 a gun floating. 
 
 I answered that the conquest of Canada had never been 
 an object of the war on the part of the United States. It 
 has been invaded by us in consequence of the war, as they 
 themselves had Invaded many parts of the United States. 
 It was an effect and not a cause of the war. I thought with 
 him that we should not nozv conquer It. But I had no doubt 
 we should, and that at no very distant period, If any such 
 terms as they now required should ever be submitted to by 
 us. The American government, I said, never had declared 
 the intention of conquering Canada. He referred to General 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 113 
 
 Hull's proclamation. I answered that the American govern- 
 ment was not responsible for that. It was no uncommon 
 thing for commanding officers to issue proclamations which 
 were disavowed by their government, of which a very recent 
 example had occurred in a proclamation of Admiral Coch- 
 rane. He said that the American government had not dis- 
 avowed Hull's proclamation, and that the British govern- 
 ment had not disavowed any proclamation of Admiral 
 Cochrane's. I replied that the American government had 
 never been called upon either to avow or disavow Hull's 
 proclamation, but I had seen in a printed statement of the 
 debates in the House of Commons that Lord Castlereagh 
 had been called upon to say whether Admiral Cochrane's 
 proclamation had been authorized or not, and had answered 
 that it was not. He said that Lord Castlereagh had been 
 asked whether a proclamation of Admiral Cochrane's, en- 
 couraging the negroes to revolt, had been authorized by the 
 government, and had answered in the negative; that is, that 
 no proclamation encouraging the negroes to revolt had been 
 authorized. But the proclamation of Admiral Cochrane 
 referred to gave no such encouragement, there was not a 
 word about negroes in it. It merely offered employment or 
 a settlement in the British colonies to such persons as might 
 be disposed to leave the United States. I asked him what 
 was the import of the term free used in the proclamation in 
 connection with the offer of settlements.? He answered the 
 question with some hesitation, but admitted that it might 
 be understood as having reference to slaves. I admitted on 
 my part that the word "negroes" was not in the proclama- 
 tion, but remarked that he must be as sensible as I was that 
 it could have reference only to them. That certainly no 
 person in America could mistake its meaning. It was un- 
 questionably intended for the negroes, and corresponded 
 
114 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 sufRcIently with the practice of others of their naval officers. 
 It was known that some of them, under similar inducements, 
 had taken away blacks who had afterwards been sold in the 
 West India islands. Upon this Mr. Goulburn, with an 
 evident struggle to suppress a feeling of strong irritation, 
 said, ^Uhat he could undertake to deny in the most unquali- 
 fied terms; the character of British naval officers was uni- 
 versally known, their generosity and humanity could never 
 be contested; and besides that since the act of Parliament 
 of 181 1, the act of selling any man for a slave, unless real 
 slaves, from one British island to another, was felony with- 
 out benefit of clergy. I replied that without contesting the 
 character of any class of people generally, it was certain 
 there would be in all classes individuals capable of commit- 
 ting actions of which others would be ashamed. That at a 
 great distance from the eye and control of the government, 
 acts were often done with impunity, which would be severely 
 punished nearer home. That the facts I had stated to him 
 were among the objects which we were instructed to present 
 for consideration, if the negotiation should proceed, and he 
 .might in that case find it more susceptible of proof than he 
 was aware. He thought it impossible, but that it was one 
 of those charges against their officers, of which there were 
 many, originating only in the spirit of hostility and totally 
 destitute of foundation. 
 
 With respect to the Indian allies, I remarked that there 
 was no analogy between them and the case of Portugal. 
 The peace would of itself include all the Indians included 
 within the British limits; but the stipulation which might 
 be necessary for the protection of Indians situated within 
 the boundaries of the United States who had taken the 
 British side in the war, was rather in the nature of an am- 
 nesty than of a provision for allies. It resembled more the 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 115 
 
 case of subjects who in cases of invasion took part with the 
 invader, as had sometimes happened to Great Britain in 
 Ireland. He insisted that the Indians must be considered 
 as independent nations, for that we ourselves made treaties 
 with them and acknowledged boundaries of their territories. 
 I said that wherever they would form settlements and cul- 
 tivate lands, their possessions were undoubtedly to be 
 respected, and always were respected by the United States. 
 That some of them had become civilized in a considerable 
 degree; the Cherokees, for example, who had permanent 
 habitations and a state of property like our own. But the 
 greater part of the Indians never could be prevailed upon 
 to adopt this mode of life. Their habits, and attachments, 
 and prejudices were so averse to any settlement that they 
 could not reconcile themselves to any other condition than 
 that of wandering hunters. It was impossible for such 
 people ever to be said to have possessions. Their only right 
 upon land was a right to use it as hunting grounds; and when 
 those lands where they hunted became necessary or con- 
 venient for the purposes of settlement, the system adopted 
 by the United States was by amicable arrangement with 
 them to compensate them for renouncing the right of hunting 
 upon them, and for removing to remoter regions better 
 suited to their purposes and mode of life. This system of 
 the United States was an improvement upon the former 
 practice of all European nations, including the British. The 
 original settlers of New England had set the first example of 
 this liberality towards the Indians, which was afterwards 
 followed by the founder of Pennsylvania. Between it and 
 taking the lands for nothing, or exterminating the Indians 
 who had used them, there was no alternative. To condemn 
 vast regions of territory to perpetual barrenness and solitude, 
 that a few hundred savages might find wild beasts to hunt 
 
ii6 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 upon it, was a species of game law that a nation descended 
 from Britons would never endure. It was as incompatible 
 with the moral as with the physical nature of things. If 
 Great Britain meant to preclude forever the people of the 
 United States from settling and cultivating those territories, 
 she must not think of doing it by a treaty. She must form- 
 ally undertake and accomplish their utter extermination. 
 If the government of the United States should ever submit 
 to such a stipulation, which I hoped they would not, all its 
 force, and all that of Britain combined with it, would not 
 suffice to carry it long into execution. It was opposing a 
 feather to a torrent. The population of the United States 
 in 1 8 10 passed seven millions. At this hour it undoubtedly 
 passed eight. As it continued to increase in such proportions, 
 was it in human experience or in human power to check its 
 progress by a bond of paper, purporting to exclude posterity 
 from the natural means of subsistence which they would 
 derive from the cultivation of the soil.^ Such a treaty, in- 
 stead of closing the old sources of dissension, would only 
 open new ones. A war thus finished would immediately be 
 followed by another, and Great Britain would ultimately 
 find that she must substitute the project of exterminating '■ 
 the whole American people, to that of opposing against them ' 
 her barrier of savages. The proposal of dooming a large 
 extent of lands, naturally fertile, to be forever desert by i 
 compact, would be a violation of the laws of nature and of 
 nations, as recognized by the most distinguished writers on 
 public law. It would be an outrage upon Providence, which 
 gave the earth to man for cultivation, and made the tillage ' 
 of the ground the condition of his nature and the law of his 
 existence. "What (said Mr. Goulburn), is it then in the ' 
 inevitable nature of things that the United States must con- 
 quer Canada ? " " No. " "But what security then can Great 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 117 
 
 Britain have for her possession of it?" "If Great Britain 
 does not think a liberal and amicable course of policy towards 
 America would be the best security, as it certainly would, 
 she must rely upon her general strength, upon the superiority 
 of her power in other parts of her relations with America, 
 upon the power which she has upon another element to 
 indemnify herself by sudden impression upon American in- 
 terests, more defenceless against her superiority than Canada 
 against ours, and in their amount far more valuable than 
 Canada ever was or ever will be." He said that Great 
 Britain had no intention to carry on a war either of exter- 
 mination or of conquest, but recurred again to our superior 
 force, and to the necessity of providing against it. He added 
 that in Canada they never took any of the Indian lands, and 
 even the government (meaning the provincial government) 
 was prohibited from granting them. That there were among 
 the Indians very civilized people; there was particularly 
 one man whom he knew, Norton, who commanded some of 
 the Indians engaged on the British side in the war, and who 
 was a very intelligent and well informed man. But the 
 removing the Indians from their lands to others was one of 
 the very things of which Great Britain complained. That 
 it drove them over Into their provinces, and made them 
 annoy and encroach upon the Indians within their limits. 
 This was a new Idea to me. I told him I had never heard 
 any complaint of that kind before, and I supposed that a 
 remedy for It would very easily be found. He made no re- 
 ply, and seemed as if in the pressure for an argument he had 
 advanced more than he was inclined to maintain. It was 
 the same with regard to the proposal that we should keep 
 no armed force on or near the lakes of Canada. He did not 
 admit that there was anything humiliating to the United 
 States or unusual in it, but he evaded repeatedly answering 
 
ii8 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 the question how he or the English nation would feel If the 
 proposition were made to them of binding themselves by 
 such a stipulation. I finally said that If he did not feel that 
 there was anything dishonorable to the party submitting 
 to such terms, it was not a subject susceptible of argument. 
 I could assure him that we and our nation would feel it to be 
 such. That such stipulations were indeed often extorted 
 from the weakness of a vanquished enemy; but they were 
 always felt to be dishonorable and had certainly occasioned 
 more wars than they had ever prevented. It was true, as 
 he had said, the United States had never prior to the war 
 had an armed naval force upon the Lakes. I thought It 
 infinitely probable that If Great Britain had said nothing 
 upon the subject in the negotiation, the United States would 
 not have retained a naval force there after the restoration 
 of the peace. It was more than I could say that this anxiety 
 manifested by Great Britain to disarm them would not 
 operate as a warning to them to keep a competent portion 
 of the force now created, even during peace, and whether 
 his government, by advancing the proposal to dismantle, 
 will not eventually fix the purpose of the United States to 
 remain always armed even upon the lakes. 
 
 The whole of this conversation was on both sides perfectly 
 cool and temperate in the manner, though sometimes very 
 earnest on mine, and sometimes with a hurry of reply and 
 an embarrassment of expression on his, Indicating an eff^ort 
 to control the disclosure of feelings under strong excitement. 
 The most remarkable Instance of this was upon the Intima- 
 tion from me, that some of their naval officers had enticed 
 away numbers of our black people, who had afterwards been 
 sold in the West India Islands. I stated the fact on the 
 authority of your instructions to the present joint mission 
 of 28 January last, and persisted in asserting It, on the as- 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 119 
 
 surance that there is proof of it in possession of the Depart- 
 ment of State. In the present state of pubHc opinion in 
 England respecting the traffic of slaves, I was well aware of 
 the impression which the mere statement would make upon 
 Mr. Goulburn. The rupture of this negotiation will render 
 it unnecessary for us to possess the proof which it was your 
 intention at the date of your instructions of 28th January to 
 furnish us, but at any future attempt to treat for peace it 
 will be important to produce it, and I would even suggest 
 the expediency of giving as much publicity as possible to 
 it in Europe, while the war continues. 
 
 The avowal of Admiral Cochrane's proclamation, and the 
 explanation of Lord Castlereagh's disavowal of it in the 
 House of Commons, were remarkable as examples of the 
 kind of reasoning to which the British government is willing 
 to resort. Whether the distinction taken in this case really 
 belonged to Lord Castlereagh, or whether erroneously as- 
 scribed to him by Mr. Goulburn, I cannot say; but Mr. Goul- 
 burn was present in the House of Commons when the debate 
 referred to took place. ^ > 
 
 The strangest feature in the general complexion of his 
 discourse was the inflexible adherence to the proposed 
 Indian boundary line. But the pretext upon which this 
 proposition had in the first instance been placed, the pacifica- 
 tion with the Indians and their future security, was almost 
 abandoned — avowed to be a secondary and very subordinate 
 object. The security of Canada was now substituted as 
 the prominent motive. But the great and real one, though 
 not of a nature ever to be acknowledged, was occasionally 
 discernible through all its veils. This was no other than a 
 profound and rankling jealousy at the rapid increase of 
 population and of settlements in the United States, an im- 
 potent longing to thwart their progress and to stunt their 
 
I20 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 growth. With this temper prevailing in the British councils, 
 it is not in the hour of their success that we can expect to 
 obtain a peace upon terms of equal justice or of reciprocity. 
 I am etc. 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, September 9, 1814. 
 
 . . . We this day send in to the other party our second 
 note, which places us precisely where we were at the first. 
 If they hold to their original ground, they may dismiss 
 themselves and us from all further ofhcial intercourse to- 
 morrow morning. My only reason for doubting whether 
 they will do so now is that they did not take that step before. 
 We certainly not only considered the whole business at an 
 end then, but none of us had an idea of being here at this 
 day. I wrote you that after what passed, what we had 
 reason to expect from them was a card P. P. C. Instead of 
 that they sent us a note of sixteen folio pages, still hammer- 
 ing upon the old anvil, and putting it upon us to take leave 
 of them. As we are Inclined not to be behindhand with 
 them either in civility or in prolixity, we return them a note 
 of equal dimensions, and still leaving the "to be or not to 
 be" at their option. If they choose to play this game of 
 chicanery they may, I know not how long. But if they will 
 take no for an answer, we shall be released in two or three 
 days. 
 
 We are still perfectly unanimous, and If we had not the 
 run of luck so infernally against us, I should not despair of 
 ultimate success. As it is we shall unquestionably make a 
 better case for the public, on both sides of the Atlantic, 
 than our adversaries. We are in the first place severe judges 
 upon one another, and setting aside your correspondent, 
 
1814] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 121 
 
 every one of his four associates Is, to say the least, a match 
 for the brightest of our opponents. You wrote me at one 
 time a current English report that there was to be but one 
 commissioner appointed to meet us — one British negotiator 
 being fully competent to meet five Americans. I wished 
 the report might be true; for whether the result was to be 
 success or failure, the lower the rate at which the adversary 
 estimated our talents, the greater advantage he would give 
 us in the argument over himself. His contempt, however, 
 was a mere bravado. Instead of one commissioner he ap- 
 pointed three, and I believe in such cases as this, supposing 
 the average of talents to be the same, a commission of three 
 members will always be able to meet with at least equal ad- 
 vantage a commission of five. They are certainly not mean 
 men, who have been opposed to us; but for extent and 
 copiousness of information, for sagacity and shrewdness of 
 comprehension, for vivacity of Intellect, and fertility of re- 
 source, there is certainly not among them a man equal to 
 Mr. Gallatin. I doubt whether there Is among them a man 
 of the powers of the Chevalier, In all our transactions 
 hitherto we have been much indebted to the ability of both 
 these gentlemen for the ascendency in point of argument 
 which we have constantly maintained over our antag- 
 onists. . . . 
 
 We had here the other day a Mr. Van Havert, a son-in- 
 law of Mr. Stier, and brother-in-law to Mrs. Calvert, of 
 whom you have heard, and whom you perhaps know, 
 Mr. Van Havert lived some years at Alexandria, and he told 
 me that If he had met me In the street he should have known 
 me from my resemblance to my father. On the other hand 
 the ex-gardener, of whom I wrote you the other day, said to 
 me of our sons, "George, Sir, Is a. fine, tall, stout boy; but as 
 for John, Sir, he Is the very picture of you." 
 
122 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 ANSWER TO THE BRITISH COMMISSIONERS ^ 
 
 [September 9, 18 14.] 
 The undersigned Ministers plenipotentiary and extraor- 
 dinary from the United States of America have had the 
 honor of receiving the note of his Britannic Majesty's pleni- 
 potentiaries of the 4th inst. 
 
 If in the tone or the substance of the former note of the 
 undersigned the British Commissioners have perceived no ^ 
 disposition on the part of the American government for a 
 discussion of some of the propositions advanced in the first 
 note which the undersigned had the honor of receiving from 
 them, they will please to ascribe it to the nature of the 
 
 ^ A draft by Adams. The note sent is in American State Papers, Foreign Rela- 
 tions, III. 715. The British note, dated September 4, was delivered to the Amer- 
 ican Commissioners on the 5th. "Mr. Bayard pronounced it a very stupid pro- 
 duction. Mr. Clay was for answering it by a note of half a page. I neither thought 
 it stupid nor proper to be answered in half a page." Gallatin proposed to make 
 an analysis of the contents and note what required an answer. On the following 
 day (6th) Gallatin produced his notes and it was agreed he should draft a reply con- 
 formably. Bayard appeared willing to concede something on the Indian question, 
 but Clay and Adams were for admitting no stipulations about the Indians in a 
 treaty with England. Adams wished to show that the floating commerce of the 
 United States, subject to seizure by the naval superiority of Great Britain, was a 
 sufficient pledge for the security of Canada against sudden invasion; and also that 
 the employment of Indians was contrary to the laws of war. This latter point was 
 rejected, but on the 7th was again urged, and Adams prepared a statement of it for 
 consideration. Receiving Gallatin's draft, with the suggestions of Bayard and 
 Clay, Adams "struck out the greatest part of my own previous draft, preferring 
 that of Mr. Gallatin upon the same points. On the main question, relative to the 
 Indian boundary, I made a new draft of several paragraphs, comprising the princi- 
 pal ideas of them all, and introducing an additional view of the subject of my own. 
 I had also prepared a paragraph concerning the employment of savages. . . . 
 My new paragraph respecting Indian rights was adopted without much alteration. 
 That against the employment of savages was fully adopted in substance, but with 
 a multitude of amendments." Adams, Memoirs, September 5-8, 1814. 
 
 * For the word "no" Gallatin inserted "little proof of any." 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 123 
 
 propositions themselves; to their incompatibility with the 
 assurances in Lord Castlereagh's letter to the American 
 Secretary of State, proposing their negotiation, and with 
 the solemn assurances of the British plenipotentiaries them- 
 selves to the undersigned, at their first conference with them. 
 
 Of the frankness with which the British plenipotentiaries 
 now represent themselves to have disclosed all the objects 
 of their government while those of the American govern- 
 ment are stated to have been withheld, a sufficient elucida- 
 tion may be formed in the facts, that the British pleni- 
 potentiaries have hitherto declined all discussion even of 
 the points proposed by themselves, unless the undersigned 
 would be prepared to sign a provisional article upon a sub- 
 ject concerning which they had from the first declared them- 
 selves to be without instructions and upon a basis unex- 
 ampled in the negotiations of civilized states, and which 
 they have shown to be inadmissible. That one of the most 
 objectionable demands of the British government was never 
 disclosed until the third conference, after the points sug- 
 gested for discussion on both sides had been reciprocally 
 submitted for consideration. That upon the inquiry whether 
 this new proposition was considered also as a sine qua non 
 of a treaty, the undersigned were answered that one sine 
 qua non at a time was enough, and when they had disposed 
 of that already given them, it would be time enough to 
 talk of another.^ 
 
 If the undersigned had proposed to the British plenipo- 
 tentiaries, as an indispensable preliminary to all discussion, 
 the admission of a principle contrary to the most established 
 maxims of public law, and with which the United States 
 under the pretence of including Indian allies in the peace, 
 would have annexed entire provinces to their dominions, 
 
 ^ This paragraph has been struck out. 
 
124 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 the reproach of being actuated by a spirit of aggrandizement 
 might justly have been advanced against them; to the 
 assertion that the declared policy of the American govern- 
 ment has been to make the war a part of a system of con- 
 quest and aggrandizement the undersigned oppose the most 
 pointed denial of its truth; and they are willing to leave it 
 to the judgment of an impartial world to decide with what 
 propriety the charge proceeds from a state demanding an 
 extensive cession of territory, to a state making no such 
 demand.^ 
 
 The undersigned repeat what they have already had the 
 honor explicitly to declare to the British plenipotentiaries; 
 that they have no authority to treat with them for the in- 
 terests of Indians inhabiting within the boundaries of the 
 United States. That the question of their boundary is a 
 question exclusively between the United States and them- 
 selves, with which Great Britain has no concern. That the 
 undersigned will therefore subscribe to no provisional article 
 upon the subject. That they will not refer it to the con- 
 sideration of their government; first, because the British 
 Commissioners have warned them that If they do, the 
 British government will not hold Itself bound to abide by 
 the terms which they now offer, but will vary them at their 
 pleasure; and secondly because they know that their govern- 
 ment would instantaneously reject the proposal. That they 
 will subscribe to no article renouncing the right of the 
 United States to maintain fortifications on their own shores, 
 or that of maintaining a naval force on those lakes, where 
 such a force has been during the war so efficaciously felt. 
 And finally that they have no authority to cede any part of 
 the territory of the United States.^ 
 
 If the Governor General of Canada has made to the In- 
 
 ^ This paragraph has been struck out. 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 125 
 
 dians under the protection of the United States, to seduce 
 them to betray the duties of their obligations, and to violate 
 their treaties, any promises of British protection, it is for 
 his government to fulfil those promises at their own expense, 
 and not at that of the United States.^ But the employ- 
 ment of savages, whose known rule of warfare is the in- 
 discriminate torture and butchery of women, children, and 
 prisoners, is itself a departure from the principles of human- 
 ity observed between all civilized and Christian nations even 
 in war. [Great Britain herself employs them only in her 
 wars against the United States and] - the United States have 
 constantly protested and still protest against it as an un- 
 justifiable aggravation of the barbarities and horrors of war. 
 Of the peculiar atrocities of the Indian warfare, the allies 
 of Great Britain in whose behalf she now demands sacrifices 
 from the United States have during the present war shown 
 many deplorable examples; among them, the massacre of 
 wounded prisoners in cold blood, and the refusal of the rites 
 of burial to the dead, under the eyes of British officers, who 
 could only plead their inability to control those savage 
 auxiliaries, have been repeated and are notorious to the 
 world. The United States have with extreme reluctance 
 been compelled to resort on their part to the same mode of 
 warfare thus practiced against them.^ The United States 
 might at all times have employed the same kind of force 
 against Great Britain, and to a greater extent than it was 
 in her power to employ it against them; but from their reluc- 
 tance to resort to means so abhorrent to the natural feelings 
 of humanity, they abstained from the use of them, until 
 
 1 This sentence was altered in arrangement without changing the sense, but the 
 whole was finally struck out. 
 
 * Words in brackets were struck out. 
 
 ' This sentence was struck out, and the sentence following substituted for it. 
 
126 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 compelled to the alternative of employing themselves In- 
 dians who would otherwise have been drawn into the ranks 
 of their enemies. But the undersigned, in suggesting to the 
 British Commissioners the propriety of an article by which 
 Great Britain and the United States should reciprocally 
 stipulate, never hereafter, if they should again be at war, to 
 employ savages in it believe [that it would readily meet the 
 approbation and ratification of their government, and] ^ 
 that it would be infinitely more honorable to the humanity 
 and Christian temper of both parties, more advantageous 
 to the Indians themselves, and more adapted to secure the 
 permanent peace, tranquillity, and progress of civiliza- 
 tion, than the boundary proposed by the British Com- 
 missioners. 
 
 If the United States had now asserted that the Indians 
 within their boundaries who have acknowledged the United 
 States as their only protectors, were their subjects, living 
 only at sufferance on their lands, far from being the first in 
 making that assertion they would only have followed the 
 example of the principles, uniformly and invariably asserted 
 in substance, and frequently avowed in express terms by the 
 British government itself. What was the meaning of all 
 the colonial charters granted by the British monarchs from 
 that of Virginia by Elizabeth to that of Georgia by the im- 
 mediate predecessor of the present king, if the Indians were 
 the sovereigns and possessors ^ of the lands bestowed by 
 those charters? What was the meaning of that article in 
 the treaty of Utrecht, by which the Five Nations were de- 
 scribed in terms, as subject to the dominion of Great Britain.^ 
 Or of that treaty with the Cherokees, by which it was de- 
 clared that the king of Great Britain granted them the 
 
 ^ This clause was struck out. 
 
 2 For this word Gallatin substituted "proprietors." 
 
1814] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 127 
 
 privilege to live where they pleased, If those subjects were 
 independent sovereigns, and these tenants at the license of 
 the British King were the rightful lords of the lands where 
 he granted them permission to live? What was the meaning 
 of that proclamation of his present Britannic Majesty, 
 issued In 1763, declaring all purchases of lands from Indians 
 null and void unless made by treaties held under the sanction 
 of his Majesty's government, if the Indians had the right 
 to sell their lands to whom they pleased? In formally pro- 
 testing against this system. It Is not against a novel preten- 
 sion of the American government, it is against the most 
 solemn acts of their own sovereigns, against the royal proc- 
 lamations, charters and treaties of Great Britain for more 
 than two centuries, from the first settlement of North 
 America to the present day, that the British plenipotentiaries 
 protest. What is the meaning of the boundary lines of 
 American territory in all the treaties of Great Britain with 
 other European powers having American possessions, in her 
 treaty of peace with the United States of 1785: nay, what 
 Is the meaning of the northwestern boundary line now pro- 
 posed by the British Commissioners themselves, if it is the 
 rightful possession and sovereignty of independent Indians, 
 of which those boundaries dispose? ^ 
 
 From the rigor of this system, however, as practised by 
 Great Britain and all the other European powers in America, 
 the humane and liberal policy of the United States has vol- 
 untarily relaxed. A celebrated writer on the laws of nations, 
 to whose authority British jurists have taken particular 
 satisfaction In appealing, after stating in the most explicit 
 
 ^Gallatin added the following: "Is it indeed necessary to ask whether Great 
 Britain ever has permitted, or would permit, any foreign nation, or without her 
 consent any of her subjects, to acquire lands from the Indians, in the territories of 
 the Hudson Bay Company, or in Canada?" 
 
128 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 manner the legitimacy of colonial settlements In America, 
 to the exclusion of all rights of uncivilized Indian tribes, 
 has taken occasion to praise the moderation of the first 
 settlers of New England, and of the founder of Pennsylvania, 
 in having purchased of the Indians the lands they resolved 
 to cultivate, notwithstanding their being furnished with a 
 charter from their sovereign. It Is this example which the 
 United States, since they became by their independence the 
 sovereigns of the territory, have adopted and organized into 
 a political system. Under that system the Indians residing 
 within the United States are so far Independent that they 
 live under their own customs and not under the laws of the 
 United States; that their rights upon the lands where they 
 inhabit or hunt, are secured to them by boundaries defined 
 In amicable treaties between the United States and them- 
 selves, and that whenever those boundaries are varied it Is 
 also by amicable ^ treaties, by which they receive from the 
 United States ample compensation for every right they have 
 to the lands ceded by them. They are so far dependent as 
 not to have the right to dispose of their lands to any private 
 persons, nor to any power other than the United States, and 
 to be under their protection alone, and not under that of 
 any other power. Whether called subjects, or by whatever 
 name designated, such Is the relation between them and 
 the United States. [These principles have been uniformly 
 recognized by the Indians themselves, not only by the 
 treaty of Greenville, but by all the other treaties between 
 the United States and the Indian tribes.] ^ Is it indeed 
 necessary, etc. 
 
 * Gallatin inserted the words "and voluntary." 
 
 *This sentence was struck out, and Gallatin substituted the following: "That 
 relation is neither asserted now for the first time; nor did it originate with the treaty 
 of Greenville. These principles have been uniformly recognized by the Indians 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 129 
 
 These stipulations by the Indians to sell their lands only 
 to the United States do not prove that without them they 
 would have the right to sell them to others. The utmost 
 that they can contend to show would be a claim by them to 
 such a right, never acknowledged by the United States. It 
 is indeed a novel process of reasoning to consider [the re- 
 nunciation of a claim as a proof of a right] ^ a disclaimer as 
 the proof of a right.- 
 
 An Indian boundary and the exclusive military posses- 
 sion of the lakes could after all prove but futile and ineffect- 
 ual securities to Great Britain for the permanent defense of 
 Canada against the great and growing preponderancy of the 
 United States, on that particular point of her possessions. 
 But no sudden invasion of Canada by the United States 
 could be made without leaving on their Atlantic shores and 
 on the ocean, exposed to the great superiority of British 
 force, a mass of American property tenfold ^ more valuable 
 than Canada [ever was or ever can be.] In her relative 
 superior force [over all the rest of the globe] ^ to that of the 
 United States, ^ Great Britain may find a pledge infinitely ^ 
 more efficacious for the safety of a single vulnerable point, 
 than in stipulations, ruinous to the interests and degrading 
 to the honor of America.' 
 
 themselves, not only by that treaty, but in all the other previous as well as subse- 
 quent treaties between them and the United States." 
 ^ The words were set aside for what follows. 
 
 * The whole paragraph was struck out. 
 
 » The word "far" is substituted for "tenfold." 
 
 * Words in brackets were struck out. 
 
 ^ Gallatin added "in every other quarter." 
 
 « Gallatin substituted the word "much" for "infinitely." 
 
 ^ Bathurst and Liverpool exchanged opinions on the Amerlcaa note of Septem- 
 ber 9, and agreed in the absolute necessity of including the Indians in the treaty of 
 peace, and insisting that they be restored to all the rights and privileges which they 
 had enjoyed before the war. They also believed in the expediency of giving in an 
 
I30 
 
 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 TO ABIGAIL ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, 10 September, 18 14. 
 When I wrote you my last letter, a press copy of which is 
 inclosed, I had little or no expectation that I should at this 
 day still be here. The John Adams sailed from the Texel 
 with Mr. Dallas ^ on board, the 28th of August, and has, I 
 hope, by this time half performed her passage. It is one of 
 those singular incidents which occurs occasionally in real 
 life, and which would be thought too improbable for a 
 fictitious narrative, that while she was going out by one 
 passage, Mr. Smith ^ and his family were entering from 
 Cronstadt by another. They are now at Amsterdam, and 
 I have written to him to come with them here. They will 
 be near the Neptune, now at Antwerp, in which they must 
 embark if they return to America, which will in my opinion 
 be the most advisable for them. We are still expecting 
 every day, and indeed every hour, the formal notice of the 
 termination of our business here; but while we do remain 
 Mr. Smith's assistance will be most useful to me; for at the 
 very moment of all my life when I most needed the service 
 of a secretary, I have been deprived of it, and since the 
 British plenipotentiaries have been here, my whole time 
 
 ultimatum respecting the boundary before ascertaining that the American Com- 
 missioners would agree to the British propositions respecting the Indians. Liver- 
 pool wrote, September ii: "I confess I cannot believe that with the prospect of 
 bankruptcy before them, the American government would not wish to make peace, 
 if they can make it upon terms which would not give a triumph to their enemies. 
 I am strongly inclined from all I hear to believe that a bankruptcy would be the 
 result of their continuing the war for another year; but we must recollect that if the 
 ground upon which the negotiation terminated were popular, a bankruptcy would, 
 for a time at least, greatly add to their military means. The war would then be 
 rendered a war of despair, in which all private rights and interests would be sacri- 
 ficed to the public cause." Wellington, Supplementary Despatches, IX. 240. 
 
 * George Mifflin Dallas. 
 
 ^ William Steuben Smith. 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 131 
 
 has been altogether Inadequate to the writing and copying 
 which was and will be indispensable. If Mr. Smith con- 
 cludes to go back to Russia, they must return as they came, 
 by water. There is a vessel at Amsterdam to sail between 
 the 1 6th and 30th of this month for Cronstadt, in which we 
 may perhaps all embark. But it is already very late for a 
 passage up the Baltic, and if we should be detained here 
 three weeks longer it will be impossible. 
 
 It would appear that the failure of the negotiations here 
 will be unexpected to all parties in the United States, and a 
 disappointment particularly to the friends of the govern- 
 ment. But whoever imagined that it would be defeated by 
 the appointment of Mr. Clay and Mr. Russell mistook al- 
 together the views and wishes of those gentlemen. We have 
 all been equally anxious for the success of the mission, and all 
 equally determined to reject the bases proposed to us by the 
 British ministers. They have entirely changed the objects 
 of the war, and begun by requiring of us, as a preliminary 
 to all discussion of what had been the points in controversy, 
 concessions which with one voice and without hesitation we 
 refused. In the course to be pursued by us there has not 
 been the slightest diversity of opinion between us, and as 
 the unfortunate circumstances under which we were called 
 to treat have rendered it impossible that the peace should be 
 made, we have had the only satisfaction which could be 
 found in missing the great object, that of having constantly 
 harmonized among ourselves. 
 
 Before the John Adams sailed we had explicitly rejected 
 in writing the proposal, without the admission of which the 
 British ministers had declared that their government was 
 resolved not to conclude a peace. We supposed therefore 
 that In reply they would have notified to us that the con- 
 ferences and the negotiation were at an end. They chose. 
 
132 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 however, after taking time to send a message to London, 
 to reply in a long note so ambiguous in its tenor, as to leave 
 it doubtful whether they meant to abandon their indispen- 
 sable preliminary, or to adhere to it, and attempting to put 
 upon us in this state of equivocation the responsibility of 
 breaking off the conferences. We have answered this by a 
 note equally long, adhering to our rejection of their pre- 
 liminary, but renewing the offer and repeating the wish to 
 negotiate upon all the differences which had existed between 
 the two countries before they had brought their new pre- 
 tensions. This note we sent them yesterday, and left them 
 again to declare the negotiation at an end. I should have 
 expected this declaration in the course of this day, had not 
 their last note evidently shown that, although determined 
 not to conclude the peace, they are not indifferent to the 
 object of putting upon us the responsibility of the rupture. 
 This being their policy, they may, if they think proper, pro- 
 tract the discussion some time longer. Their government 
 have been studiously procrastinating the whole negotiation 
 with the view to avail themselves of the great successes 
 which are to follow the operations of their reinforcements in 
 America. It is already known that those destined for Canada 
 have arrived, and they have been some time expecting news 
 of the effect of their offensive operations. They may possibly 
 reserve their dismission of us for the first intelligence of a 
 victory in America. 
 
 We have not only had the happiness of harmonizing to- 
 gether among ourselves upon the objects of our public min- 
 istry, but we have lived together on the most friendly social 
 footing. When we first assembled we all had lodgings at the 
 same hotel and had a common table among ourselves. After 
 we had been there a few weeks we engaged by the month a 
 large house, in which we are all accommodated with apart- 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 133 
 
 ments, and where we compose only one family. The secre- 
 taries connected with the mission have apartments in the 
 neighborhood and dine with us every day. We have a con- 
 siderable acquaintance and as much society as we wish with 
 the principal inhabitants of the city, and we have been 
 visited by numbers of our countrymen attracted hither by 
 purposes of interest or of curiosity. This last circumstance 
 has been the occasion however of some inconvenience to us 
 and of rumors in England which, if they were well founded, 
 would not be to our advantage. 
 
 At the time when Mr. Dallas was dispatched, some meas- 
 ures, which it became necessary to some of my colleagues 
 to take preparatory to their return to America, indicated 
 their immediate departure. Colonel Milligan, who had been 
 Mr, Bayard's private secretary, took that moment to go to 
 visit some relations in Scotland, and was accompanied by 
 one of our American visitors, named Creighton, to London 
 and Liverpool. On their arrival very large speculations in 
 cotton and tobacco were made, founded on reports that the 
 negotiation at Ghent was broken off, and many particulars 
 with a mixture of truth and of misstatement appeared in the 
 English newspapers of what had passed between the British 
 and American plenipotentiaries. The report which arose 
 from all this in England was that the American ministers were 
 speculating for themselves on the event of the negotiation. I 
 hope that Milligan has not descended to such a despicable 
 practice himself. I am fully convinced that not one of my 
 colleagues has sullied his fair fame by participation in such 
 a sordid transaction; but at all events I am sure you will 
 need no protestation or denial from me to "show there was 
 one who held it in disdain."^ 
 
 1 «< 
 
 I dare say you will recollect the conversation which I once had with you, in 
 
134 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 TO LAFAYETTE 
 
 Ghent, h September, 18 14. 
 
 My Dear Sir: 
 
 Mr. Connell brought me your very obliging favor of the 
 loth instant. I beg you to accept my thanks for the kind 
 
 which I expressed to you my sense of the extreme impropriety of connecting any 
 commercial speculation of private interest with the business of this negotiation. 
 An incident has recently occurred very strongly confirming me in the sentiments I 
 had entertained on that subject. Immediately after the departure of Mr. Dallas, 
 Colonel [George] Milligan very suddenly went off to Scotland, accompanied, as far 
 as London and Liverpool, by an American named Creighton, who had been some 
 time here, and had received from the mission the usual attentions of civility. Their 
 arrival at London and at Liverpool was the signal for universal speculations in 
 American articles, on the reported rupture of the negotiations, and of statements 
 in the newspapers, not altogether correct, but with a mixture of facts which could 
 only have been divulged by them. Creighton is known to have been very deep in 
 those speculations; and if Milligan was not, the indiscretion of his conduct, by 
 thus going to England, even without a passport, has not only involved him in the 
 suspicion of participation in them himself, but has implicated the whole American 
 mission in the same suspicion, a procedure for which so far as concerns myself, I 
 do not thank him." To Levett Harris, September 1 1, 1814. Ms. 
 
 "There has been a considerable sensation on Change today owing to a report 
 that the Conferences at Ghent are broken off. Whether true or not can be no news 
 to you, tho' the effect may be. There were strong buyers and large purchasers of 
 cotton and tobacco, ten per cent above yesterday's prices, so that the knowing ones 
 suspect that if there be nothing fresh from Ghent, there must have been some un- 
 favorable decision here on something received before." George Joy to Johi Quincy 
 Adams, August 26, 18 14. Ms. 
 
 "There have indeed been many extraordinary reports here within the last few 
 days which have occasioned an extraordinary rise on tobacco and cotton, both in 
 this market and that of Liverpool. Besides what was stated to have come from 
 Ghent, it was said last week that persons applying at the Foreign Office to have 
 letters sent to the British Commissioners had been told that they were expected in 
 London early this week; and that Mr. Vansittart had told a mutual friend of his 
 and Lord Gambler, that his lordship was expected to return to England immedi- 
 ately. These reports, while they served to advance the prices of American produce, 
 have had the effect of lowering the funds. Today, however, they are a little better. 
 
1814] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 135 
 
 expression of your wish to have seen me at Paris before my 
 return to St. Petersburg. The pleasure of meeting you once 
 more, after so long and so eventful an interval since I had 
 last the happiness of seeing you, is the greatest among many 
 strong inducements I should have for visiting that city, could 
 it accord with other views which will probably render a more 
 direct return to Russia necessary to me. I shall also par- 
 ticularly regret missing the opportunity of seeing again my 
 very worthy friend, Mr. Victor de Tracy, and of forming a 
 personal acquaintance with his respectable family. I shall 
 always feel myself under obligations to his father and to you, 
 for having furnished me the occasion of rendering him the 
 feeble service that was in my power, and which I lamented 
 not having been able to make more effectual, as they 
 themselves would have wished. Will you please to pre- 
 sent my most particular regards to Mr. Victor de Tracy, 
 for whose personal character I entertain the highest 
 esteem ? 
 
 Our prospects here have varied only by the postponement 
 of a termination which a fair, not to say a generous, enemy 
 would have notified to us more than a fortnight since. Our 
 country must now rekindle In defence of her rights with that 
 ardor which you witnessed and shared In the days of our 
 Revolution. If the spirit of genuine liberty and of youthful 
 heroism which then sympathized with us in Europe Is ex- 
 tinct, we must maintain our cause self-supported, until the 
 selfish statesmen of the European continent shall discover 
 that our cause is their own, and the most crafty shall join 
 us to share with us the honor of a defence which we shall 
 otherwise have exclusively to ourselves. 
 
 Mr. Smith whom I expect here In one or two days will be 
 
 and on the other hand the prices of American produce are on the decline." R. G. 
 Beasley to John Quincy Adams, September 6, i8 14. Ms. 
 
136 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 much flattered by your obliging regards. He will probably 
 return with my colleagues to America. 
 Accept etc. 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, September 13, 1814. 
 
 ... I cannot yet revoke the advice to you, not to 
 direct any more letters to me here. We are still In precisely 
 the same predicament as when I wrote you last. We have 
 no reply to the note we sent on Friday; so I suppose they 
 mean to give us another dissertation of sixteen pages, and 
 I am now not without suspicions that it will be like the last, 
 giving up in one sentence what they adhere to in another, 
 scolding like an old woman, insulting in one paragraph and 
 compliant In another, and as to everything in the shape of 
 argument hattant la campagne.^ 
 
 Never was anything more explicit than their conference 
 with us the day Lord Castlereagh was here, and their note 
 dated on the same day. "Will you, or will you not?" was 
 the word. Never was anything more explicit than our 
 answer, "We will not," and off we sent Mr. Dallas. If there 
 had been anything in them like fair dealing, they ought to 
 have dismissed us the next day. The second day after, 
 Mr. Goulburn told Mr. Bayard that we should have their 
 reply without delay, and they should have no occasion to 
 consult their government. Four days later they sent Mr. 
 Baker to tell us they had thought best upon reflection to 
 
 ' The American note of September 9 was sent to London, where the draft of a 
 reply was prepared and dispatched to Ghent September 16. This draft, printed 
 in Wellington Supplementary Despatches, IX. 263, will be found in the form sent 
 to the American Commissioners, in American State Papers, Foreign Relations, 
 III. 717. 
 
isi4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 137 
 
 send a messenger to London. Eleven days after our note 
 had been sent came their reply, such as I have described it, 
 abandoning and at the same time adhering to the terms 
 which we had rejected with disdain; with a conclusion asking 
 if we choose to take it upon ourselves to break off. We have 
 rejoined, that we do not wish to break off, but we say no to 
 their terms, without which they began by telling us that 
 they would break off. As they have been five days deliberat- 
 ing upon what they shall now say, I conclude that they will 
 finally give us the ball back again, and still contrive to make 
 delay. For we have no reason to hope they will retreat an 
 inch from their ground, and we shall never concede one of 
 Mr. Hynam's measures, the thirty-six thousandth part 
 of an inch of it to them. . . . The delay since our first 
 answer has been according to all appearances an after- 
 thought of their government, unexpected to themselves. 
 I say all this to you chiefly for the purpose of showing you 
 as precisely as it is seen by myself, the prospect with regard 
 to the time of my departure. If the British government 
 intend to make delay, it is in their power. By their proceed- 
 ings for the last fortnight we are warranted in suspecting 
 that they do intend delay. The next note from their min- 
 isters must either terminate our business or more clearly dis- 
 close their views. . . .^ 
 
 ^ "There is, however, too much reason to apprehend, notwithstanding the hope 
 expressed to you in my last, that the maritime question will for the present be suf- 
 fered to repose: for as you justly observe the contracting parties at Vienna, with 
 the exception of the one which pays the pots casses, are likely to be too much occu- 
 pied with the division of their spoils to think for the present of new wars. And 
 there is evidently at this moment no sovereign in Europe on whom we can count, or 
 whose professions rather are in the least encouraging to us, except the Emperor of 
 Russia. And in relation to His I. M. it is lamentable to add that all my late con- 
 versations with the Chancellor have left me little hope that in the conferences at 
 Vienna the question of the maritime abuses of our enemy would be agitated." 
 Levett Harris to John Quincy Adams, September 9/21, 1814. Ms. 
 
138 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 TO GEORGE JOY | 
 
 Ghent, 13th September, 1814. 
 
 Sir: 
 
 If your affairs should call you to this place previous to 
 my departure from it, I shall be very happy to see you. If 
 the motive of conversing with me would be inducement 
 sufficient for you to take this city in your way to or from 
 elsewhere, it would afford me much gratification; but to be 
 perfectly candid with you, if any views of commercial specu- 
 lation or private interest should be mingled in any manner 
 with the purpose of your visit, I should prefer waiting for a 
 moment more propitious to the opportunity of an inter- 
 view. 
 
 For one I can speak but for myself. I do not scruple to 
 say that I have been annoyed, not by the numbers of our 
 countrymen, but by the abuse some of them have made of 
 the access which their characters as our countrymen gave 
 them to our house. The principle upon which I declined 
 communicating information even of an indifferent nature to 
 you has prescribed to me the same reserve towards all others. 
 If it has not prevented stock jobbing and Jew-brokering 
 tricks upon the Royal Exchange, it has at least preserved 
 me from being in any manner accessory to them. By in- 
 forming you of the time of my departure from this place I 
 
 "I do most cordially wish that your anticipations of the probable restoration to 
 influence of a great statesman [Romanzoff], the friend of his country and of ours, 
 may be realized. But whether in or out of power, I beg you whenever you may 
 have the occasion to see him, to offer him the assurance of my respectful remem- 
 brance. Of all confidants of princes with whom I have ever been in official or per- 
 sonal relations, he is the man who has left upon my mind the deepest impression 
 of sound judgment, of honorable principles, and of truly courteous deportment. 
 Whatever his future destiny or my own may be, these will be the sentiments that 
 I shall ever retain of him." To Levett Harris, September ii, 1814. Ms. 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 139 
 
 should not disclose a state secret, but I should not even de- 
 serve the compliment which Hotspur makes to his wife's 
 powers of retention in expressing his belief that 
 
 she will not utter what she does not know. 
 
 I do most heartily rejoice at seeing the Canadian general 
 order declaring the release of all the hostages on both sides 
 who had been the victims of the lex talionis. And would to 
 God that all other objections would be removed as success- 
 fully as those to that convention have been! I trust we 
 shall see no embowelling for the encouragement of Patriotism. 
 I am etc. 
 
 TO WILLIAM HARRIS CRAWFORD 
 
 Ghent, 14 September, 1814. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 Your favor of the 6th instant was received by me on the 
 nth. Mine of the 29th ultimo had been the same length 
 of time reaching you. I know not how it happens that the 
 post takes five days in passing between this place and Paris. 
 Travellers come and go easily in two days. 
 
 I tender you many thanks for the copy of your note. If 
 it be the leading policy of the French government to main- 
 tain a system of neutrality in the war between the United 
 States and Great Britain,^ It might naturally be expected 
 that France would manifest some appearance of adhering 
 
 ^ "The leading policy of this government is to preserve a strict neutrality, if it is 
 possible; if this cannot be done the departure /rom that policy will be against us. The 
 national feeling is decidedly in our favor. It is impossible to foresee what influence 
 this fact will have upon the government. The arrogance of our enemy will operate 
 powerfully in aid of this national feeling." William H. Crawford to John Quincy 
 v^ifaTOj, September 6, 1814. Ms. The italics represent cypher. 
 
I40 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 to the rights of neutrality. In exacting that France and all 
 the allies should abandon all retrospective consideration of 
 the British practices upon the ocean during the late war, I 
 cannot imagine that the British government has bespoken 
 the acquiescence of them all to her future operations. If 
 France is prepared to adopt as the ruling maxim of her policy 
 that she is never again to have war with England, she may 
 now look on coolly while the British paper blockade cuts off 
 all her commerce as a neutral state with us. But if she and 
 Russia now formally abandon all pretension to maritime 
 rights, they will certainly give us a very substantial reason 
 for not being very solicitous about them hereafter, when the 
 violations of them may be not so convenient to themselves. 
 
 We have not yet the cards to take leave from the British 
 plenipotentiaries. There is some reason for expecting they 
 will come next week. I trust you will duly appreciate the 
 paragraphs in the English newspapers which ascribe delay 
 to us, and prate about their demanding answers from us 
 within twenty-four hours. The rupture in fact took place 
 on the 25th ultimo, when we sent them our answer to their 
 first note. Everything that they have done since (and how 
 long they may thus amuse themselves and the world, I 
 know not) has been arrant trifling, or to use a vulgar phrase 
 of your neighborhood de la poudre aux moineaux. . . . 
 
 I am highly gratified at the view taken by you of our 
 future prospects in the struggle which we are called upon to 
 pass through, and if your spirit animates the general mass of 
 our countrymen, we have nothing to fear with respect to 
 the final issue of the war. For my own part I cannot imagine 
 a possible state of the world for futurity in which the United 
 States shall not be a great naval and military power. Be- 
 tween that and the dissolution of the Union there is no 
 alternative. I fear it Is also certain that we never shall lay 
 
1814] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 141 
 
 the foundation of a great military power but in a time of war. 
 It must be forced upon us. And as we have begun and made 
 some progress in it already, I doubt whether we shall ever 
 have again so favorable an opportunity for accommodating 
 our permanent political system to it as the present. If we 
 could even now make a peace eligible in itself, we should 
 come out of the war with a tarnished military reputation 
 upon the land, which would injure our national character 
 more than years of war. The only temper that honors a 
 nation is that which rises in proportion to the pressure upon 
 it. It is to their conduct in the crisis now impending that 
 our posterity hereafter will look back with pride or with 
 shame, and I trust our enemies will find our country in the 
 day of trial true to herself. 
 
 I take the liberty of inclosing a letter for General La- 
 fayette, and remain etc. 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, September 16, 1814. 
 
 . . . Mr. Goulburn was still more explicit with Mr. 
 Clay. He told him that they had sent our last note to 
 England the same evening that they had received it, and 
 expected the answer on Monday or Tuesday next, which he 
 had no doubt would be that we must fight it out. Now as they 
 will not give us our dismission until they have given us 
 their dinner, I calculate upon Tuesday as the day when we 
 shall agree to part. . . . 
 
 It is remarkable that the British plenipotentiaries, who In 
 the case of our former note had first answered it, and then 
 sent their answer to England for approbation, have now 
 sent our note itself, without undertaking to answer it them- 
 
142 
 
 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 selves. If the British government wish further delay, it is 
 in their power to make it as they did before. In that case 
 their next note will require another answer from us, and 
 perhaps another messenger to England before the conclu- 
 sion. So that I cannot yet predict with perfect certainty 
 the day of my departure. 
 
 There has been in the English ministerial and opposition 
 papers some sparring upon the question whether the negotia- 
 tion at Ghent was or was not broken off. The Times says 
 that nobody knows, and nobody but the traders cares any- 
 thing about it. Our British friends appear to be a little 
 nettled at certain hints in the Morning Chronicle, that 
 irritating language had been used at one of our conferences, 
 and that their former dinner to us was for the purpose of 
 making it up. The last part of this statement is not cor- 
 rect, and there is a mistake of the day with regard to the 
 first part. Irritating things were one day said by them, 
 and our notes have undoubtedly contained expressions 
 irritating to them; but ours were necessary and theirs were 
 not. On neither side has there been, or will there be, any 
 apology for them. . . .^ 
 
 ^ "From what I have seen of the American ministers and what has passed be- 
 tween us, I do not believe that they will, under the present circumstances of the 
 war (they say they will not under any circumstances), consent to the definition of 
 a permanent boundary to the Indian territory within their limits. I believe that 
 our proposition to this effect is even more offensive to them than that for the 
 military occupation of the Lakes. They have sought opportunities of stating it as 
 inadmissible; and it was only yesterday [at a dinner given by the Americans. See 
 Adams, Memoirs, III. 35] that Mr. Clay stated his belief that even if America 
 were to accede to our proposition, and if the Eastern States were cordially to unite 
 with Great Britain in endeavouring to enforce it, their united efforts would be in- 
 adequate to restrain that part of the American population which is to the westward 
 of the Alleghany from encroaching upon the Indian territory and gradually expel- 
 ling the aboriginal inhabitants. Their objection to our proposition is not founded 
 upon its requiring a cession of territory already settled by American citizens, but 
 upon its invading the right which they claim to extend their population over the 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 143 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, September 23, 18 14. 
 . . . Since Tuesday we have been most assiduously en- 
 gaged in preparing a reply to the last note we have re- 
 ceived,^ which I think will not be sent before next Monday. 
 It is the opinion of Mr. Gallatin that this will be our last 
 communication, and I should expect so myself, if I had not 
 been twice before disappointed in the same expectation. 
 Hitherto all the proceedings of the other party have been 
 calculated to make delay, and to avoid the rupture of the 
 negotiation for the present. They first assumed the tone 
 of dictating a prelimii)ary which we immediately rejected. 
 Then they sent us sixteen pages revoking their first proposal 
 and at the same time Insisting upon It. Now they have 
 changed its form, absolutely departed from one portion of It, 
 and expressly declared they will not depart from the other. 
 In every change of their position, we are obliged to change, 
 that we may still front them. We have yielded nothing, 
 
 whole of the unsettled country. Under these circumstances, I do not deem it 
 possible to conclude a good peace now, as I cannot consider that a good peace 
 which would leave the Indians to a dependence on the liberal policy of the United 
 States. . . . 
 
 "In the conversations which I have had with Mr. Clay and Mr. Bayard . . . 
 I have been fortunate enough to state to them what you think might have been 
 stated with advantage; but as they proceed upon the principle that Canada never 
 has been in any danger and can never be endangered by the United States unless 
 we force them to become a military nation; they consider the mere conclusion of a 
 peace to be the only security which is necessary. Our national feeling respecting 
 the abandonment of the Indians and the aggrandizing spirit of America draws 
 nothing from them but an expression of regret at the existence of such a feeling, 
 and a statement of the much stronger countervailing feeling on the part of Amer- 
 ica." Goulburn to Earl Bathurst, September i6, 1814. Wellington, Supplementary 
 Despatches, IX. 266. 
 
 ^ Adams, Memoirs, September 20, 18 14. 
 
I 
 
 144 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 but every new attack we are obliged to meet with a new 
 defence. From the first instant we saw (most of us at least) 
 that there was nothing to be done, but I did not see that 
 they might keep us here as long as they pleased, and that 
 they felt a wish to keep us here. Although Mr. Gallatin 
 may therefore judge more correctly than I do, I incline to 
 the belief that this will not be our last note; that when we 
 send it, there will be another reference to England, and that 
 at the end of ten days more we shall have another note to 
 answer. 
 
 There are letters from England saying that one of the 
 clerks in the British department of foreign affairs has been 
 dismissed from office, for having divulged some facts respect- 
 ing the proposals made by the British government at the 
 Ghent negotiation. That it was further reported that the 
 note in answer to the first written communication from the 
 British to the American ministers was very different from 
 what had been expected; that it was a very able and spirited 
 state paper, and that the Privy Council had been assembled 
 two successive days to deliberate upon its contents. I give 
 you this news as I received it, even with the mention of the 
 able and spirited state paper, because so small a part of it 
 was of my composition, that I can draw no vanity for any 
 credit to which it may be considered as entitled. I should 
 in fact have presented a very different paper, and I am con- 
 scious with all due humility that the paper sent was much 
 more able than the one I had drawn; perhaps too it was 
 more spirited, for it had not so much of the irritating lan- 
 guage, which the Morning Chronicle pretends has been used 
 on both sides, and for which it asserts we had a special meet- 
 ing mutually to apologize. . . . 
 
 I now despair of getting away from this place before we 
 shall be overwhelmed with these humiliations. They may, 
 
 i 
 
i8i4j JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 145 
 
 however, determine the British government to break us up 
 a little sooner. Thus we really now stand. We may be dis- 
 missed in twenty-four hours after we send our next note, 
 and we may be kept here three months longer, I cannot say 
 amused, but insulted with one insolent and insidious pro- 
 posal after another, without having it in our power to break 
 off" with the indignation which we feel. . . .^ 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, September 27, 18 14. 
 ... It appears to me to be the policy of the British 
 government to keep the American war as an object to con- 
 tinue or to close, according to the events which may occur 
 in Europe or in America. If so they will neither make peace, 
 nor break off the negotiation, and the circumstances may be 
 such as to detain us here the whole winter. Yesterday we 
 sent the answer to the third note of the British plenipoten- 
 tiaries, as I wrote you last Friday I expected we should.^ 
 Observe that our conferences have been suspended ever 
 since the 19th of last month — nearly six weeks; and that all 
 we have during that interval been discussing is merely pre- 
 liminary, whether we shall or shall not treat at all upon the 
 former differences between the two nations. We have not 
 
 ^ Bathurst intimated to Goulburn the very strong opinion which prevailed in 
 England against an unsatisfactory peace with America. In using this intimation 
 Goulburn found Gallatin alone of the American Commissioners "in any degree 
 sensible, and this perhaps arises from his being less like an American than any of 
 his colleagues." What pleased Goulburn more was the discovery of an alleged 
 falsehood on the part of the Americans. The point is immaterial save as it con- 
 firmed Goulburn that the real object of the war was not maritime rights, but the 
 conquest of Canada. Goulburn to Bathurst, September 23, 18 14. Wellington, 
 Supplementary Despatches, IX. 278. 
 
 2 Printed in American State Papers, Foreign Relations, III. 719. 
 
146 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 li 
 
 yet come to the real objects of negotiation. Mr. Gallatin 
 now inclines to the opinion that this will not be our last 
 communication. I have suggested a proposal to which my 
 colleagues have assented, and in our present note it has been 
 made.i They think it will be accepted, and if it is, the nego- 
 tiation will proceed, and the conferences probably be re- 
 sumed. If it is not accepted, I hope it will at least bring 
 us to a point which will prevent further dilatory proceedings. 
 We are still unanimous in the grounds we take. Our ad- 
 versaries have hitherto taken ten days to answer each of our 
 notes, and we have answered each of theirs in five. But in 
 truth we have to deal not only with the three plenipoten- 
 tiaries, one of whom was amply sufficient for five American 
 negotiators, but with the whole British Privy Council, who 
 have taken cognizance of every one of our communications, 
 and have prescribed the answer to them. Our joint notes 
 have hitherto been principally composed by Mr. Gallatin 
 and myself, the other gentlemen altering, erasing, amending, 
 and adding to what we write, as they think proper. We 
 then in a general meeting adapt together the several parts 
 of each draft to be retained, discard what is thought proper 
 to be rejected, criticise and retouch until we are all weary of 
 our conduct, and then have the fair copy drawn off to be 
 sent to the Chartreux, the residence of the British plenipo- 
 tentiaries. 
 
 In this process about seven-eighths of what I write, and 
 one-half of what Mr. Gallatin writes is struck out. The 
 reason of the difference is that his composition is argumenta- 
 tive, and mine is declamatory. He is always perfectly cool, 
 
 1 "I also made the proposal of offering to the British an article including the 
 Indians in the nature of an amnesty; for which I thought we should be warranted 
 by our instruction to endeavor to obtain an amnesty for the Canadians who have 
 taken part with us." Adams, Memoirs, September 20 and 23, 18 14. 
 
1814] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 147 
 
 and I, In the judgment of my colleagues, am often more than 
 temperately warm. The style of the papers we receive is 
 bitter as the quintessence of wormwood — arrogant, dicta- 
 torial, insulting — and we pocket it all with the composure of 
 the Athenian who said to his adversary, "Strike, but hear!" 
 Now in all this tranquillity of endurance I fully acquiesce, 
 because it may be more politic to suppress than to exhibit 
 our just indignation. But when I first write I indulge my 
 own feelings, well knowing that the castigation my draft 
 has to pass through will strip it of all its inflammable matter. 
 It happens sometimes also that I have views of the subject 
 in discussion not acceptable to some of my colleagues, and 
 not deemed important by others. There is much more 
 verbal criticism used with me too, than with any other mem- 
 ber of the mission, and even if you had been inclined to 
 gratify me with a compliment upon my talent at writing, 
 I have it too continually disproved by the successive dem- 
 olition of almost every sentence I write here, to permit 
 myself to be elated by your partiality. The result of all this 
 is, that the tone of all our papers is much more tame than I 
 should make it, if I were alone, and yet the English gazettes 
 pretend that we have taken it high and spirited. On the 
 other hand I am thought sometimes to go too far in conces- 
 sion; to give the adversary advantages in the argument 
 which might be inconvenient, and to speak of the British 
 nation in terms which might gratify their pride. All such 
 passages are inexorably excluded. All this winnowing and 
 sifting would be of the highest advantage to myself, if I was 
 at the improving period of life. At present I consider its 
 principal advantage to be that it effectually guards against 
 the ill-effect of my indiscretions.^ Mr. Gallatin keeps and 
 increases his influence over us all. It would have been an 
 
 ^ Adams, Memoirs, September 23, 1814. 
 
148 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 irreparable loss if our country had been deprived of the 
 benefit of his talents in this negotiation. . . .^ 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, October 4, 1814. 
 . . . When this comes to your hands the contents of 
 my letter of 16 August will probably be no longer in your 
 recollection, but as you keep the file, turn to it, with the 
 remembrance that on that very day, 16 August, the whole 
 of Cochrane's fleet assembled in the Chesapeake for the 
 expedition against Washington; and that on the ninth day 
 afterwards, the Capitol, the President's House, the public 
 offices, and the navy yard were destroyed.^ Remember too 
 
 1 "The British plenipotentiaries have again sent our note to England, as we 
 supposed they would. They expect the answer next Monday or Tuesday. Their 
 tour of duty appears to be much easier than ours. For since the conference of 
 9 August they have had little or nothing else to do than to seal up and open dis- 
 patches. The extent of their authority is to perform the service of a post-office 
 between us and the British Privy Council. If they get the news of their troops 
 having taken Washington or Baltimore before they transmit to us their next note 
 they may perhaps undertake to dismiss us. If not they may prepare for us ma- 
 terials for another note. I wrote you that they did not accept our invitation for a 
 tea party last evening, but went to Antwerp, I suppose purposely to avoid it." 
 To Louisa Catherine Adams, September 30, 18 14. Ms. 
 
 ^ On the 23d, Liverpool could write to Castlereagh: "The forces under Sir Alex- 
 ander Cochrane and General Ross were most actively employed upon the coast of 
 the United States, creating the greatest degree of alarm and rendering the govern- 
 ment very unpopular. We may hope, therefore, that if the American government 
 should prove themselves so unreasonable as to reject our proposals as they have 
 been now modified, they will not long be permitted to administer the affairs of the 
 country, particularly as their military efforts have in no way corresponded with the 
 high tone in which they attempt to negotiate." Wellington, Supplementary Des- 
 patches, IX. 279. On September 27 Bathurst gave intelligence of "a signal suc- 
 cess" — the "destruction of the American flotilla, and the capture and occupa- 
 tion for a time of the city of Washington." An "Extraordinary Gazette" was 
 issued on the same day. 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 149 
 
 that this was only the beginning of sorrows; the lightest of 
 a succession of calamities through which our country must 
 pass, and by which all the infirmities and all the energies of 
 its character will be brought to light. 
 
 In itself the misfortune at Washington is a trifle. The loss 
 of lives amounts scarcely to the numbers every day sacrificed 
 in a skirmish between two regiments of soldiers. The loss 
 of property cannot exceed the expenses of one month of war. 
 The removal of the seat of government necessitated by the 
 event may prove a great benefit rather than a disadvantage 
 to the nation. The weakness manifested in the defense of 
 Washington is the circumstance calculated to excite the 
 greatest concern, and is the more to be lamented as its 
 causes may be expected to operate on other occasions, and 
 
 "I can assure you that these considerations will make no difference in our anx- 
 ious desire to put an end to the war if it can be done consistently with our honour, 
 and upon such terms as we are fairly entitled to expect. The notes of our commis- 
 sioners at Ghent will, I think, sufficiently prove the moderation of our views. I 
 am satisfied that if peace is made on the conditions we have proposed, we shall be 
 very much abused for it in this country; but I feel too strongly the inconvenience 
 of a continuance of the war not to make me desirous of concluding it at the ex- 
 pense of some popularity; and it is a satisfaction to reflect that our military success 
 will at least divest the peace of anything which could affect our national charac- 
 ter. ... In any conversation which you may have with the King of France 
 or with his Ministers, you will not fail to advert to this circumstance, and to do 
 justice to the moderation with which we are disposed to act towards them [the 
 United States]." Liverpool to the Duke of Wellington, September 27, 18 14. Welling- 
 ton, Supplementary Despatches, IX. 290. To Castlereagh he added, "I fear the 
 Emperor of Russia is half an American; and it would be very desirable to do away 
 any prejudice which may exist in his mind, or in that of Count Nesselrode, on this 
 subject." lb., 291. Wellington, finding that the military successes of the British 
 in the United States "were canvassed in a very unfair manner in the public news- 
 papers, and had increased the ill temper and rudeness" shown to British in Paris, 
 did inform the French Minister of the state of the negotiation at Ghent. "Mon- 
 sieur de Jaucourt expressed great disgust at the state of the daily press at Paris at 
 present; and assured me that what had been published on the subject of our opera- 
 tions in America had made no impression on the King's mind." Wellington to 
 Castlereagh, October 4, 1814. lb., 3 14. 
 
ISO THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 to produce other effects still more disastrous. There is 
 perhaps no use in foreseeing calamities which it is not in our 
 power either to prevent or to remedy; but on this occasion 
 I find myself less affected by what has happened in conse- 
 quence of the state of preparation to which I had formed 
 my mind in looking forward to what it was but too obvious 
 must happen . . . 
 
 In the present state of things the only circumstance within 
 our power is to have our minds generally prepared for any- 
 thing that may happen. But the misfortune that may befall 
 us will probably not be that which we foresee. Let me how- 
 ever say, because it may afford you some relief and consola- 
 tion, that the personal dangers of our particular friends and 
 relations are much less than they were before this last event. 
 Washington may be henceforth considered as the place of 
 the United States the most secure from an attack of the 
 enemy. Boston is still exposed and our property there may 
 share the fate of the Capitol.^ But in the perils of the coun- 
 try I scarcely think it worth a thought what may befall my 
 individual interests. Our children and other relations near 
 Boston are in no danger but that which menaces the whole 
 country; and Cochrane's proclamation will not I imagine 
 produce any other effect against us than to tempt perhaps 
 some hundreds of negroes to run away from their masters. 
 
 If I could correctly judge of the effect upon the feelings 
 of our nation of this transaction by those which it has pro- 
 duced among the Americans we have here, I should look 
 upon it as a blessing rather than a calamity. The sentiment 
 
 ^ "Our old friend, Mr. R. B. Forbes, has just been to visit me. He is come to 
 Petersburg on his way to Ghent, and expects to return to America. He says Boston 
 is become intolerable to live in; that his family are most of them high Essex Junto, 
 and that it is hardly possible to walk in the streets without getting into quarrels. 
 This is a delightful picture of our town!" Louisa Catherine Adams to John Quincy 
 Adams, September 13, 1814. Ms. 
 
 ( 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 151 
 
 Is the same among us all. It is profound, anxious, and true 
 to the honor and interest of our country. It is a sentiment 
 which if generally felt by the people of the United States 
 will rouse them to exertion. Let that eflFect be produced 
 and they have as a people nothing to fear from the power of 
 Great Britain. If it cannot be produced they are not fit to 
 bear the character of an independent nation, and have 
 nothing better to do than to take the oath of allegiance to 
 the maniac [George III]. Congress were to assemble on the 
 19th of September. From this time until mid-winter every 
 breeze will bring us tidings fraught with the deepest interest 
 to our hearts. In the severe visitation of a chastening provi- 
 dence I will not abandon the hope that Its mercies will be 
 mingled with its judgments. 
 
 We have not yet received the reply of the British pleni- 
 potentiaries, or rather of the British Privy Council, to our 
 last note. As the time has now come for which they have 
 been trifling and equivocating those six months to keep up 
 what one of their own newspapers calls the idle and hopeless 
 farce of this negotiation, I wish that the Impression of their 
 success upon them may be to fix the determination of break- 
 ing it up. There can be no possible advantage to us in con- 
 tinuing it any longer. . . . 
 
 TO WILLIAM HARRIS CRAWFORD 
 
 Ghent, 5 October, 18 14. 
 My Dear Sir: 
 
 Mr. Boyd arrived here on the 29th ultimo with his dis- 
 patches, and with your letters of the 25th to the mission, 
 and to Mr. Gallatin and myself. After his arrival I received 
 your two favors of the 24th by the post. 
 
152 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 The important news from America is just beginning to 
 come in. Since Mr. Boyd's arrival, we have had successively 
 the accounts of the abortive attack on Fort Erie of 15th Au- 
 gust, and of the too successful attack on Washington of the 
 24th and 25th. The trial of our national spirit anticipated 
 in my letter of 29 August had even then commenced by that 
 vandalic exploit. Its result has illustrated in colors much 
 too glaring the remark I then made, that our statesmen ap- 
 peared not to have formed a just estimate of our condition. 
 
 I have never for an instant believed that peace would be 
 practicable by the negotiation here. Mr. Clay is the only 
 one among us who has occasionally entertained hopes that 
 it might be. The proceedings of the British government 
 since the delivery of their first sine qua non have sometimes 
 strongly countenanced Mr. Clay's opinion, and the deference 
 I have for his judgment leads me to distrust in this case my 
 own. I believe the sole object of Britain in protracting our 
 stay here is to impose both upon America and upon Europe, 
 while she may glut all her vindictive passions and bring us 
 to terms of unconditional submission. 
 
 We shall probably in the course of a few days make you a 
 joint and confidential communication upon this subject. 
 The purposes of our enemy have undoubtedly a relation to 
 France and to other European powers, and it may be ex- 
 pedient to put them upon their guard against the British 
 misrepresentations, of which they make this "idle and 
 hopeless farce" the instrument for views not less hostile to 
 them than to us.^ I am etc. 
 
 ^ "I have in some of my letters said, that if any reliance could be placed upon the 
 sincerity of the British ministry, a peace is not impracticable. This declaration 
 was made before I knew their last ultimatum. That paper strengthens this con- 
 jectural opinion; but still I agree with you that peace is an improbable result. I 
 have no confidence in their sincerity. If they make peace upon the basis now pro- 
 posed, it will be because they have been wholly disappointed in the result of the 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 153 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, October 7, 18 14. 
 . . . The newspapers contain a great variety of details 
 respecting the fail of Washington and the destruction of 
 buildings and of property, public and private, effected by 
 the enemy. The whole transaction is much more disgrace- 
 ful to the British than it is injurious to us. The destruction 
 of the Capitol, the President's house, the public offices, and 
 many private houses is contrary to all the usages of civilized 
 nations, and is without example even in the wars that have 
 been waged during the French Revolution. There is scarcely 
 a metropolis in Europe that has not been taken in the course 
 of the last twenty years. There is not a single instance in 
 all that time of public buildings like those being destroyed. 
 The army of Napoleon did indeed blow up the Kremlin at 
 Moscow, but that was a fortified castle, and even thus the 
 
 campaign. It has afforded me the most heartfelt satisfaction to find myself mis- 
 taken. The campaign has been much more successful than I had anticipated. 
 The aspect of affairs now is highly consolatory and encouraging. . . . Ad- 
 mitting that the objects for which the war is to be prosecuted may embrace con- 
 cessions which will be gratifying to the [British] national pride and beneficial to 
 their naval superiority, yet it cannot fail to occur to the thinking part of the nation 
 that these concessions, if obtained, must be temporary in their enjoyment. They 
 must be sensible that the moment is rapidly approaching when the shackles which 
 force may have imposed, will by force be broken. That it is indeed possible that 
 this period may arrive even before they have derived any benefit from it. For it 
 is only when she is belligerent that these concessions will be useful to her. Should 
 she therefore remain twenty years at peace, she will have prosecuted this war for 
 the advancement of objects, which the greatest possible success could alone give 
 her, and eventually derive no benefit from them. In that time we shall be able in 
 conjunction with her adversary to shake off the unequal and hard conditions which 
 she may have imposed upon us. For myself, I agree entirely with you, that we 
 shall have a good peace, if the war is prosecuted a year or two longer." William 
 H. Crawford to John Quincy Adams, October 26, 18 14. Ms. 
 
154 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 act has ever been and ever will be stigmatized as one of the 
 most infamous of his deeds. 
 
 It has indeed been conformable to the uniform experience 
 of mankind that no wars are so cruel and unrelenting as 
 civil wars; and unfortunately every war between Britain 
 and America must and will be a civil war, or at least will 
 bear most of its peculiar characters. The ties of society 
 between the two nations are far more numerous than be- 
 tween any two other nations upon earth. They are almost 
 as numerous as if they continued to be what even in our day 
 they have been, under the same government. But whenever 
 these ties are burst asunder by war, the conflicting passions 
 of the parties are multiplied and exasperated in the same 
 proportion. In the moral as well as the physical world the 
 principles of repulsion are exactly proportioned to those of 
 attraction. We must therefore expect that the excesses of 
 war committed by the British against us will be more out- 
 rageous than those they are guilty of against any other peo- 
 ple, and we must be neither surprised nor dejected at finding 
 them to be so. The same British ofl[icers who boast in their 
 dispatches of having blown up the legislative hall of Congress 
 and the dwelling house of the President, would have been 
 ashamed of the act instead of glorying in it, had it been done 
 in any European city. The exultation at this event in 
 England is just such as to prove that the passions of malice 
 and envy and revenge, which prompted their military and 
 naval officers to this exploit are prevailing universally 
 throughout the nation. The Times and the Courier rave 
 and foam at the mouth about it. The Morning Chronicle, 
 to justify the destruction of the Capitol and other public 
 buildings, calls it a mitigated retaliation for some private 
 houses burnt by our troops in Canada. But Lewiston, 
 Frenchtown, Havre de Grace, Hampton, and many other 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 155 
 
 scenes of British barbarism and brutality preceded any ir- 
 regular act of that nature on our part. The first example of 
 every savage feature in the war has been shown by the 
 British. The feelings excited by such atrocities among our 
 people could not be restrained: they retaliated, and now the 
 British retaliate upon retaliation. In this contest of fero- 
 cious and relentless fury we shall ultimately fall short of the 
 British, because we have not so much of the tiger in our 
 composition. A very strong evidence of this has been shown 
 in the history of the destruction of Washington. It seems 
 that after having effected their purpose, the terror of the 
 British was so great of being cut off in their retreat, and their 
 flight was so precipitate, that they left their own dead un- 
 buried on the fields, and their own wounded as prisoners at 
 the mercy of the very people whose public edifices and 
 private habitations they had been consuming by fire. If 
 those wounded prisoners have not been gibbeted on the trees 
 between Bladensburg and Washington, to fatten the region 
 kites, and to swing as memorials of British valor and human- 
 ity, it has not been because the provocation to such treat- 
 ment was insufficient, but because it belongs to our national 
 character to relent into mercy towards a vanquished and 
 defenceless enemy. . . . 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, October 11, 18 14. 
 . . . And now, the chances are of our being confined 
 here, if not the whole winter, at least several weeks and 
 probably months longer. On Saturday [8] evening came a 
 note of fifteen pages again, hot from the British Privy Coun- 
 cil; for the plenipotentiaries have no other duty as it would 
 
156 THE WRITINGS OF [181+ 
 
 seem to perform than that of engrossing clerks. This note 
 is in the same domineering and insulting style as all those 
 that have preceded it, but it contains much more show of 
 argument, falsehoods less liable to immediate and glaring 
 exposure, misrepresentations more sheltered from instant 
 detection, and sophistry generally more plausible than they 
 had thought it worth while to take the trouble of putting 
 into the former notes. The essential part of it is, however, 
 that they have abandoned almost every thing of their pre- 
 vious demands which made it impossible for us to listen to 
 them, and have now offered as their ultimatum an article of 
 a totally different description.^ You can conceive with what 
 kind of grace they retreat from nine-tenths of their ground 
 when you know that they take care to hint that at this stage 
 of the war, their concession must be taken for magnanimity. 
 
 What we shall do with this article I cannot yet pronounce; 
 but the prospect is that we shall have many other points to 
 discuss, and as their object of wasting time has now be- 
 come manifest beyond all possible doubt, there is less ap- 
 pearance than at any former period of the immediate and 
 abrupt termination of our business. The accounts from 
 America and the progress of affairs in Europe have hitherto 
 flowed in a copious and uninterrupted stream favorable to 
 their policy in the conduct of this negotiation. That such 
 would be the course of events it was impossible to foresee. 
 My own expectation was that in the exultation and insolence 
 of their success they would have broken It off upon the 
 grounds first taken by them in such a peremptory manner, 
 and which we decisively rejected. It appears, however, that 
 
 ' Bathurst sent to the British Commissioners, October 5, a "projet" of an 
 article on Indian pacification. His accompanying instructions are in Letters and 
 Despatches of Lord Castlereagh, X. 148. See American State Papers, Foreign Rela- 
 tions, III. 721. 
 
1814] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 157 
 
 the British ministers have not shared in all the delusions of 
 their populace in regard to their late achievement at Wash- 
 ington. They are perfectly aware that as injury to us It 
 scarcely deserves to be named as an important occurrence 
 of war; that as national humiliation its tendency is to unite 
 all parties in our country against them, to exasperate all the 
 passions of our people, and to create that very energy of 
 defence which it so effectually proved to be wanting. They 
 were so much elated by the event that they had their Gazette 
 accounts of it translated into all the principal languages and 
 transmitted to every part of Europe; but the sensation pro- 
 duced by it upon the continent, so far as we have had the 
 opportunity of remarking It, has been by no means creditable 
 to them — the destruction of public buildings of no character 
 connected with war, that of private dwelling houses, the 
 robbery of private property, and the precipitate flight of 
 their troops leaving their wounded officers and men at the 
 mercy of the people whom they had so cruelly outraged, 
 tells by no means to their glory. Here we have heard but 
 one sentiment expressed upon the subject — that of unquali- 
 fied detestation. But here the English are universally 
 hated; the people dare not Indeed openly avow their senti- 
 ments, but we hear them — "curses not loud but deep." 
 In France the public sentiment has been more openly ex- 
 pressed. In two of the daily journals of Paris ^ remarks 
 equally forcible and just upon the atrocious character of 
 this transaction have been published, and even in some of 
 the London newspapers and magazines a feeble and timid 
 expostulation has appeared against deeds paralleled only 
 by the most execrable barbarities of the French revolution- 
 ary fury, or by the Goths and Vandals of antiquity. A de- 
 
 1 Journal des Debats, reprinted in the Courier, October 6, and the Journal de 
 Paris, reprinted in the Courier, October lo. 
 
158 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 fence as despicable as the actions it attempts to justify has 
 been brought forward In one of the EngUsh newspapers; ^ 
 and its only artifice Is to diminish the Infamy by depreciating 
 the importance of this vaunted exploit. They are com- 
 pelled to urge how small and insignificant the distinction 
 was which they could accomplish to ward ofi" the shame of 
 having destroyed everything in their power. The Capitol, 
 they now say was only an unfinished building; the President's 
 house was properly demolished because the scoundrel Madi- 
 son had lived in it, and to be sure they could not be blamed 
 for having destroyed a navy yard. Let them lay this flatter- 
 ing unction to their soul. The ruins of the Capitol and other 
 public buildings at Washington will remain monuments of 
 British barbarism, beyond the reach of British destruction, 
 when nothing of their oppressive power will be left but the 
 memory of how much it was abused. . . . 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, October 14, 18 14. 
 . . . We this day send our answer to the fourth note 
 from the British plenipotentiaries: the note, as I have told 
 you, is by far the most labored, the best written, and the 
 most deserving of a complete and solid answer, of any one 
 that we have received from them. The peculiarity of its 
 character is, that In giving up almost every thing for which 
 they have contended as a preliminary, they finally Insist 
 upon some thing that I am very unwilling to yield, and they 
 dwell with bitterness and at great length upon unfounded 
 and most insidious charges against the American govern- 
 ment. I have acquiesced in the determination of my col- 
 
 1 The Courier, October 6, 1814. 
 
1814] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 159 
 
 leagues to yield on the particular point now required by the 
 British as their ultimatum.'^ They think we concede by it 
 little or nothing. I think the concession so great that I 
 should have been prepared to break off rather than give it 
 up. But the ground upon which I differ from them the most 
 is, that they are for giving the go-by to all the offensive and 
 insulting part of the British note; for not replying at all to 
 much of it, and for giving a feeble and hesitating answer to 
 the remainder. My principle would have been to meet 
 every one of their charges directly in the face; to report upon 
 them without hesitation, both of which we might do with 
 the strictest truth and justice; and to maintain as we have 
 done hitherto a tone as peremptory as theirs. All this we 
 might have done, and yet finally have conceded the point 
 upon which the continuation of the negotiation now hinges. 
 But the other policy has been thought more advisable. 
 In making the concession it is thought best to consider and 
 represent it as a trifle, or indeed as nothing at all; and that 
 it may have its full effect of conciliation, it is concluded to 
 say very little upon the other topics in the note, to decline 
 all discussion that would lengthen our answer, and above all 
 to avoid every thing having a tendency to irritate. I sub- 
 mit to this decision; but I think it will not be long before we 
 discover that our enemy is not of a temper to be propitiated 
 either by yielding or by shrinking; and my greatest concern 
 is that when we have once began to yield and to shrink, 
 there is no knowing where and when we shall be again pre- 
 pared to make a stand. I sacrifice however the more readily 
 my opinion to that of my colleagues in this case, because 
 they are unanimous In theirs, and because they promise me 
 not only that they will not yield anything of essential im- 
 portance hereafter, but that they will both parry and 
 
 ^ The pacification of the Indians. 
 
1 60 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 thrust, if it finally comes to a rupture, with as much earnest- 
 ness, and with more vigor than I should wish them to do 
 now. 
 
 It must indeed have been for some of my own sins or for 
 those of my country, that I have been placed here to treat 
 with the injustice and insolence of Britain, under a succes- 
 sion of such news as every breeze is wafting from America. 
 When Napoleon took Moscow Alexander declared to the 
 world, that he would drain the last dregs of the cup of bitter- 
 ness, rather than subscribe to a peace dishonorable to his 
 Empire. We have told the British government that we will, 
 if necessary, imitate this illustrious example. They have 
 taken our Capitol. They have destroyed its public, and 
 many of its private buildings, and the information is brought 
 to us at one of the critical moments of the negotiation. This 
 is the point of time at which we are required to bind or to 
 break. We have chosen to bind. Not so did Alexander. 
 May we be more fortunate in our imitation of his example 
 hereafter. 
 
 The taking of Washington, to use an expression of Boyd's, 
 has started our timbers. Lawrence's last words, which you 
 tell me you did not know, were ^^ Don't give up the ship.^^ The 
 ship was given up, not by him, but in consequence of his 
 mortal wound. It was in the agony of death, when all 
 sense and sentiment of the fatal reality were fled, that his 
 heroic soul took wing for eternity, still dwelling on the image 
 of his duty to his country, still cheering his companions to 
 the defence of their trust. Now you can judge whether 
 there was any meaning in the toast, when it was given. 
 Oh! if every American were a Lawrence; what should we 
 have to fear from all the malice backed by all the power of 
 Britain.'' 
 
 The feeling of the outrage upon the laws of war at Wash- 
 
1814] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 161 
 
 ington will be deep and lasting. The Chevalier says it ought 
 never to be forgotten. That it should make every American 
 take his children to the altar, and swear them to eternal 
 hatred of England. I do not go so far in the theory as the 
 Chevalier; but I am charmed to find him on this occasion 
 American to the quick. The day before yesterday we had 
 a tete-a-tete after dinner over a bottle of Chambertin, till 
 ten o'clock at night. He was perfectly friendly and confi- 
 dential. He reasoned with all the clearness and all the en- 
 ergy of his mind. I heartily concurred with all his principles. 
 I could not resist his persuasions with regard to the point 
 upon which we were laboring. I finally came down to the 
 prevailing sentiment of the mission. God grant that its 
 result may be an honorable peace. 
 
 At all events it will probably detain us several weeks 
 longer, for you know that we are in substance yet to begin 
 the negotiation. Hitherto we have only been discussing 
 whether we should treat at all. May it please God to forgive 
 our enemies, and to turn their hearts! 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, October 18, 18 14. 
 ... In the meantime we continue to be watching the 
 movements of the political weathercock in the British 
 Cabinet. Our note, which as I wrote you, was sent to the 
 plenipotentiaries last Friday, was dispatched by them the 
 next day to England. We cannot expect a reply to it before 
 next Monday, and I have now no hopes that it will finish 
 our business. We must drink the cup of bitterness to the 
 dregs. The chances are about even that we shall pass half 
 the winter here, or at least until all the great arrangements 
 
1 
 
 i62 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 at Vienna shall be completed. The Congress of Vienna I 
 have no doubt will prolong the general peace in Europe, but 
 if it is to finish in six weeks all its business, it may be ques- 
 tioned whether it will settle this continent very firmly on its 
 new foundations. There is some fermentation yet in France, 
 where in the midst of grave deliberations about the liberty 
 of the press, half a dozen printers of pamphlets have just 
 been arrested. The author of one of those pamphlets is 
 Carnot,^ who would also have been arrested, but for the 
 fear of producing too strong a sensation. On the other 
 hand, Mr. Chateaubriand has become a government writer, 
 and there is a long article composed by him published in the 
 Journal des Debats, and now circulating over Europe,^ on 
 the happiness of France since the restoration of the Bour- 
 bons. He proposes that Louis le Desire should be called 
 Louis le Sage. It is rather early to pronounce him so em- • 
 phatically wise, but in the acts of his government hitherto > 
 there has generally been a character of discretion well suited i 
 to his situation. Bonaparte had made a strong and ener- •. 
 getic government so odious by the excess to which he carried ' 
 it, that Louis has only to discern how far it may be relaxed, 
 and where he must stop, that it may not degenerate into 
 the opposite vice of weakness. This appears to be precisely 
 the object of his endeavors, and although many of his meas- 
 ures must under this system be experimental, and many of 
 his experiments unsuccessful, he has yet undertaken nothing 
 which could have a serious effect in shaking the stability of 
 his authority; and when he has found himself running foul 
 of the public opinion, he has always prudently and season- 
 ably yielded to it. 
 
 The great difficulty for him will be to manage the army, 
 
 * Memoire addresse au Roi, 1814. 
 
 * De Buonaparte et des Bourbons, 18 14. 
 
1814] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 163 
 
 and to check their martial propensity. They have been 
 deeply humiliated without being humbled. They have all 
 the pride of their former successes, with the galling sensation 
 of their late disasters. They look with a longing eye to their 
 former chief, who is now but a shadow; and unfortunately 
 for the Bourbons there is no other leader who has any as- 
 cendancy over them, and who could draw their tottering 
 allegiance to himself. The king has pursued the policy of 
 his own interest, by showering his favors upon the marshals, 
 without suffering himself to be infected by their passion 
 for war. . . . 
 
 TO WILLIAM HARRIS CRAWFORD 
 
 Ghent, 18 October, 18 14. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 I had the pleasure of writing to you on the 5th instant, 
 since which Mr. Gallatin has received your favor of the 6th, 
 forwarded from Lille by Mr. Baker, who was detained there 
 by illness. Mr, Boyd will be the bearer of this. 
 
 Since I wrote you last, the negotiation here has apparently 
 taken a turn which induces a postponement of the joint com- 
 munication which I then gave you reason to expect. I am 
 convinced with you that Great Britain keeps this negotia- 
 tion open to further views of policy which she Is promoting 
 at Vienna; but I think she has the further object of availing 
 herself of the impression she expects to make in America 
 during the present campaign, and of the terrors she is hold- 
 ing out for the next.^ As our remaining here must have a 
 tendency to countenance weakness and indecision on the 
 
 * See Bathurst to the British Commissioners, October i8, 1814, in Letters and 
 Despatches of Lord Castlereagh, X. 168. 
 
i64 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 other side of the Atlantic, I sincerely regret that the negotia- 
 tion has not yet been brought to a close. But to close it has 
 not been in our power. That is to say, there has never been 
 a moment when we should have been justified in breaking 
 it off, or could have shown to the world the real policy of 
 Great Britain. By referring every communication from us 
 to their government before they replied to it the British 
 plenipotentiaries have done their part to consume time, and 
 by varying their propositions upon every answer from us 
 their government have done the same. We have at length 
 accepted their article, and asked them for their projet of a 
 treaty. We expect their reply on Monday or Tuesday next. 
 The present aspect is of a continuance of the negotiation, 
 and we are not warranted in saying to France or Russia, 
 that we believe nothing will come of it. We are all ready 
 enough to indulge hopes, but I see no reason for changing 
 the belief that we have constantly entertained. My only 
 apprehension from delay is that the firmness of our councils 
 at home may not be kept up to the tone which has charac- 
 terized them heretofore. If they stand the test we shall have 
 no peace now, but a very good one hereafter. I am etc. 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, October 25, 18 14. 
 . . . On Saturday last [22] we received from the Brit- 
 ish Commissioners a note ^ more distinctly marked than 
 any of those that had preceded it, with the intention of 
 wasting time, without coming to any result. We sent them 
 our answer to it yesterday.^ We have again endeavored to 
 
 ' Printed in American State Papers, Foreign Relations, III. 724. 
 'lb., 72s. 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 165 
 
 bring them to a serious discussion of the objects in contro- 
 versy between the two countries; but their government (for 
 they do nothing themselves but sign and transmit papers) 
 have apparently no other aim but to protract the negotia- 
 tion. Since the late news from America they have totally 
 changed their grounds; they now come forward with new 
 inadmissible pretensions. We have rejected them as ex- 
 plicitly as we did those they first advanced, and we have 
 told them that further negotiation will be useless if they 
 persist in them. Our note of yesterday, I suppose like all the 
 rest, will go to England for an answer,^ but I do not expect 
 that it will yet produce any thing decisive. The chance of 
 peace is in my opinion more desperate than ever, for it is now 
 ascertained that they will raise their demands upon every 
 petty success that they obtain in America, and it is but too 
 certain that they must yet obtain many, far greater and more 
 important than those hitherto known. While they are 
 sporting with us here, they are continually sending rein- 
 forcements and new expeditions to America. I do not and 
 will not believe that the spirit of my countrymen will be 
 subdued by anything that the British forces can accomplish; 
 but they must go through the trial, and be prepared at least 
 for another year of desolating war. . . . 
 
 * It was sent to London on the day of receipt, "for the information of His Majes- 
 ty's Government, requesting at the same time their directions for our future pro- 
 ceedings." British Commissioners to Castlereagh, October 24, 18 14. Ms. 
 
i66 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 TO ABIGAIL ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, 25 October, 1814. Tuesday 
 My Beloved Mother: 
 
 This is the day of jubilee! the fiftieth year since your 
 marriage is completed! By the blessing of Heaven my dear 
 father can look back to all the succession of years since that 
 time with the conscious recollection that it was a happy day. 
 The same pleasing remembrance I flatter myself is yours; 
 and may that gracious being who has hitherto conducted 
 you together through all the vicissitudes of an eventful life 
 still watch over you! Still reserve for you many years of 
 health and comfort and of mutual happiness! ... 
 
 It is much to be lamented that such earnest and sanguine 
 expectations of peace have been entertained in America 
 from the present negotiation. The desire of peace, though 
 in itself proper and laudable, was unfortunately in the cir- 
 cumstances of our country and of the times the greatest 
 obstacle to its own object. It has been considered by our 
 enemies that we were or should be prepared to make any 
 sacrifice, even of our Union and independence, to obtain it. 
 This is not the spirit that will secure peace to us. Peace is 
 to be obtained only as it was after the war of our Revolu- 
 tion, by manifesting the determination to defend ourselves 
 to the last extremity. It is not by capitulations like those 
 of Nantucket and of Washington county in the state of 
 Massachusetts, and of Alexandria, that we shall obtain 
 peace. The capitulation of Alexandria is so inexpressibly 
 shameful, that people here who would gladly be friends of 
 our country ask us whether it is not a forgery of our enemies, 
 and whether there really existed Americans base enough to 
 subscribe to such terms.'' They say that the infamy of sub- 
 mitting to them was greater than that of exacting them. 
 
 I 
 
i8i4l JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 167 
 
 Of peace there is at present no prospect whatever. The 
 British government have sufficiently disclosed their inten- 
 tion of reducing again to subjection as large a portion of the 
 United States as they can occupy. They have taken posses- 
 sion of our territory as far as Penobscot river, and now they 
 make no scruple of demanding It. 
 
 But it does not appear to be their intention to break up 
 this negotiation. They keep us here, raising one extravagant 
 and Insulting pretension after another, ready to insist upon 
 or to recede from it according as they may find their interest 
 to dictate, or the circumstances to warrant; and here we are 
 reasoning and expostulating with them, entreating them to 
 consent to a peace, and above all dreading to break off the 
 negotiation, because Peace, Peace, is the cry of our country, 
 and because we cannot endure the idea of disappointing it. 
 
 While we have the miniature of a Congress here for the 
 affairs of England with the United States, there is a great 
 one at Vienna which is to settle the future destinies of Europe. 
 There, too, England appears Inclined to take the lead and 
 direction of all affairs; but It Is probable that France also 
 will have something to say in those arrangements. The 
 Prince of Talleyrand, the French Ambassador there, has 
 stated in a memorial, that as France has consented to be re- 
 duced to her dimensions of 1792, it is but justice on her part 
 to expect that the other great European powers will follow 
 her example. This declaration appears to have been quite 
 unexpected, and to have given rise to so many new ideas 
 among the assembled potentates and ambassadors that it 
 has been agreed to postpone the opening of the Congress until 
 the first of November.^ 
 
 » In commenting upon a letter of John Quincy Adams to his father, of October 27, 
 Madison wrote: "Our enemy knowing that he has peace in his own hands, specu- 
 
i68 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE 
 No. 142. [James Monroe] 
 
 Ghent, 25 October, 18 14. 
 
 Sir: 
 
 Since the departure of the John Adams, we have had no 
 safe opportunity for transmitting dispatches to you, and 
 this has probably been owing to the detention of the Chaun- 
 cey by the agent, and as he states under the instruction of 
 her owner. 
 
 It will probably be known to you that on the outward pas- 
 sage of this vessel from the United States to Gothenburg, 
 one of her passengers was sent on board a vessel upon the 
 coast of Scotland who did not return, but was shortly after- 
 wards landed in Great Britain. There is reason to believe 
 that after the arrival of the Chauncey at Gothenburg, the 
 British consul at that place received an anonymous letter 
 
 lates on the fortune of events. Should those be unfavorable, he can at any moment, 
 as he supposes, come to our terms. Should they correspond with his hopes, his 
 demands may be insisted on, or even extended. The point to be decided by our 
 ministers is, whether during the uncertainty of events, a categorical alternative of 
 immediate peace, or a rupture of the negotiation, would not be preferable to a 
 longer acquiescence in the gambling procrastinations of the other party. It may 
 be presumed that they will before this have pushed the negotiations to this point. 
 
 "It is very agreeable to find that the superior ability which distinguishes the 
 notes of our Envoys extorts commendation from the most obdurate of their politi- 
 cal enemies. And we have the further satisfaction to learn that the cause they are 
 pleading is beginning to overcome the prejudice which misrepresentations had 
 spread over the continent of Europe against it. The British government is neither 
 inattentive to this approaching revolution in the public opinion there, nor blind 
 to its tendency. If it does not find in it a motive to immediate peace, it will infer 
 the necessity of shortening the war by bringing us, the ensuing campaign, what it 
 will consider as a force not to be resisted by us." Madison to John Adams, Decem- 
 ber 7, 1814. Writings of Madison (Hunt), VIII. 3 22. 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 169 
 
 representing this transaction and circumstances attending 
 It as a violation of the cartel, of which information was of 
 course given by the consul to the British Admiralty. Early 
 in August application was made to the joint mission by a 
 letter from the captain to Mr. Clay, requesting that we 
 would obtain a passport for the vessel to return to the United 
 States. We accordingly asked for the passport by a note 
 to the British plenipotentiaries, desiring that it might be 
 transmitted to the captain of the vessel at Gothenburg, and 
 might include permission to touch at any port of Europe for 
 our dispatches. The passport was Immediately granted, 
 though I have heard that a previous solicitation to the same 
 effect through other channels had been rejected. 
 
 The vessel arrived at Ostend in the beginning of Septem- 
 ber, and the captain immediately came here, together with 
 the person who had been landed in England on the passage 
 to Gothenburg. The owner's agent had already come on 
 from Gothenburg, I believe by land. We expected that the 
 vessel would have immediately proceeded to the United 
 States, but found the owner's agent was under Instructions 
 which left it doubtful whether she would go at all. After 
 waiting about five weeks and receiving no answer to our ap- 
 plications for passports for other vessels to convey our dis- 
 patches, we thought It necessary to ask the agent for the 
 Chauncey to return the passport, unless he chose to dispatch 
 the vessel. He then wrote us a letter stating that it would 
 be contrary to his instructions from the owner founded on 
 the agreement with you to send her away, but that being 
 under the necessity to do that, or to return the passport, 
 he placed her at our disposal, and she would be ready to 
 sail at the time mentioned by us which was about this day. 
 The object of this doubtless is to lay a claim for remunera- 
 tion from the government. But we could have more op- 
 
I70 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 portunities than we would want to send dispatches without 
 any expense to the government, and should probably have 
 met with no difficulty in obtaining cartels for the purpose, 
 had it not been known that this vessel after being furnished 
 with a passport was detained for objects of individual in- 
 terest to the owner. 
 
 We now send you copies of all our official correspondence 
 with the British plenipotentiaries since the departure of 
 Mr. Dallas. From their first vote of 19 August, transmitted 
 by Mr. Dallas to you, and from our conference with them 
 on the same day which had preceded it, we had supposed it 
 to be the intention of the British government to break off 
 the negotiation immediately. The conversation of their 
 ministers after receiving our answer to that note tended at 
 first to confirm that opinion; but they concluded eventually 
 to refer to their government before they sent us their reply; 
 and when that finally came, it afforded a presumption which 
 everything since has confirmed, that the real object of the 
 British government was neither to conclude peace nor to 
 break off the negotiation, but to delay. Of this policy the 
 advantage was all on their side. They knew that whatever 
 might happen, a peace honorable and advantageous to them 
 might be concluded in one week, should the course of events 
 in Europe or in America render it in their estimate advisable 
 to terminate the war, and they chose to avail themselves of 
 the advantages which the successes of this campaign in 
 America would give them, and of the chances either of 
 permanent tranquillity, or of new troubles in Europe, which 
 might result from the Congress at Vienna. 
 
 Although this policy was sufficiently disclosed to us from 
 the time when we received the second note of the British 
 Ministers, we have at the same time perceived that our only 
 practicable expedient for counteracting it would be to break 
 
1814) JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 171 
 
 off the negotiation on our part. We have deemed this un- 
 advisable, because we thought the rupture should not pro- 
 ceed from us, as long as a possibility remained that a just 
 and honorable peace might be concluded, and because it was 
 barely possible that the course of events might fix the in- 
 tentions of the British government in favor of peace. It 
 will be observed that the sine qua non, upon the admission 
 of which they at first placed the continuance of the negotia- 
 tion was already varied in their second note, most essentially 
 altered in the third, and finally melted down in the fourth 
 into an article which we have agreed in substance to accept.^ 
 It is also to be noticed that the British plenipotentiaries have 
 not replied to any one of our notes without a previous refer- 
 ence to their government, so that there has been always an 
 interval of eight or ten days between their receipt of a note 
 from us and our receipt of their answer. 
 
 After the consumption of so much time upon mere pre- 
 liminary discussion, when we accepted the articles we 
 
 ^ "We owed the acceptance of our Article respecting the Indians to the capture 
 of Washington; and if we had either burnt Baltimore or held Plattsburgh, I believe 
 we should have had peace on the terms which you have sent to us in a month at 
 latest. As things appear to be going on in America, the result of our negotiation 
 may be very different. Indeed if it were not for the want of fuel in Boston, I should 
 be quite in despair." Goulburn to Earl Bathurst, October 21, 18 14. Wellington, 
 Supplementary Despatches, IX. 366. "The American plenipotentiaries have agreed 
 to our Article relative to the Indians. The negotiation is therefore proceeding, 
 and with more prospect of success than has hitherto existed. We shall probably 
 be able to form some decisive judgment on the subject in the course of the next ten 
 days. The capture and destruction of Washington has not united the Americans: 
 quite the contrary. We have gained more credit with them by saving private 
 property than we have lost by the destruction of public works and buildings. 
 Madison clings to office, and I am strongly inclined to think that the best thing for 
 us is that he should remain there. His government must be a weak one, and feeling 
 that it has not the confidence of a great part of the nation, will perhaps be ready to 
 make peace for the purpose of getting out of its difficulties." Liverpool to Castle- 
 reagh, October 21, 1814. lb., 367. 
 
172 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 thought it proper to ask for their projet of a treaty, offering 
 immediately afterwards to deliver them ours in return. By 
 their last note, dated on the 21st and delivered to us on the 
 22nd instant, they not only evade that request, but after 
 having repeatedly disclaimed any views to the acquisition 
 of territory to Great Britain, they now propose to treat upon 
 the basis of uti possidetis ^ And this proposition is made 
 immediately after receiving the accounts of the capture of 
 Washington, and of their having taken possession of all 
 that part of the state of Massachusetts beyond Penobscot 
 River. As we have already declared that we would subscribe 
 no article importing a cession of territory, they must have 
 been aware that we should reject this basis, and can have 
 brought it forward for no other purpose than that of wasting 
 time. In our answer to this note, which was sent yesterday, 
 we have endeavored to bring them to a point, not only by 
 explicitly rejecting the basis of uti possidetis, but by remind- 
 ing them of its inconsistency with their own professions 
 hitherto, and by stating to them that the utility of continuing 
 the negotiation must depend upon their adherence to their 
 principles avowed by those professions. We also renewed 
 the request for an exchange of projets, and as they intimated 
 the idea that there might be an advantage in receiving in- 
 stead of giving the first draft of a treaty, we have offered to 
 exchange the respective drafts at the same time.^ 
 
 ^Authorized by Bathurst, October 20, 18 14. Letters and Despatches of Lord 
 Castlereagh, X. 172. 
 
 2 On the American note of the 24th Liverpool wrote 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. 
 
 "We proposed the uti possidetis to be the basis of the treaty as to territory, sub- 
 ject, however, to such modifications as might be found on discussion reciprocally 
 advantageous. They are disposed to advance the extravagant doctrine of some 
 of the revolutionary governments of France, viz., that they never will cede any 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 173 
 
 It Is now the general opinion that the Congress at Vienna 
 win terminate In a settlement of the general affairs In Europe, 
 If not to the satisfaction of all the great powers, at least with- 
 out opposition from any of them. Such Is the opinion that 
 I have myself uniformly entertained. All the principal 
 governments, and all the great nations, except France, are 
 most anxiously desirous of peace; and as there Is little else 
 to arrange between them besides a distribution of spoils, 
 each one, however eager to grasp at the most It can get, will 
 finally content Itself with what it can obtain. In France 
 Itself the warlike spirit appears to be gradually subsiding, 
 and will In all probability yield itself to the continual and 
 increasing Influence and authority of the government. There 
 Is, therefore, little prospect that anything occurring In 
 Europe will Inspire the British ministry with a pacific dis- 
 position towards America. They are, In fact, continuing to 
 embark troops and to send reinforcements of all kinds for 
 another campaign. It is not for me to judge what may be 
 the effect of the events now so rapidly succeeding one another 
 In our own hemisphere; but our country cannot be too pro- 
 foundly Impressed with the sentiment that it Is, under God, 
 upon her own native energies alone that she must rely for 
 peace, Union, and Independence. I am etc. 
 
 part of their dominions, even though they shall have been conquered by their 
 enemies. This principle they bring forward during a war in which one of their chief 
 efforts has been to conquer and annex Canada to the United States. 
 
 "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. I cannot, however, believe that such a doctrine would receive any counte- 
 nance (especially after all that has passed) in Europe. 
 
 "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 project 
 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." Wellington, Supple- 
 mentary Despatches, IX. 385. 
 
174 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, October 28, 1814. 
 We have been very much occupied since I wrote you last 
 in dispatching Mr. Connell, who goes oflF this morning to 
 Ostend, there to embark in the Chauncey for New York. 
 During the same time we have been undergoing another sort 
 of fatigue, which is more tedious and wearisome to me, that 
 of banqueting. On Wednesday ^ we dined with the British 
 plenipotentiaries. No other company than ourselves, but a 
 Mr. Van Aken, a gentleman of this place, whom we met there 
 once before. Our acquaintance here in consequence of the 
 ball we gave, and of the manner in which we have mingled 
 in society, has become extensive, and as we have associated 
 indiscriminately with all the respectable classes, now as the 
 winter approaches we have the prospect of partaking as 
 much as the gayest of us can wish, in what are called the 
 pleasures of society. The inhabitants of the place of all 
 descriptions show us every civility and attention in their 
 power, and we have not now to learn how much more we 
 enjoy of their favor than our adversaries. We have not 
 like them two sentinels clad in scarlet at our doors. Our 
 guard of honor is the good will of the people. We do not 
 quarter upon them the scarlet coats by the thousands; we 
 Iqyj no contributions of monthly millions upon them to feed 
 the lobsters; and we do not crush their manufactures by 
 crowding upon their markets the competition of ours. The 
 hatred of the English is so universal, and so bitter, that we 
 may attribute no small part of the kindness shown to us to 
 the mere fact of our being the representatives of our enemies. 
 The English ministers live as secluded as if they were monks 
 
 ^ October 26. See Adams, Memoirs, October 26, 18 14. 
 
1814] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 175 
 
 of the old convent of Chartreux where they reside. Lord 
 Gambler, who appears to me to be an excellent and well 
 meaning man, asked me the day before yesterday, whether 
 we had made any acquaintances here. I said we had. He 
 replied that theirs was confined to the Intendant's family. 
 This however is altogether owing to themselves. Little as 
 the people here love their nation, they would be ready enough 
 to associate with them, and to show them civility, if they 
 sought it. But Lord Gambler himself is an elderly man not 
 much suited to shine or to delight in mixed societies. Mr. 
 Goulburn is a very young one, but he has his wife with him, 
 and has so much of my humor, as to think his own family 
 the best company. Both he and Dr. Adams have the English 
 prejudice of disliking everything that is not English, and 
 of taking no pains to conceal their taste. . . . None of 
 them would find much to please them in the companies of 
 this place, nor is there much in any or all of them to give 
 more pleasure than they would receive. . . . 
 
 We have no further news since Tuesday from America, 
 excepting the confirmation of the destruction of the British 
 fleet on Lake Champlain, and the consequent retreat of 
 Sir George Prevost. ... Sir George Prevost, it seems, 
 was advancing to take possession of the new line of boundary 
 which they intend to demand at the peace, and since his 
 defeat the Courier says one more effort may be necessary, 
 but that will be the last. All the accounts from England 
 since this affair has been known concur in saying that there 
 will be no peace; but if they do not secure their object by 
 the effort of this campaign they will not be so likely to obtain 
 it by the next. May he in whose hands is the spirit as well 
 as the destiny of nations support us in the struggle we have 
 to go through! . . .^ 
 
 * "I see little prospect of our negotiations at Ghent ending in peace, and I am 
 
176 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 I 
 
 Ghent, November 4, 18 14 
 . . . Since that time/ facts, more or less material to 
 the issue of the negotiation, have occasionally transpired, 
 but in the English newspapers they are so blended with other 
 statements given with equal confidence and totally destitute 
 of foundation, that the public in England have no real knowl- 
 edge of the true state of things. You will accordingly find 
 that the accounts both by the newspapers and by the private 
 letters from England will be altogether different from the 
 information you have received and will continue to receive 
 from me. Our occupations and our amusements still furnish 
 a daily paragraph to every gazette, but there is a mixture 
 of truth and of fiction in their narrative, even of particulars 
 which are in their nature of public notoriety. They have 
 not only noted down our excursions of pleasure, and our 
 shipping of baggage on board the Neptune, but they have : 
 sent me to Bruxelles, while I have not slept out of Ghent 
 since my first arrival in it. They have dispatched Mr. Bay- 
 apprehensive that they may be brought to a conclusion under circumstances which 
 will render it necessary to lay the papers before Parliament, and to call for a vote 
 upon them previous to the Christmas recess. Of this, however, I shall probably 
 be enabled to speak more positively some days hence. The continuance of the 
 American war will entail upon us a prodigious expense, much more than we had 
 any idea of. . . . If we had been at peace with all the world, and the arrange- 
 ments to be made at Vienna were likely to contain anything very gratifying to the 
 feelings of this country, we might have met the question with some degree of con- 
 fidence; but as matters now stand, everything that is really valuable will be con- 
 sidered as having been gained before, and we shall be asked whether we can really 
 meet such a charge in addition to all the burthens which the American war will 
 bring upon us." Liverpool to Castlereagh, November 2, 1814. Wellington, Supple- 
 mentary Despatches, IX. 401. See Adams, Memoirs, May 12, 1815, for the state- 
 ment of the Duke de Vicence on Castlereagh's desire for peace. 
 
 ^ When Creighton and Milligan visited England, and the consequent charges of 
 speculating in cotton and tobacco. 
 
 I 
 
i8i4l JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 177 
 
 ard to Paris to take the court of France by storm, when he 
 was only gone to Bergen op Zoom, to look at the walls which 
 General Graham intended to storm, and failed. They have 
 sent us, or dreamt of our being sent, like fire-ships loaded 
 with combustibles, to Vienna, to blow up the Congress there, 
 and spread a conflagration of universal war again all over 
 Europe. One day they have prostrated us at the feet of the 
 British plenipotentiaries, repenting in the dust, and crying 
 for mercy; and the next they have seated us on a car of 
 triumph, showering gold around us, and bribing Talleyrand 
 with heaucoup d'argent to arm the universe against the 
 maritime rights of old England. All this time we have been 
 proceeding exactly as I have told you: once a fortnight, or 
 thereabouts, receiving from the British Privy Council a note 
 signed by their plenipotentiaries, full of arrogant language 
 and inadmissible demands, which in three or four days we 
 have answered, sometimes with elaborate argument, always 
 with extreme moderation, occasionally with firmness and 
 spirit, and never with unsuitable concession; much less with 
 the port of suitors or the attitude of asking for indulgence. 
 We have attempted neither to storm the court of France, 
 nor to blow up the Congress at Vienna. We have left the 
 powers of the European continent to their own reflections 
 concerning the maritime rights of the British empire, and 
 have been as far from asking of them as they have been 
 from offering us any of their assistance. We see plainly 
 enough that we shall have no peace but by the failure of the 
 British forces in America to accomplish the objects for which 
 they were sent, and by the failure of the British govern- 
 ment to give the law to all Europe at Vienna. Should they 
 succeed in America, we shall have no peace, because our 
 country will never submit to the terms they would dictate. 
 Should they succeed In Vienna, we shall have no peace, be- 
 
178 THE WRITINGS OF I1814 
 
 cause they will prefer war with us, to peace upon any terms. 
 In the meantime they are merely multiplying discussions 
 to keep the negotiation alive, until they shall find it their 
 interest to break off or to conclude. In answer to their last 
 note we shall send them in two or three days, the draft of a 
 treaty. There is little chance of our finishing in any manner 
 within a month, and not much probability before the close 
 of the year. . . . 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, November 8, 1814. 
 . . . We have not yet sent our reply to the note which 
 we received on the 31st ulto. from the British plenipoten- 
 tiaries.^ We had never before taken so much time to reply; 
 the reason of which delay is that we have been preparing the 
 draft of a treaty to send with the note. This has brought us 
 upon the whole field of this negotiation, and has made it 
 necessary to deliberate and agree among ourselves upon 
 many thorny points of discussion. It has not in this state 
 of things been perfectly easy to bring our own minds to the 
 point of cordial unanimity; but our deliberations have been 
 cool, moderate, mutually conciliatory, and I think will result 
 in full harmony. We shall not be ready with the project 
 before Thursday — perhaps not even so soon. While it shall 
 continue to be the policy of the British government to tem- 
 porize, we cannot force them to decision. Since their last 
 disgraces in America, the spirit of the English nation is evi- 
 dently more fiercely bent upon the prosecution of the war 
 than it was before. The negotiators from Bordeaux ^ upon 
 
 ^ American State Papers, Foreign Relations, III. 726. 
 
 '^The bayonets of the seasoned troops sent to America from the continent of 
 Europe. 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 179 
 
 whose success so much reliance was placed having failed, 
 the only conclusion that Mr. Bull's pride will allow him to 
 draw from his disappointment is that there were not enough 
 of them. So he insists upon making another trial and sending 
 more. General Pakenham ^ goes out with a staff to succeed 
 Ross. Prevost and most of the old commanding officers are 
 recalled. A man of high rank is to be sent as commander- 
 in-chief of all the forces. Wellington will, I think, not go 
 yet; but unless he is wiser than I believe him, he will go be- 
 fore the war ends, and then — God speed the monument of 
 the women of Great Britain and Ireland! As Wellington 
 began where Cornwallis ended, his American expedition, if 
 he undertakes it, I hope will end him where Cornwallis began 
 — at Yorktown. . . .^ 
 
 ^Edward Michael Pakenham (1778-1815). See C. F. Adams, Studies, Military 
 and Diplomatic, 1775-1865, 176. 
 
 ^ In expressing a wish that the Duke of Wellington should take command of the 
 British forces in America, Liverpool wrote to Castlereagh, November 4, 1814: 
 "I know he is very anxious for the restoration of peace with America if it can be 
 made upon terms at all honourable. It is a material consideration, likewise, that 
 if we shall be disposed for the sake of peace to give up something of our just pre- 
 tensions, we can do this more creditably through him than through any other 
 person." Wellington, Supplementary Despatches, IX. 405. And to the Duke of 
 Wellington, on the same date: "We cannot, however, conceal from you that great 
 public advantage would arise from your accepting this [American] command. 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 continuance of it. We 
 desire to bring it to an honourable conclusion; and this object would, in our judg- 
 ment, be more likely to be attained by vesting you with double powers than by 
 any other arrangement which could be suggested." lb., 406. Wellington believed 
 that under the existing circumstances the Ministry "cannot at this moment allow 
 me to quit Europe." lb., 422, 425. On the question hindering the conclusion of a 
 peace he wrote: "In regard to your present negotiations, I confess that I think 
 you have no right from the state of the war to demand any concession from Amer- 
 ica. Considering everything, it is my opinion that the war has been a most suc- 
 cessful one, and highly honourable to the British arms; but from particular cir- 
 cumstances, 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 
 
i8o THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 TO WILLIAM HARRIS CRAWFORD 
 
 Ghent, 6th November, 18 14. 
 Dear Sir: i 
 
 Mr. Gallatin and myself have received your favor of \ 
 25th ultimo, and I have also to acknowledge that of the 
 26th addressed separately to me. We shall reply jointly to \ 
 the former, but that gentleman thinks there is no occasion 
 for immediate urgency on the subject, and I rely upon his 
 judgment. 'i 
 
 Our negotiation is spinning out, and unless our govern- 
 ment brings it to a close, will be a mere chancery suit. Last 
 Monday we received a note eluding for the second time our 
 request for an exchange of projets. They talk of etiquette, 
 and of the advantage of receiving the first projet Instead of 
 giving it. We shall therefore send them the first projet. But 
 
 ) 
 
 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 prin- 
 ciple of equality in negotiation, claim a cession of territory excepting in exchange 
 for other advantages which you have in your power. . . . Then, if ail 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." 
 lb., 426. On the i8th Liverpool could inform Castlereagh: "I think we have de- 
 termined, 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. . . . 
 It has appeared to us desirable to bring the American war if possible to a conclu- 
 sion." lb., 438. 
 
 I 
 
i8i4l JOHN QUINCY ADAMS i8i 
 
 what are we to expect from plenipotentiaries who are ob- 
 Hged to send to the Privy Council for objections of etiquette 
 and question who shall give or receive the first draft? 
 
 I thought they were waiting for the issue of the campaign 
 in America. But success and defeat there produce the same 
 result upon them. The instant they knew of their achieve- 
 ments at Washington and Penobscot they shifted their 
 ground, rose in their demands, and proposed the basis of 
 uti possidetis. When they heard of their defeats at Baltimore 
 and on Lake Champlain, it became indispensable to wipe 
 off the disgrace upon their arms and to prosecute the war 
 upon a larger scale. It is from Vienna and not from America 
 that the balance of peace or of war will preponderate. 
 
 I heartily share in all your exultation at our late successes 
 and in all your wishes for the future. If I am lagging in the 
 rear of some of your hopes, it is from a sluggishness in the 
 anticipation of good, for which I have no reason to thank the 
 character of my imagination. Certainly, what you foresee is 
 more probable than what has actually happened. May all 
 your hopes be realized! ,^- ■ 
 
 We have received a passport for the Transit. The Chaun- 
 cey sailed on the first instant. I am etc. 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, November ii, 1814. 
 ... If we were to credit the present reports from 
 England, our mission here would have the prospect of 
 termination within a very few days. The Morning Chronicle 
 of the 2d instant announces that the total rupture of the 
 negotiation at Ghent will be made public within a fortnight 
 from that time. Sir Edward Pakenham, General GIbbs, 
 
i82 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 and many other officers have embarked and sailed for Amer- 
 ica in the Statira frigate from Portsmouth. All the letters 
 from England concur in stating that the popular sentiment 
 for continuing the war is a perfect frenzy. The Times 
 blubbers that all the laurels of Portugal, Spain, and France, 
 have withered at Plattsburg, and threatens damnation to 
 the ministry if they dare to make peace with Madison and 
 his faction. We are even told that Master Bull calls for a 
 more vigorous administration to put down the Yankees, and 
 that that model of public and private virtue, Wellesley, is 
 to replace such sneaking prodigals of the nation's blood and 
 treasures as Castlereagh and Liverpool. . . . 
 
 Last evening we sent to the British commissioners the 
 answer to their last note, and with it an entire draft of a 
 treaty.^ As notwithstanding all the news from England, I 
 
 * Printed in American State Papers, Foreign Relations, III. 733. Of this draft 
 of a treaty Goulburn wrote: "The greater part of their project is by far too ex- 
 travagant to leave any doubt upon our minds as to the mode in which it could be 
 combated; but there is some doubt whether it would be useful to comply with the 
 request of the American Commissioners, and state specifically the reasons which 
 induce us to object more or less to all the articles proposed by them. Such a state- 
 ment, though not difficult, would be voluminous." Goulburn to Earl Bathurst, 
 November 10, 18 14. Wellington, Supplementary Despatches, IX. 427. 
 
 Bathurst wrote to Goulburn of the change of feeling and desire for a treaty, who 
 replied on the 25th: "I need not trouble you 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; and 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. Believing, however, in 
 the necessity of the measures, you may rely upon our doing our utmost to bring 
 the negotiation to a speedy issue; but I confess I shall be much surprised if the 
 Americans do not, by cavilling and long debate upon every alteration proposed by 
 us, contrive to keep us in suspense for a longer time than under present circum- 
 stances is desirable. ... I had till I came here no idea of the fixed determina- 
 tion which prevails in the breast of every American to extirpate the Indians and 
 appropriate their territory; but I am now sure that there is nothing which the people 
 
,8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 183 
 
 do not think their government yet prepared to break off the 
 negotiation, I expect it will be ten days before they send us 
 their reply. We are not aware of anything either in our 
 note or in the treaty we propose, that they may seize upon 
 as the pretext for breaking; but there is enough in both for 
 that object, if they think the time arrived for proclaiming 
 the rupture. We have in the note made a proposal more com- 
 prehensive, more liberal, more adapted to ensure peace (in 
 my opinion) than anything that has yet passed in the cor- 
 respondence on either side. This proposal has been made 
 at my suggestion, and there has been great difficulty in 
 coming to unanimity upon it.^ My belief is that it is the 
 only principle upon which there is any possibiUty of peace, 
 and in my view it is calculated to be of great advantage to us, 
 if it should fail, because in the event of a rupture it will be 
 our strongest justification in the eyes of the world. But so 
 difi'erent are the views of others, that many ill consequences 
 are expected from it, and if they should ensue, the whole 
 responsibility of the measure will be brought to bear directly 
 upon me. Of this I was fully assured when I presented the 
 proposal, and I am prepared to take all the blame that 
 may ultimately attach to it upon myself. It was, however, 
 readily adopted, and strenuously supported by both my 
 colleagues of the former mission. 
 
 As Parliament was to meet on the 8th we may now expect 
 the Regent's speech in a day or two. Lord Castlereagh has 
 not yet returned from Vienna, and we have not yet heard of 
 the opening of the Congress. It was, as you know, post- 
 
 of America would so reluctantly abandon as what they are pleased to call their 
 natural right to do so." Goulburn to Earl Bathurst, November 25, 18 14. Wellington, 
 Supplementary Despatches, IX., 452, 454. 
 
 ^A proposal to conclude the peace on the footing of the state before the war, 
 applied to all the subjects of dispute between the two countries, leaving all the rest 
 for future and pacific discussion. See Adams, Memoirs, November 10, 18 14. 
 
i84 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 poned to the first of this month. The speech will probably 
 give some indication of the aspect of things both at Vienna 
 and at Ghent. If the determination to continue the war in 
 America is settled, it will be disclosed in the speech, and we 
 have rumors that not only the Regent but the Queen have 
 manifested their concurrence with the popular passion for 
 war. It is therefore to be expected that the answer to our 
 draft of a treaty, whether in the shape of a counter-project 
 as we have requested, or by the refusal to send us one, will 
 bring us to some point on which the rupture will turn. They 
 have no hopes of reducing the Yankees to unconditional 
 submission by the events of this campaign. But the news 
 still to come will give them encouragement, and when fully 
 prepared with the ways and means for the next year, they 
 will have no motive to keep us longer lingering here. . . . 
 
 TO GEORGE JOY 
 
 Ghent, 14 November, 18 14. 
 
 Sir: 
 
 After receiving your favor of 30 September I have been 
 waiting in expectation of the pleasure of seeing you here 
 until yesterday, when yours of the 4th instant was put into 
 my hands. I have a double motive for regretting the delay 
 of your journey upon learning that it has been occasioned 
 by a serious indisposition. 
 
 The sentiments expressed by your two correspondents 
 from whose letters you are kind enough to send me extracts 
 are just, in part. Disgusting, however, as the aspect which 
 the war has (not so very lately) assumed must be to every 
 liberal and candid mind, I believe we must consider it as 
 the aspect which all wars between those two parties always 
 
 
i8i4l JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 185 
 
 will assume. It is "fraternal rage" — It is civil war. The 
 Capitol, a legislative and judicial palace, a public library 
 and a chapel were blown up, we are told, by way of retalia- 
 tion. What was Lewiston bombarded for.'' What was 
 Georgetown, Frederickstown, Frenchtown and Havre de 
 Grace destroyed for.^* What were the wounded prisoners 
 at the river Raisin butchered in cold blood for.^ Was it for 
 retaliation.^ Those things were not indeed translated Into 
 all the languages of Europe, and sent by special messengers 
 to every court, and therefore the indignation of mankind 
 has not marked so strongly their feelings as It did to greet 
 the messengers who come to proclaim the destruction of the 
 Capitol — I forbear. 
 
 If the full length picture presents the same features as 
 your miniature, the ruin of the Capitol will be a public 
 blessing. But it was once said that they who believed not 
 Moses and the prophets would neither believe one from the 
 dead. My faith Is unshaken in the result. Whether the 
 test of the process is to be more or less severe depends not 
 upon us, but upon an overruling power, in whose hands our 
 enemies are but instruments. You see I am something of 
 an optimist, and as such permit me to express the earnest 
 hope that this may find you well. 
 
 Remaining in the meantime your very humble servant. 
 
i86 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 TO LEVETT HARRIS 
 
 Ghent, 15 November, 18 14. 
 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 I have just now the pleasure of receiving your favor of 
 14/26 October, and am happy to learn from yourself the con- 
 firmation of your recovery, of which and of your illness I had 
 a few days since been informed by a letter from my wife. 
 
 Near the close of the month of August it was our expecta- 
 tion that the negotiation here would have terminated in a 
 very few days. It soon after became apparent that the in- 
 tention of the British government was to keep it open, and 
 to shape its demands according to the course of events in 
 Europe and in America. This policy still continues to per- 
 vade the British Cabinet. Nothing decisive is yet known 
 to them to have occurred either at Vienna, or in the other 
 hemisphere, and accordingly they temporize still. Unless 
 something should happen to fix their wavering pretensions 
 and purposes it will belong to the American government alone 
 to bring our business to a point. This on their part would 
 certainly be an honorable and spirited course of conduct, 
 and I should have no doubt of Its being pursued, if the desire 
 of peace were not paramount to every other consideration. 
 
 The occurrences of the war in America have been of a 
 diversified nature. Success and defeat have alternately 
 attended the arms of both belligerents, and hitherto have 
 left them nearly where they were at the commencement of 
 the campaign. It has been on our part merely defensive, 
 with the single exception of the taking of Fort Erie with 
 which it began. The battles of Chippewa and of Bridge- 
 water, the defence of Fort Erie on the 15th of August, and 
 the naval action upon Lake Champlain on the nth of Sep- 
 
i8i4l JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 187 
 
 tember have redounded to our glory, as much as to our ad- 
 vantage; while the loss of Washington, the capitulations of 
 Alexandria, and of Washington County, Massachusetts, and 
 of Nantucket, have been more disgraceful to us than in- 
 jurious. 
 
 The defence of Baltimore has given us little more to be 
 proud of, than the demonstration against it has afforded to 
 our enemy. Prevost's retreat from Plattsburg has been more 
 disgraceful to them, than honorable to us, and Wellington's 
 veterans, the fire-eater Brisbane ^ and the firebrand Cock- 
 burn, have kept the rawest of our militia in countenance by 
 their expertness in the art of running away. 
 
 The general issue of the campaign is yet to come, and 
 there is too much reason to apprehend that it will be un- 
 favorable to our side. Left by a concurrence of circumstances 
 unexampled in the annals of the world to struggle alone and 
 friendless against the whole colossal power of Great Britain, 
 fighting in reality against her for the cause of all Europe, 
 with all Europe coldly looking on, basely bound not to raise 
 in our favor a helping hand, secretly wishing us success, and 
 not daring so much as to cheer us in the strife — what could 
 be expected from the first furies of this unequal conflict but 
 disaster and discomfiture to us.- Divided among ourselves, 
 more in passions than interest, with half the nation sold by 
 their prejudice and their ignorance to our enemy, with a 
 feeble and penurious government, with five frigates for a 
 navy and scarcely five efficient regiments for an army, how 
 can it be expected that we should resist the mass of force 
 
 ' Sir Thomas Makdougall-Brisbane (1773-1860). 
 
 ^ "There is a report here that the maritime question was brought forward at the 
 Congress at Vienna by the French plenipotentiaries, but the opposition of the 
 British agents was so pointed and imperious that it was not persisted in nor sup- 
 ported by the other powers." Levett Harris to John Quincy Adams, 3 1 October 
 12 November, 18 14. Ms. 
 
i88 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 which that gigantic power has collected to crush us at a 
 blow? This too is the moment which she has chosen to break 
 through all the laws of war, acknowledged and respected by 
 civilized nations. Under the false pretence of retaliation 
 Cochrane has formerly declared the determination to destroy 
 and lay waste all the towns on the sea coast which may be 
 assailable. The ordinary horrors of war are mildness and 
 mercy in comparison with what British vengeance and malice 
 have denounced upon us. We must go through it all. I 
 trust in God we shall rise in triumph over it all; but the first 
 shock is the most terrible part of the process, and it is that 
 which we are now enduring. . . . 
 I am etc. 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, 15 November, 18 14. 
 
 . . . There was a concert and redoute (meaning thereby 
 a ball) in the evening, which the younger part of our com- 
 pany attended. It is by subscription once a week, on Mon- 
 days; alternately a simple concert, and this mixed enter- 
 tainment of last evening, half concert, and half ball. It 
 began last week with a concert, which I attended and found 
 rather tedious, though it was over about eight o'clock. It 
 consisted almost entirely of the scarlet coated gentry from 
 Hanover and England, who are not more favorites of ours 
 than they are of the inhabitants of the country. They are 
 scarcely ever admitted into the good company of the place 
 in private society, and so they have taken almost exclusive 
 possession of the public places where the only condition of 
 admittance is the payment of money. 
 
 The theatrical season has also commenced from the first 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 189 
 
 of this month. All the boxes of the first and second row 
 are taken by the season; but as a particular consideration 
 in our favor we were admitted to take a box by the month. 
 I say we, though I am not personally included in the arrange- 
 ment. The regular performances are alternately three and 
 four times a week, and once or twice with the ahonnement 
 suspendu. The company is, for French players, without 
 exception the worst I ever saw. There is but one tolerable 
 actor, and not one actress in the whole troop. Occasionally 
 they have had one good singer, male, but he had a figure 
 like Sancho Panza, and one female, but she was sixty years 
 old and had lost her teeth. Sometimes they bring out rope 
 dancers and sometimes dancers without ropes, who are 
 rambling about the country, and half fill the houses two or 
 three nights; but the standards of the stage are the veriest 
 histrionic rabble that my eyes ever beheld. Yet they have 
 a very good orchestra of instrumental performers, very de- 
 cent scenery, and a sufficient variety of it; and a wardrobe 
 of elegant and even magnificent dresses. The only days when 
 they give anything which I think fit to be seen or heard are 
 those when the ahonnement is suspended. Some of us are 
 very constant attendants. Mr. Gallatin and James never 
 miss. They have become intimately acquainted with the 
 whole troop. All our family have become in a manner do- 
 mesticated behind the scenes, with a single exception. Who 
 that is you may conjecture. I go to the theatre about once 
 a week, and have found no temptation to go oftener. My 
 evenings, although they are drawing to the season of their 
 greatest length, have as yet seldom hung heavy upon my 
 hands. 
 
 We have usually, after sending a note to the British pleni- 
 potentiaries, from a week to ten days of leisure. Such has 
 been our state since last Thursday, when we transmitted to 
 
I90 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 them our project of a treaty. We shall probably not have 
 the reply sooner than next Monday. . . . 
 
 The English newspapers to the loth bring nothing further 
 from America. One great reason that I have for believing 
 that the next news will be bad — very bad — is that most of 
 us are sanguine in the hope that it will be very good. We 
 have had many and signal unexpected favors of Providence; 
 but I do not recollect a single instance since the commence- 
 ment of the war, when we have indulged hopes founded on 
 flattering prospects, that they have not issued in bitter dis- 
 appointment. 
 
 The Regent's speech talks as usual about the unprovoked 
 aggression of America, and her siding with the oppressor of 
 Europe, but says he is negotiating with her for peace; that 
 his disposition is pacific, and that the success will depend on 
 his meeting a similar disposition in the American govern- 
 ment.^ These, as Lord Grenville in the debate observes, are 
 words of course, and he calls upon the ministers to say what 
 the war is continued ior^ Lord Liverpool brings it out in 
 terms which, equivocal as they are, explain sufficiently to 
 us the policy which I have so often told you they were pur- 
 suing. He said, according to the report of the Courier^ 
 "that particular circumstances might prescribe conditions 
 which in a diff"erent situation of affairs it would be impolitic 
 and improper to propose." That is to say, that the terms 
 they intend to prescribe will depend upon the circumstances 
 of the campaign in America, and of their success at the Con- 
 gress of Vienna. The Regent has therefore mistaken his 
 own disposition. It is not to make peace, but to vary his 
 proposals according to circumstances. This is what his 
 government has done with us. They have changed their 
 grounds in almost every note they have sent us, and have 
 
 * See Annual Register, 1814, 353. 
 
,814] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 191 
 
 been steady to nothing but the principle of avoiding to 
 pledge themselves to anything — to pledge themselves effect- 
 ually, I mean, — for they have repeatedly slunk in one note 
 from a demand which they had declared to be indispensable 
 in another, and on the first encouragement of success they 
 brought forward demands totally inadmissible, which they 
 had before solemnly disclaimed. 
 
 Lord Grenville and Mr. Whitbread censured the destruc- 
 tion of the Capitol and President's house at Washington. 
 They were told that it was done by way of retaliation. But 
 Admiral Cochrane has made a formal declaration that he 
 shall destroy and lay waste such towns as he may find as- 
 sailable on the sea coast, having been required by Sir George 
 Prevost to do so, to retaliate for similar destruction com- 
 mitted by the Americans in Canada. Prevost himself at the 
 same time in his expedition to Plattsburg issued a proclama- 
 tion forbidding every such excess, and declaring that they 
 were not making war upon the American people, but only 
 against their government. Whitbread called upon the 
 ministers to account for the inconsistency between Prevost's 
 proclamation and his alleged requisition to Cochrane; but 
 they gave him no answer. The real cause was that Prevost 
 was entering that part of the country to conquer it, and the 
 government intended to keep it. So they tried there the 
 system of coaxing the people. On the sea coast, which they 
 do not expect to keep, they meant merely to plunder and 
 destroy. The retaliation was nothing but a pretext. . . . 
 
192 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 TO WILLIAM HARRIS CRAWFORD 
 
 Ghent, 17 November, 18 14. 
 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 I received yesterday your favor of the loth instant, which 
 was brought by Mr. Storrow. My expectations with re- 
 gard to the issue of the campaign in America are colored 
 perhaps more by general reasoning than by reference to the 
 particular state of facts. I cannot suppose it possible that 
 Izard's object was an attack upon Kingston. I take it for 
 granted it was to relieve and reinforce our army at Fort Erie, 
 which by our most recent accounts was in a situation more 
 critical than that of Drummond, and still beseiged by him. 
 Among the last rumors from Halifax is that of a successful 
 sortie from Fort Erie, and if that report was well founded 
 we might rely more upon the issue of Izard's expedition. 
 My distrust of it arises from the necessity of exact corre- 
 spondence in the execution of combined operations, and a 
 want of confidence in our military manoeuvres upon the 
 land. We have not yet learnt to play the game. 
 
 The debates in Parliament upon the Regent's speech have 
 disclosed the system pursued by his government in the nego- 
 tiation at this place. Lord Liverpool avows without scruple 
 that their demands and propositions are to be regulated by 
 circumstances, and of course while that policy prevails 
 nothing can be concluded. Even when all the preparations 
 are made, and all the funds provided for another campaign, 
 it is not clear that they will find it expedient to break off 
 this negotiation, and it is certain that we shall not break it 
 off without orders from our government. We sent on the 
 loth instant the projet of a treaty, assuming the basis of 
 status ante helium with regard to the territory, and have 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 193 
 
 offered in the note sent with it to extend the same principle 
 to all other objects in dispute between the two countries. 
 We have presented articles on the subjects of impressment, 
 blockades, indemnities, exclusion of savage cooperation in 
 future wars, and amnesty. But we have declared ourselves 
 willing to sign a peace placing the two nations precisely as 
 they were at the commencement of the war, and leaving all 
 controversial matter for future and pacific negotiation. I 
 was earnestly desirous that this offer should be made, not 
 from a hope that it would be accepted, for I entertained none; 
 but with the hope that it would take from them the advan- 
 tage of cavilling at any of our proposed articles, as manifest- 
 ing no disposition for peace, and compel them to avow for 
 what object they intend to continue the war. We have 
 offered no equivalent for the fisheries. We have considered 
 the rights and liberties connected with them as having 
 formed essential parts of the acknowledgement of our inde- 
 pendence. They need no additional stipulation to secure us 
 in the enjoyment of them, and that our government upon 
 these principles had instructed us not to bring them into 
 discussion. This was originally my view of the subject, and 
 the principle on which I thought the rights to the fisheries 
 must be defended, from the moment when we were informed 
 in the first conference they would be contested. The offer 
 of an equivalent was afterwards suggested from a doubt 
 whether the ground I had proposed to take was tenable, 
 and with the intention of relieving it from all contention. 
 I was prepared for either alternative, but I held the one or 
 the other to be indispensable. We finally assumed the prin- 
 ciple on which I had originally rested the cause. It is urged, 
 that the principle, if correct, includes the equivalent which 
 it had been contemplated to offer, and I admit that it may. 
 The general basis of the state before the war includes in 
 
194 
 
 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 substance both, to my mind beyond all doubt. And although 
 I have no hope that this offer will be now accepted, yet if it 
 should, I am not only ready to adhere to it and abide by it 
 in all its consequences, but to sign the treaty with a degree 
 of pleasure which has not yet fallen to my lot in this life. 
 I am very certain that after seven years of war we shall not 
 obtain more, and what heart would continue the war another 
 day, finally to obtain less ? 
 
 You will have observed that the atrocious manner In 
 which the British are carrying on the war in our country has 
 been a subject of animadversion in Parliament. The minis- 
 ters placed it on the footing of retaliation. Lord Grenville 
 and Mr. Whitbread censure in the style which Burke de- 
 scribed as "above all things afraid of being too much in the 
 right". They are evidently not in possession of the facts 
 which shed the foulest infamy upon the British name in these 
 transactions. We have seen several interesting specula- 
 tions in the Paris papers on the same subject. Would it not 
 be possible through the same channel to show the falsehood 
 of the pretext of retaliation, or to make the principle recoil 
 upon themselves.^ You have no doubt the report of the 
 committee made 31 July, 18 13, on the spirit and manner in 
 which the war had been waged against us even then. It has 
 occurred to me that a short abstract from that might be pre- 
 sented to the public in Europe, with a reference to dates, 
 which would point the argument of retaliation, such as It is, 
 directly against the enemy. In general, the British have 
 had ever since the commencement of the war such entire 
 possession of all the printing presses in Europe, that its 
 public opinion has been almost exclusively under their guid- 
 ance. From the access which truth and humanity have ob- 
 tained in several of the public journals in France in relation 
 to our affairs, it may be inferred that no control unfavorable 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 
 
 195 
 
 to them will be exercised, however unwelcome the real ex- 
 position of facts may be across the channel. 
 
 It appears that the principles asserted by the French 
 plenipotentiaries at Vienna have made a profound impres- 
 sion, that they have already disconcerted some of the proj- 
 ects of Lord Castlereagh, and that without offering any 
 pretext for hostility from any quarter, they have laid the 
 foundation for the restoration to France of that influence in 
 the affairs of Europe without which this continent would be 
 little more than a British colony. The issue of the Congress 
 at Vienna will undoubtedly be pacific; but if France has 
 taken the attitude ascribed to her by the rumored contents 
 of Talleyrand's memorial, her rival will not long enjoy the 
 dream of dictating her laws to the civilized world. France 
 had lost her place in the family of nations. It was at Vienna 
 that it became her to resume it. We have reason to hope 
 that she did resume it exactly where she ought, and as the 
 place she took was marked at once with dignity and modera- 
 tion, it is to be presumed it will be maintained with firmness. 
 
 I am etc. 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, 18 November, 18 14. 
 ... It is the eighth day since we sent our last note to 
 the British plenipotentiaries. Their reply to our communica- 
 tions has not hitherto been delayed beyond ten days, and if 
 no unusual time should be taken for the consideration of 
 our project for a treaty, we may expect their note next 
 Monday. If their government seriously intended to make 
 peace at present, by the proposal which we have made them, 
 and to which I referred in my last letter, it might be con- 
 
196 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 eluded in twenty-four hours; but as it will certainly not be 
 accepted, there can as certainly be no peace at this time. 
 Had there been any doubt on this point left upon my mind 
 it would have been removed by the avowal of Lord Liverpool 
 in the debate on the Regent's speech, that their demands 
 and proposals were to rise and fall according to circum- 
 stances. 
 
 The Congress of Vienna has not exactly corresponded in 
 its arrangements with their intentions, but they have suc- 
 ceeded at it in some of their most important purposes. They 
 will conclude these without any disturbance of a general 
 peace, but probably France will be left dissatisfied with the 
 arrangements, and formally protesting against them. Such 
 is at least said to be the present state of affairs. The great 
 effort of Lord Castlereagh has been to exclude France totally 
 from all influence in the general distribution of spoils of 
 Europe, and even from all interference in the affairs of 
 Germany. The great eifort of Talleyrand has been to exer- 
 cise influence without provoking hostility, to counteract the ' 
 views of the British government without directly confront- 
 ing them, and finally to dissolve the league against France 
 under which the Congress first assembled. If the public 
 reports from Vienna may be credited, the address of Talley- ■ 
 rand has hitherto gained ground upon that of his antagonist. » 
 There has been undoubtedly a clashing of purposes between 
 them which at one time amounted to a personal misunder- 
 standing. The English story from Vienna is that Talleyrand 
 has shrunk from his pretensions, and smoothed away the 
 difficulties he had raised. The reports here are that the 
 Emperor Alexander has declared himself in favor of the 
 principles asserted by Talleyrand in his famous memorial; 
 that the memorial has produced a profound impression; that 
 Talleyrand distinguishes himself by his activity and talents; 
 
,8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 197 
 
 that he has availed himself of the opposition of interests, and 
 has even obtained a reconsideration of certain decisions 
 which had already been agreed to by the other great powers. 
 The first object of France necessarily must have been to 
 untie the knot of all Europe combined against her. This 
 she could not more effectually do than by declaring that she 
 demanded nothing for herself. The next declaration that 
 it was not her intention to oppose by force any of the arrange- 
 ments which should be made, took from the other powers 
 all pretext for measures of hostility against her; and under 
 the shelter of these two preliminaries, it was impossible that 
 her voice should be heard without effect in the subsequent 
 deliberations of those whose principal object was to share 
 the general plunder among themselves. 
 
 Notwithstanding this it is apparent that the affairs of 
 Europe will be settled at Vienna, so much according to 
 English views, and so far against the interests of France, that 
 she will never cordially acquiesce in the settlement. She may 
 perhaps have prevented the projected aggrandizement of 
 the kingdom of Hanover; but the fate of Saxony, of Belgium, 
 and perhaps of Italy, has been fixed without regard to her 
 remonstrances. Britain is engaged in a war which must em- 
 ploy a considerable part of her forces, and increase the em- 
 barrassment of her finances. France will be well pleased to 
 see the continuation of this war, and will be watching the 
 favorable moment to redeem herself from the humiliation 
 she is now enduring as well as to recover the relative posi- 
 tion from which she has just now been degraded. England 
 must be kept in a continual state of jealousy and alarm, 
 even in the midst of peace, having the constant danger im- 
 pending over her of war. It is impossible that the Congress 
 of Vienna should settle a permanent basis for the balance of 
 Europe. They will merely distribute the spoils of France, 
 
198 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 and open the source of future combinations against their 
 own measures, of which France will be the natural centre and 
 support. . . . 
 
 TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE 
 No. 143. Qames Monroe] 
 
 Ghent, 20 November, 18 14. 
 
 Sir: 
 
 The Chauncey sailed on the first of this month from Ostend, 
 and by her we transmitted to you copies of all the official 
 papers which had passed between the British plenipoten- 
 tiaries and us. The interval that had elapsed since the de- 
 parture of the John Adams was so long that I am apprehen- 
 sive you may have thought it unnecessarily protracted. It 
 was owing to the reluctance with which the supercargo of 
 the Chauncey came to the determination of proceeding to 
 America, and to the dilatory proceedings of the British 
 Admiralty upon our applications for passports for vessels 
 to convey our dispatches. On the 7th of September we had 
 by a note to the British plenipotentiaries requested them to 
 obtain such a passport for the schooner Herald, lying at 
 Amsterdam. There were a number of persons citizens of the 
 United States * who were desirous of returning in that vessel 
 as passengers, and we gave their names with the intimation 
 of a wish that they might be inserted as passengers on the 
 passport. We have not to this day received any answer from 
 the Admiralty upon this application. 
 
 When Mr. Boyd arrived here, we immediately addressed 
 a note to the (British) plenipotentiaries asking a passport 
 
 1 Moffaft, Gray, Gookin, Price, Bly, and Williams. 
 
i8i4l JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 199 
 
 for the Transit to return to the United States with our dis- 
 patches; at the same time we informed them that you had 
 been obliged to dispatch her without any passport, and sent 
 them copies of your note to Lord Castlereagh, enclosing the 
 duphcates of your letters of 25 and 27 June to us, and of 
 Admiral Cockburn's letter to you, alleging his commander's 
 orders for refusing a passport for a vessel in July, because 
 he judged it sufficient to have given one for another vessel 
 the preceding March; and we intimated to them that their 
 officers had thus to the utmost extent of their power pre- 
 cluded our government from transmitting to us any instruc- 
 tions subsequent to their knowledge of the important changes 
 in the affairs of Europe which had so essential a bearing 
 upon the objects of our negotiation. The circumstance was 
 the more remarkable, because the British plenipotentiaries 
 had in one of their notes made it a subject of reproach to the 
 government of the United States, that they had not furnished 
 us with instructions after being informed of the pacification 
 of Europe. We had, indeed, told them at the conference of 
 the 9th of August that we had then received instructions 
 dated at the close of June. But this had altogether escaped 
 their recollection; so that while Admiral Cockburn was 
 writing you that his superior officer had decided that there 
 was no further occasion for our government to instruct us 
 until they should receive dispatches from us, the British 
 government was taking it for granted that we had received 
 no instructions and was charging it as an indication that 
 the American government was not sincerely disposed to 
 peace. 
 
 It was nearly five months after we made this communica- 
 tion asking a passport for the Transit, when we received it. 
 The passport requires that she should go in ballast, and with 
 no other passenger than a bearer of dispatches from us. No 
 
200 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 answer has been given us, either in relation to Admiral Cock- 
 burn's letter to you refusing a cartel, or to your note to 
 Lord Castlereagh, inclosing the duplicates. We received 
 the passport for the Transit only the day before the Chauncey 
 sailed, so that the length of time between the dispatching of 
 Mr. Dallas and that of Mr. Connell, and of course the long 
 period which you will probably be without advices from 
 us, will have been owing to obstacles independent of our 
 control. 
 
 From the nature of the British pretensions and demands 
 as disclosed in the first note from their plenipotentiaries to 
 us, and from the tone with which they were brought forward, 
 both in that note and in the conference of the day on which 
 it is dated, we had concluded that the rupture of the negotia- 
 tion would immediately ensue, and expected to have been 
 discharged from our attendance at this place before the 
 first of September. The British plenipotentiaries, after re- 
 ceiving our answer to their first note, appeared to entertain 
 the same expectation, and if the sincerity of their conversa- 
 tion can be implicitly trusted, they were not altogether in 
 the secret of their government. It soon became apparent 
 from the course pursued by them, that the intention of the 
 British Cabinet was neither to break off the negotiation nor 
 to conclude the peace. They expected that a powerful im- 
 pression would be made in America by the armaments, 
 naval and military, which they had sent and were continuing 
 to send. At the same time the result of the Congress at 
 Vienna was a subject of some uncertainty. The expediency 
 of another campaign in America might depend upon its issue. 
 Success in either hemisphere would warrant them in raising 
 their demands at their own discretion. Failure on either, 
 or even on both sides, would still leave them with a certainty 
 of a peace as favorable as they could have any reasonable 
 
1814] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 201 
 
 pretence to require. They have accordingly confined their 
 plenipotentiaries to the task of wasting time. After spend- 
 ing more than two months upon a preHmlnary article, which 
 ultimately bore scarcely a feature of its original aspect, they 
 twice successively evaded our request for an interchange of 
 the projet of a treaty. They have at least started it as a 
 point of etiquette, and appear to consider It as an advantage 
 to receive the first draft Instead of giving it. We have now 
 endeavored to gratify them in both respects. We have sent 
 them our projet and are now waiting for theirs. In the 
 meantime Lord Liverpool has avowed in the debates on the 
 Regent's speech that their demands and proposals are to be 
 regulated by circumstances, which implies that they are 
 not yet prepared to conclude. One of the latest ministerial 
 papers announces that the negotiation is not to succeed, and 
 that their plenipotentiaries are very shortly to return to 
 England. Of the latter part of their information I much 
 doubt; for although the progress of the negotiations at 
 Vienna daily strengthens the expectation that It will end 
 without any immediate disturbance of the peace of Europe, 
 it does not yet promise a state of permanent tranquillity 
 which would make the policy of continuing at all events the 
 war with America unquestionable. 
 
 I have received and shall forward by the Transit a packet 
 of dispatches for you from Mr. Harris at St. Petersburg. It 
 doubtless contains copies of the note which he addressed to 
 the Imperial Department of Foreign Affairs in relation to 
 Admiral Cockburn's proclamation of blockade of 25 April 
 last. I know not whether it is to be regretted that Mr. Har- 
 ris's note was not presented until after the Emperor's de- 
 parture for Vienna. He writes me that Mr. Weydemeyer at 
 his suggestion had written to Count Nesselrode, requesting 
 him to communicate directly to me the Emperor's answer 
 
202 
 
 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 on the subject of the note. But I have not heard from the 
 Count. 
 
 The popular sentiment throughout Europe has been, and 
 still is, that the United States must sink in the present 
 struggle against the whole power of Great Britain. And 
 such is the British ascendancy over all the governments of 
 Europe, that even where the feelings of the people incline to 
 favor us, they dare not yet unequivocally express them. 
 The late events in America, as far as they are known here, 
 tended to produce some change in this respect. The de- 
 struction of the public buildings at Washington has been 
 publicly reprobated in some of the French gazettes, but it 
 has been defended in others. The general effect upon the 
 public opinion has been unfavorable to the English, but the 
 impression of their defeat at Baltimore, and especially of 
 the retreat from Plattsburg, has been much deeper. We shall 
 have no valuable friends in Europe until we have proved 
 that we can defend ourselves without them. There will be 
 friends enough, if we can maintain our own cause by our 
 own resources. . . . 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, 22 November, 18 14. 
 We have not yet received from the British plenipoten- 
 tiaries a reply to the note which we sent them on Thursday 1 
 the lOth Inst., but we find some notice of it in the English 
 newspapers. The Courier, an evening and ministerial paper, : 
 on Monday the 14th, after referring to a paragraph in the - 
 gazette of this country, which had stated that nothing was 
 known of the state of the negotiation at Ghent, added that 
 enough however was known in England to ascertain that it 
 
1814] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 203 
 
 would not succeed, and that the British plenipotentiaries 
 might soon be expected home. The Morning Chronicle, an 
 opposition paper, on Tuesday, the 15th, stated that the 
 American ministers had in the course of the preceding week 
 deUvered in a long note, which had been received at London 
 on Sunday morning, and that a Cabinet council had im- 
 mediately been held upon it at the foreign office. It mentions 
 also that there had been reports on Monday that we had 
 received instructions from America by the way of France; 
 but we had rejected the project offered by the British govern- 
 ment, and proposed another. The meeting of the Cabinet 
 council on Sunday the 13th has been confirmed by the sub- 
 sequent papers, and it is probable that a hint was given to 
 the editor of the Courier to prepare the expectation of the 
 public for the rupture. It is not true that we have rejected 
 the British project, for we have not yet been able to prevail 
 upon the British Cabinet council to produce any project at 
 all. They have made and retracted, and renewed and varied, 
 distinct propositions upon particular points, but have taken 
 special care to give us no project of a treaty. Nearly three 
 months ago they informed us that on one of the points upon 
 which we had rejected their demands, they should, as soon 
 as we had agreed upon another, have a proposal to make, so 
 fair and moderate and generous, that we could not possibly 
 reject it. We did finally agree a month since upon the other 
 point, since which we have not heard of the fair and generous 
 proposal. They have on the contrary told us In substance 
 that they had no proposal to make about it; and yet I fully 
 expect that if they do give us at least a project of a treaty, 
 we shall find it there. We have now asked them three times 
 for their project. The first time we offered to return them 
 ours immediately after receiving theirs. As they shuffled 
 in their answer, but hinted in a manner as if they were 
 
204 THE WRITINGS OF ii8i4 
 
 ashamed of the suggestion, that there was an advantage in 
 receiving the first draft of a treaty instead of giving it, we 
 next offered to exchange the two projects at the same time. 
 They replied by a pretension that they had partly furnished 
 a project because they had told us in substance all they meant 
 to demand; and then again they squinted at the advantage 
 of receiving the first offer, and at some question of etiquette 
 which might be in the case. It was too plain that their ad- 
 vantage and their etiquette were nothing but devices for wast- 
 ing time; and so we sent them a complete project drawn up 
 in form, with nothing but blanks of time and place to fill to 
 make it a treaty. Had the British plenipotentiaries been 
 sent here honestly to make peace, this is what might and 
 should have been done before the twentieth of August on 
 both sides. The pretended etiquette is an absurdity. The 
 negotiation was proposed by the British government. It 
 was the business of the British government to present first, 
 in form as well as in substance, the terms upon which they 
 were willing to conclude the peace. When we were at Berlin, 
 you remember there was a treaty of commerce concluded 
 between the United States and Prussia. The first thing the 
 Prussian ministers did after they were appointed to treat 
 with me was to send me the project of a treaty in form. They 
 never hinted at any question of etiquette, and I am very 
 sure this is the first time that such a pretension was ever 
 applied to such an occasion. Some of us expect that we 
 shall now at least bring them to a point; but of this, not- 
 withstanding the threat in the Courier, I strongly doubt. 
 They have as yet no information from America decisive as 
 to the issue of the campaign. ... 
 
 I am not surprised that you should have been so much 
 affected by the vandalism at Washington. The disgust which 
 you observe that the course of the British there gave at 
 
1814] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 205 
 
 St. Petersburg, has been generally felt throughout Europe. 
 The whole transaction has done more injury to them than 
 to us, especially as Baltimore, Plattsburg, Lake Champlain, 
 and Fort Erie have since retrieved part of our loss of char- 
 acter, v/hile they have tended to aggravate their disgrace. 
 By this time I believe that even your compassionating friends 
 in Russia begin to suspect that all America is not yet con- 
 quered. We have yet much to endure and go through; but 
 I trust we shall triumph at the last. 
 
 Our dinner to the British plenipotentiaries and Americans 
 on Friday was not remarkably gay, but it passed off with 
 all suitable decorum. Bentzon was extremely diverted with 
 my namesake the Doctor,^ who told us that he had not been 
 to the play in England these ten years, and described with 
 ecstacies of astonishment and delight the tricks that he had 
 seen performed by an Indian juggler, and the amazing ad- 
 dress with which he balanced straws upon his nose. Bentzon 
 declares that these two things taken together have given 
 him the exact measure of the man. . . . 
 
 TO ABIGAIL ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, 23 November, 18 14. 
 
 While the eyes and expectations of our country have been 
 so anxiously and so fruitlessly turning towards us for the 
 restoration of that peace for which she so earnestly longs, 
 ours are turned with anxiety equally deep towards her, for 
 those exertions and energies by which alone she will find 
 peace to be obtained. The British government, after ex- 
 hausting every expedient and every pretext to delay, sent 
 
 1 William Adams. 
 
2o6 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 at last plenipotentiaries to meet us here, with formal full 
 powers to conclude a peace and with orders, as appears by 
 their proceedings, to do nothing more than to transmit our 
 communications to the Cabinet Council in England, and the 
 answers of the Cabinet Council to us. This at least is all 
 that they have done hitherto. They began by making pro- 
 fessions the most pacific and conciliatory, together with 
 demands the most extravagant and inadmissible. After 
 contesting two months and more upon mere preliminaries, 
 and abandoning so much of their demands that we found it 
 possible to agree to the rest, they came out with a proposal 
 entirely new, inconsistent with repeated declarations pre- 
 viously made by them, and which we could only reject in 
 the most pointed terms. The principle which the ministry 
 and their adherents in England had assumed was, that the 
 only peace to be made with America was one which should 
 be on the basis of unconditional submission by the Amer- 
 icans. They knew that we were not prepared to subscribe 
 to such terms, but they probably expected we should be at 
 the close of the campaign which they had prepared in Amer- 
 ica; or at least that their present successes would be suffi- 
 ciently great to keep the spirits and passions of their people 
 up to the tone of supporting another campaign to secure 
 their triumph. Hitherto the successes, as far as they are 
 known, have been too much balanced to have answered 
 their expectations. That of their attack upon Washington 
 intoxicated them to such a degree that they translated their 
 Gazette account of it into all the principal languages and sent 
 it by special messengers all over Europe. That of Sir John 
 Sherbrook's expedition followed immediately after, and in 
 more than one way flattered their dreams of conquest. Their 
 conduct at Washington, however, excited throughout Europe 
 a sentiment very different from that which they had ex- 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 207 
 
 pected, a sentiment of disgust at the Gothic barbarism of 
 their proceedings; and since then, their failure at Baltimore, 
 their defeat on Lake Champlain, their retreat from Platts- 
 burg, and the sortie of 17 September from Fort Erie, have 
 redeemed some of our disgraces, have aggravated theirs, and 
 now lead them to the anticipation of an Issue to the campaign 
 more disastrous to them than I fear the event will realize. 
 My own greatest apprehensions during the whole summer 
 have been for Sackett's Harbor and our naval force on 
 Lake Ontario. There Is where I have dreaded the severest 
 blow to us and the misfortune of the most Important con- 
 sequences. My anxiety Is far from being removed by the 
 accounts last received. Should the British succeed there, 
 or In any Important enterprise In other quarters there will 
 be no possibility of obtaining peace. They have hitherto 
 met with no check of sufficient magnitude to discourage 
 them, and at present much slighter advantages than those 
 upon which they have calculated will satisfy them with 
 regard to the issue of the campaign. 
 
 It Is a mortifying circumstance to one who feels for the 
 honor and Interest of our country to find a British Prime 
 Minister boasting In Parliament, as the Earl of Liverpool 
 has done, that the infamous outrages of their troops in 
 America has been much more vindicated and justified by 
 Americans in American newspapers, than they have in 
 England itself. Still more of humiliation did I feel at his 
 assertion that the people of the district of which they have 
 taken possession, people of the state of Massachusetts, had 
 manifested a disposition to become British subjects. I 
 still indulge the hope that he has magnified into an expres- 
 sion of popular sentiment the baseness and servility of a 
 few Individual sycophants, who may have intended merely 
 to save their property from plunder by paying court to the 
 
2o8 THE WRITINGS OF 
 
 British commander. Deeply as the sordid spirit of faction 
 has degraded my native state, I will not yet believe that the 
 lofty sentiment of independence has been extinguished in 
 the souls of any considerable portion of my countrymen, or 
 that they have sunk low enough in the scale of creation will- 
 ingly to become subjects of Great Britain. 
 
 The European continent, after having presented for more 
 than twenty years a continual scene of bloodshed, horror and 
 devastation, has by a metamorphosis almost miraculous, 
 been suddenly transformed into a scene of universal peace, 
 though not yet of absolute tranquillity. The Congress as- 
 sembled at Vienna to distribute the plunder taken from 
 France, to settle the basis of a new balance for Europe, after 
 having twice been postponed, was to have been opened 
 formally on the first of this month. It does not, however, 
 yet appear what sort of a body this Congress will be, or what 
 will be their powers or duties. Several of the sovereigns en- 
 gaged in the late war, and the principal ministers of others, 
 have been at Vienna concerting their arrangements together 
 these two months. They have formed the real Congress for 
 the dispatch of business, and when they break up there will 
 be nothing of importance left for the other to do. It is al- 
 ready apparent enough that they will settle no permanent 
 system for the future repose of Europe, and perhaps the 
 attempt itself to accomplish such a plan would be chimerical. 
 It is equally evident that they will distribute their spoils 
 without immediately quarrelling among themselves. But 
 as England will be left in undisturbed possession of her 
 dominion of the seas, and as France will be left humiliated, 
 dissatisfied and yet formidable, there can be no doubt that 
 the peace of Europe will be neither solid nor permanent. 
 There will probably be no war during the next year and we 
 shall, of course, according to all present appearances have 
 
i8i4l JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 209 
 
 again to contend single handed against the whole force of 
 Great Britain through the campaign of 181 5. But if we de- 
 fend ourselves manfully, Britain will at the close of the en- 
 suing year be glad to make peace with us upon terms to 
 which we can subscribe, or she will again have her hands full 
 in Europe. 
 
 As to the end of our present negotiation, I perceive no pros- 
 pect of it until our own government shall think proper to 
 bring it to a close. Hitherto it has been the purpose of the 
 British government to keep it open, and while they have con- 
 stantly avoided an approach to such conditions as we could 
 agree to, they have with equal care guarded against giving us 
 any solid ground upon which we would have been justified in 
 breaking it ofi". How far it may suit your policy to keep a 
 sort of permanent Congress together, waiting for the chapter 
 of accidents to bring the two parties to terms upon which 
 they can agree, it is not for me to determine. It is however 
 possible that the British Ministry may adopt a more deci- 
 sive course when their fiscal arrangements for the next year 
 are completed, or when they have more fully ascertained 
 the issue of the Congress at Vienna. 
 
 TO LEVETT HARRIS 
 
 Ghent, 24 November, 18 14. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 I received yesterday your favor of the 2nd instant, and am 
 gratified in learning that the public sentiment at St. Peters- 
 burg so generally and decisively reprobated the conduct of 
 the Vandals at Washington. The same sentiment, so far 
 as I have had the opportunity of being informed, has been 
 
2IO THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 universal throughout Europe, Insomuch that even the opposi- 
 tion in both Houses of the British Parliament have avowed 
 their participation in it. The Ministry, like their representa- 
 tive in Russia, attempted to defend it on the pretence of 
 retaliation; but the real cause Is the spirit of inveteracy and 
 rancor generally felt by the British nation against America. 
 They never have observed, and never will observe, towards 
 us the ordinary laws of war which they respect in their 
 quarrels with other nations. When the French National 
 Convention issued a decree forbidding their troops to give 
 quarter to British and Hanoverian soldiers, the Duke of York 
 published a proclamation declaring that he would not re- 
 taliate by the like barbarity. But the Duke of York was 
 then fighting against Frenchmen. The hatred and revenge 
 rankling in the hearts of Britons against the French is deep 
 and deadly, but It is mercy and compassion when compared 
 with their malice against America. As to their pretence of 
 retaliation, if Lewiston, Georgetown, Frederick, Hampton, 
 and numberless minor instances of their atrocities did not 
 give it the lie, a test of its falsehood might be seen in their 
 application of it to their bombardment of the village of 
 Stonington. The officer who executed that act of barbarism 
 was not ashamed to allege as the occasion of it, that it was 
 in retaliation for the torpedoes that the town of Stonington 
 had been active in sending out against his Majesty's ships. 
 It appears, however, that the indignation of mankind at this 
 last brutal outrage at Washington has found its way even 
 to the sense of shame yet remaining in the British govern- 
 ment; for the ministers in Parliament have declared that 
 orders had been sent to Cochrane no longer to carry Into 
 effect his proclamation threatening to destroy and lay waste 
 all the towns on the sea coast that he should find assailable. 
 Notwithstanding this, I have no expectation that the war 
 
 i 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 211 
 
 will be waged by them with more humanity than it has been. 
 We must expect and be prepared for more cruel and desolat- 
 ing war from them than from any other portion of mankind. 
 It is by no reliance upon good principles or passions in them 
 that we must defend ourselves against their enmity; it is 
 by energies of every kind on our own part that we must 
 achieve the triumph over it. Their success at Washington 
 and Alexandria is almost as disgraceful to us, I blush to say, 
 as to them. Since then, some events have occurred not less 
 ignominious to them, and which throw a veil over some of 
 our shame. We have indeed little to boast of in the defence 
 of Baltimore, or in the repulse of Prevost at Plattsburg. 
 The battle on Lake Champlain has maintained our naval 
 reputation, and added a new wreath to the glories of our 
 mariners. The sortie at Fort Erie, though less decisive in 
 its character, is distinguished as a military coup de maifi, and 
 the whole campaign on the Niagara frontier has been so 
 creditable to us that we have only to hope it may be termi- 
 nated with a perseverance of valor and good conduct, and 
 a continuation of good fortune adequate to crown it with 
 complete success. 
 
 By Mr. Milligan, who arrived here last evening from 
 London, we are informed that the Fingal had arrived there, 
 having left New York the 22nd of October.^ The John 
 Adams arrived at New York the 5th of that month. The 
 dispatches which we sent by Mr. Dallas have been all pub- 
 lished by our government, and I suppose you will see them 
 in the English newspapers by the time you receive this 
 letter. This circumstance may perhaps abridge the period 
 of our continuance here.^ 
 
 ^ Purviance came in this vessel with dispatches for the commissioners from 
 Washington. 
 ^ Adams, Memoirs, November 24, 18 14. "The English newspapers will have 
 
212 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 I will be obliged to you to obtain and forward to me a 
 passport for my return to St. Petersburg, as I presume it 
 will be necessary for me on entering Russia. I am not sure 
 that I shall remain here long enough to receive it, but I 
 must take the chance. I am etc. 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, 25 November, 18 14. 
 . . . The John Adams arrived at New York on the 5th of 
 October. Our dispatches by that vessel were communicated 
 to Congress, and immediately published, together with the 
 instructions of the government to us. Mr. Monroe writes 
 that they were producing the best effects, by uniting the 
 sentiments of all parties in support of the war. De Grand 
 writes me the same thing. The Ajax, the Dutch vessel that 
 
 given you full information of the publications which have taken place in America 
 of the first conferences at Ghent. Mr. Madison has acted most scandalously in 
 making this communication at the time he did; and his letter to the Congress, 
 which conveys the papers, contains a gross falsehood. We have no means of know- 
 ing what are the instructions which have been transmitted to the American Com- 
 missioners by the Fingal, but we sent an answer to their last note and projet on 
 Monday [the 2 1st], and a few days will therefore inform us whether we are likely 
 to have peace, or whether the American government will have advanced new pre- 
 tensions in consequence of the clamour which they have excited throughout the 
 country on account of the demands brought forward by us in the month of August." 
 Liverpool to the Duke of Wellington, November 26, 18 14. Wellington, Supplementary 
 Despatches, IX. 456. Wellington had written on the same day or even on the 25th, 
 a private note to Gallatin which was delivered on the 28th. The son describes it as 
 "couched in the most friendly terms, assuring father he has brought all his weight 
 to bear to ensure peace. He goes on to say, 'as I gather Mr. Madison as well as 
 Mr. Monroe gave you full power to act, without even consulting your colleagues 
 on points you considered of importance, I now feel that peace is shortly in view. 
 Mr. Goulburn has made grave errors and Lord Castlereagh has read him a sharp les- 
 son.' " Diary of James Gallatin, 34. 
 
1814] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 213 
 
 I have mentioned to you in several former letters, arrived 
 on Monday last, the 21st, after a passage of thirty-four days 
 from Boston, at the Texel. Mr. Bourne at Amsterdam 
 writes me that the accounts brought by her are of the same 
 nature; that there was but one voice upon the British pro- 
 posals, and that was to spurn them with indignation. What 
 those proposals were I dare say you will have seen when 
 this reaches you, for our letters to the government, and the 
 first note of the British plenipotentiaries to us, the note of 
 which I gave you an account in my letter of 23 August, are 
 now republished at full length in the English newspapers. 
 You will judge after reading it whether I had reason to 
 write you that it was impossible we should be detained here 
 beyond the first of September, unless it were for the arrange- 
 ment of our papers. The situation of things since then has 
 changed more in appearance than in reality. The British 
 government have withdrawn just so much of their inadmissi- 
 ble demands as would avoid the immediate rupture of the 
 negotiation. They have varied their terms at every com- 
 munication that has passed between their plenipotentiaries 
 and us. They have abandoned the claims which they had 
 declared indispensable preliminaries, only to bring them for- 
 ward again, whenever the circumstances of the war might 
 encourage them to insolence, and in my belief they are now 
 delaying their reply to our last note, which they have had 
 upwards of a fortnight, only to receive accounts of success 
 from America, which will countenance them in rejecting our 
 proposal, and assuming to dictate to us new terms of dis- 
 honor and submission. 
 
 That they will be highly exasperated by the publication 
 of the dispatches we have every reason to expect, from the 
 manner in which it has affected their plenipotentiaries. We 
 met them last evening at the redoute, and gave them the 
 
214 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 first information of this event. They had not received their 
 papers of Saturday last, and expected their messenger this 
 day. They expressed much astonishment at the publica- 
 tion of dispatches pending a negotiation, and Mr. Goulburn, 
 who is of an irritable nature, could not contain his temper. 
 I knew too well the character of the American government 
 and people to doubt that such dispatches as Dallas carried 
 out would be immediately published, and assuredly the 
 British government have no right to complain of it. Mr. 
 Gallatin thinks they will break off the negotiation upon it, 
 and if they do, it will only relieve us from the humiliation 
 of being kept here in attendance upon their insulting caprices, 
 and insidious tergiversations. We have been here five 
 months, enduring everything, rather than break off while 
 a possibility of peace remained. If they choose to break for 
 an act of our government in which we had no share, the 
 blame will be none of ours, and if that act was merely dis- 
 closing to the world the degradation and infamy which 
 under professions of moderation and magnanimity they of- 
 fered us as their terms of peace, our government will stand 
 justified before heaven and earth for having done it. In 
 our dispatches from the Secretary of State there are two 
 things that have given me the highest gratification. The 
 first is, that we have the entire approbation of the President 
 for the determination we had declared, that we should reject 
 the British proposals. The second is this. You will recol- 
 lect that in my letter to you of the nth of this month I in- 
 formed you that I had obtained, not without difficulty, the 
 unanimous consent of my colleagues to insert in our last 
 note to the British plenipotentiaries a proposal, the only 
 one upon which, as I believed, there was the remotest pos- 
 sibility that we should ultimately obtain peace, and from 
 which we should, as I also hoped, derive great advantage, 
 
i8i4l JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 215 
 
 even if it should be rejected. The principal objection against 
 it was that it was not authorized, but was even forbidden by 
 our instructions. This I admitted, but urged that we ought 
 to take upon ourselves the responsibility of making it on 
 the full conviction that our government would now approve 
 of it. I told you that I was strenuously supported by both 
 my original colleagues, and finally obtained the acquiescence 
 of the others to make the proposal. In the instructions that 
 we have now received, dated 19 October, we are expressly 
 authorized to make the same identical offer. The heaviest 
 responsibility therefore, that of having trespassed upon our 
 instructions, is already removed. The effects of the measure 
 are yet to be seen. I trust they will, under either issue of 
 the negotiation, be good. . . . 
 
 The Massachusetts legislature have appointed twelve 
 delegates to meet others from the rest of the New England 
 states, on the 15th of December, at Hartford in Connecticut, 
 to organize a separate system of defense, and a new con- 
 federacy of their own. This is a dangerous measure, but I 
 hope it will not have all the pernicious effects to be appre- 
 hended from it. . . . 
 
 TO PETER PAUL FRANCIS DE GRAND 
 
 Ghent, 27 November, 18 14. 
 
 • •••••• 
 
 I wrote you on the 23 rd of July that we had then been 
 here a full month waiting for the appearance of the British 
 commissioners who were to meet us. More than another 
 fortnight passed before they came. Yet this negotiation 
 had been invited by the British government, and I had been 
 by extraordinary circumstances two months in coming from 
 
2i6 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 St. Petersburg while It could not have taken the British 
 plenipotentiaries to arrive here from London at any time 
 more than four days. When they arrived, you are now in- 
 formed with what professions and with what propositions 
 they commenced the negotiation with us. Since then, and 
 until this day, they have been changing their proposals at 
 every official note they have sent us, without any other ap- 
 parent object for the present than to avoid both the conclu- 
 sion of a peace and the rupture of the negotiation. They 
 have been every month sending out to America reinforce- 
 ments of troops and supplies of every description, and there 
 is every reason to believe that they have calculated, and 
 still calculate, upon crushing all resistance on the part of the 
 United States, and upon reducing them to unconditional sub- 
 mission. These are the terms upon which alone the minis- 
 terial partisans and gazettes have insisted that peace can 
 be granted to America. 
 
 They have been hitherto disappointed in their expecta- 
 tions. Their defeat upon Lake Champlain, though impor- 
 tant in its consequences, and though one of the most bril- 
 liant achievements that have covered our naval heroes with 
 glory, has produced less sensation in England and upon the 
 continent of Europe than might have been expected. The 
 cause of this is that our reputation for sea-fighting is fully 
 established. It has henceforth only to be maintained. It 
 is perfectly understood throughout Europe that upon the 
 water, with equal forces the American flag will generally 
 be victorious over the British. No surprise has anywhere 
 been manifested at this new triumph of American mariners. 
 The British nation has become so familiarized with this kind 
 of reverse, as the Regent calls it in his speech, that they no 
 longer feel it as a mortification. Their government, too, in 
 order that the people may have less occasion to reflect upon 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 217 
 
 disasters, have resorted, I believe for the first time in British 
 annals, to the expedient of withholding from publication 
 their own official accounts of the event. Not a word has to 
 this day appeared in the Gazette about the action of the Wasp 
 with the Reindeer^ or with the Avon. And although the 
 Ministers have acknowledged in Parliament that they 
 had received dispatches from Sir G. Prevost, dated in Octo- 
 ber, a month after his retreat from Plattsburg, yet they de- 
 clared they should publish nothing but the list of killed and 
 wounded, because the official report from their naval com- 
 mander on the lake had not been received. 
 
 The atrocious system of warfare which they have adopted 
 has been one of the means upon which they have relied for 
 breaking down the spirit of the American people. They 
 pretend that they were provoked to it and practised it on 
 the principle of retaliation. But we know that Admiral Coch- 
 rane went out with instructions for it from England. But 
 such an universal sentiment of disgust has been manifested 
 at it throughout Europe, that they now say they have sent 
 out new instructions to their Admiral not to persist in it 
 any longer. The great effect of the present campaign, so far 
 as it is yet known, has been to raise our military reputation 
 upon the land. The events on the Niagara frontier have 
 redeemed much of the character which we had lost by the 
 issue of the preceding campaign, and Prevost's retreat from 
 Plattsburg has at least taken from the British all right of 
 deriding us for any of our former discomfitures. 
 
2i8 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, 29 November, 18 14. 
 
 My letter of Friday last informed you of the arrival of 
 the Fingal at Havre, and of the dispatches from the govern- 
 ment brought by her that we had received. I should at the 
 same time have told you that the Ajax, the Dutch vessel in 
 which Mr. Changuion went to America, arrived on the 21st 
 inst. at the Texel, after a passage of thirty-four days from 
 Boston. I now add by way of episode that the Dutch govern- 
 ment have already concluded to recall the said Mr, Chan- 
 guion, with the intention, as we hear, of sending him to 
 Constantinople. This incident is of no great importance to 
 us, and perhaps It may be accounted for without recurring 
 to the supposition of any foreign influence upon the councils 
 of the Sovereign Prince. The measure of sending him out 
 was a manifestation of a friendly disposition towards us at 
 a critical moment, and as such was estimated by our country. 
 His recall before the crisis has passed may perhaps cancel 
 some part of the obligation which a mere act of national 
 courtesy might be supposed to confer by the circumstances 
 of the moment at which it was performed. But as in the 
 actual state of things our country has the most decisive proof 
 at what value she Is to estimate the friendship of Europe, 
 so I trust that with the blessing of God she will prove her- 
 self competent to her own defense, without needing the aid 
 of that friendship for any part of her support. . . . 
 
 The proceedings of the legislature of Massachusetts are 
 the worst feature in our public transactions. I am not sur- 
 prised at them, because I have known more than ten years 
 the views of the party by which they have been carried, and 
 because I have been nearly as long convinced that this In- 
 
1814] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 219 
 
 ternal ulcer in our body-politic must and would sooner or 
 later come to its head and break. I have been also fully 
 prepared to see the demon of disunion show himself in his 
 hideous shape, and gradually throw off his disguise in propor- 
 tion as the dangers and distresses of the country should 
 become imminent and severe. But at this moment how 
 fearfully does this mad and wicked project of national suicide 
 bear upon my heart and mind, when I have the profoundest 
 conviction that if we now fail to obtain peace, it will be 
 owing entirely to this act of the Massachusetts legislature. 
 On Sunday we received a note from the British plenipoten- 
 tiaries, together with our own project of a treaty, with their 
 remarks and proposals upon it. They have rejected without 
 exception everything that we had demanded on the part of 
 the United States; but they have abandoned everything 
 important that was inadmissible of their own demands. 
 The objects upon which they still insist, and which we cannot 
 yield, are in themselves so trifling and insignificant that 
 neither of the two nations would tolerate a war for them. 
 We have everything but peace in our hands. But in these 
 trifles, in the simple consideration of interest, they have left 
 involved principles to which we cannot accede. They have 
 given up without qualification all demand for a cession of 
 territory, either for the Indians, or for themselves; but they 
 have attempted to secure by an article ambiguously drawn, 
 the possession of perhaps a few hundred acres of land, which 
 we can no more give up, than we could a whole state in our 
 union. There are other points totally unimportant, but 
 implicating our national honor, to which they still adhere. 
 We cannot agree to them, and if they finally persist in re- 
 quiring it of us, the negotiation must break oflF. By reducing 
 the controversy between us to points so infinitely small in 
 themselves, but upon which we cannot yield without dis- 
 
220 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 grace, it is evident that the British government are now- 
 sensible of the difficulty and danger to themselves of con- 
 tinuing the war; and that nothing could induce them to it 
 but the encouragement held out to them by this prospect of 
 the dissolution of our Union. It is remarkable that these 
 remnants of inadmissible claims are pointed against the 
 state of Massachusetts alone, and that we have at present 
 nothing to contend for, but rights peculiarly enjoyed by her 
 and her citizens. We shall maintain them with firmness, 
 and may the great disposer of events and Ruler of Hearts 
 grant that we may maintain them effectually! For the first 
 time I now entertain hope that the British government is 
 inclined to conclude the peace. Whether they have found 
 that the Congress of Vienna has not been so propitious to 
 their supreme ascendancy in Europe as they had expected; 
 or that the prospects of their campaign in America will prob- 
 ably terminate in disappointment; or that on the disclosure 
 of their original demands, their own people are not prepared 
 to squander their blood and treasure for a war of conquest 
 in North America, I cannot determine; but certain it is as 
 the Chancellor of the Exchequer has very significantly said 
 in the House of Commons, that the state of the negotiation 
 in November is quite a different thing from the state of the 
 negotiation in August. We are now in sight of port. Oh! 
 that we may reach it in safety! . . . 
 
 On the publication of our dispatches the federalists In 
 Congress came out in the most explicit and decisive manner, 
 declaring their determination to support the war at all 
 hazards and every sacrifice against the new British demands 
 and pretensions. The speeches of Mr. Hanson ^ and Mr. 
 Oakley ^ are reprinted in the English papers. The gov- 
 
 1 Alexander Contee Hanson, of Maryland (1786-1819). ' 
 
 2 Thomas Jackson Oakley, of New York (1783-1857). 
 
,814] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 221 
 
 ernor of Vermont had already published a proclamation in 
 the same spirit. Even the report to the Massachusetts leg- 
 islature recommending their New England delegation whin- 
 ingly complains that the enemy did not discriminate in his 
 hostility between the supporters and the opponents of the war. 
 The state of our finances is very bad. Mr. G. W. Camp- 
 bell has resigned the office of Secretary of the Treasury, and 
 Mr. Dallas has taken his place. ^ Mr. Monroe has been ap- 
 pointed Secretary of War. The Department of State is not 
 yet filled. The elections for Congress are taking place in 
 several of the states. The changes are, as far as they are 
 known, about equal on both sides. I indulge a hope that 
 the extremities of the times will produce a coalition of parties 
 and an administration combining all the respectable interests 
 of the country. . . . 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, 2 December, 18 14. 
 
 . . . The news from America which you must have re- 
 ceived since writing this letter of the 6th [November] has 
 been more cheering than the preceding accounts. We have 
 had a series of very important successes, and they have to- 
 tally changed the face of the war, the expectations of all 
 Europe with regard to its issue, and above all the tone of the 
 British government in the negotiation here. The latest in- 
 cident, the taking of Sackett's Harbor and of Chauncey's 
 fleet, was not officially confirmed in London last Saturday. 
 There is a bare possibility that it may not be true. If it is, 
 our prospects of peace will be as desperate as ever. 
 
 By the observations which you make upon the dispositions 
 of my colleagues, I apprehend I may have expressed myself 
 
 1 Dallas took office, October 6,1814. 
 
222 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 too strongly upon the spirit of concession and the language 
 of conciliation, which I wrote you they carried a little beyond 
 the point where I would have stopped. In the concession to 
 which I finally and most reluctantly agreed, my ideas, as I 
 wrote you, did not exactly correspond with theirs with re- 
 gard to its extent. We accepted an article presented to us 
 by the British plenipotentiaries as the last word of the British 
 government on the subject. Two of my colleagues at least, 
 perhaps all of them, give to that article a construction much 
 more limited than I do. They were therefore not so averse 
 to accepting it as I was. They thought it amounted to little 
 or nothing. I thought it meant so much that I offered then 
 to reject it even at the hazard of breaking off the negotia- 
 tion upon it, if they would concur with me. They preferred 
 accepting the article, because they understood the meaning 
 differently from me. Though I have no doubt the British 
 government understand it as I do, yet as my colleagues are 
 all intelligent men, their construction of the article may be 
 the right one, and if so the concession was certainly a mere 
 trifle, and it would have been wrong to risk a rupture by 
 rejecting it. I finally agreed with them in accepting the 
 article, with adopting their opinion of its meaning. It was 
 therefore natural that I should think the concession much 
 greater than they did, and by concurring with them I ac- 
 quiesced in their judgment rather than adhere inflexibly to 
 my own. As to the notice which it was proper to take of the 
 acrimonious language used in all the British notes, I incline 
 upon cool consideration to the belief that they have acted 
 prudently in retrenching almost all the manifestations of 
 temper which I have inserted in my drafts of papers to be 
 sent as answers to the British plenipotentiaries. Even as it 
 was, the tone as well as the substance of our first note was 
 quite unexpected to the British government, and there has 
 
1814] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 223 
 
 been no occasion since in which we have faltered from it. 
 
 excepting in that note accepting the article. I was then for 
 speaking in bolder terms and for a stronger expression of 
 feeling than was thought advisable. My colleagues shared 
 in all my feelings, but thought it best to suppress them. 
 Perhaps if we had yielded to the irritation excited by the 
 British note, we should have only produced irritation in 
 return, and the chance of peace would have been still more 
 unpromising than it is. We are at this moment in the great- 
 est and most trying crisis of the negotiation. Until the note 
 we received from the British plenipotentiaries last Sunday, 
 I never indulged a hope of peace. It was impossible, with 
 the demands which they had successively advanced, and 
 none of which they had explicitly abandoned before. Now 
 they have removed every insuperable obstacle, important 
 in itself, and have hung the issue upon a hair. Yet even while 
 surrendering their great principle upon everything of value, 
 they cling to it upon a grain of sand, and they have attempted 
 by ambiguities of expression to filch from us crumbs and 
 atoms of that which they had first endeavored to extort from 
 us entire. We answered the day before yesterday their note, 
 and asked a conference at their own time and place. ^ They 
 immediately appointed yesterday, noon, at their own house. 
 We went and were with them about three hours. We con- 
 sented to give up almost everything of what they had ob- 
 jected to, in our proposals; but there were left some points 
 upon which we insisted. They removed one of the greatest 
 remaining difficulties. They definitely rejected one claim 
 upon which we had invited further discussion, and there are 
 still three upon which we could come to no agreement.^ It 
 
 * American State Papers, Foreign Relations, III. 741. 
 
 '^ See Adams, Memoirs, December i, 1814J Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings, XL VIII. 
 151. 
 
224 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 was apparent that they were very desirous of signing the 
 treaty upon the terms they have now offered, but they man- 
 ifested it in their usual manner by airs of arrogance and 
 intimated threats. In the first note they sent us, which is 
 now pubHshed, they gave us notice that if we did not agree 
 without even a reference to our government to their terms, 
 they would not hold themselves bound by their own offers, 
 but would vary their demands according to circumstances. 
 Our answer to that threat was the rejection of their terms, 
 with the information that we had no need of referring to 
 our government concerning them. Their last note contains 
 the same threat — that if we did not accept their offers now, 
 they would not be bound by them hereafter. And yesterday 
 two of the plenipotentiaries told us time after time that they 
 must refer again to their government upon our objections, 
 and that if new pretensions should be raised, they could only 
 say they were now authorized to sign a treaty on the terms 
 they had offered us. Mr. Clay at last told them that we 
 did not doubt but they were ready to sign upon their own 
 terms. I must do Lord Gambler the justice to say that he 
 has never in conference practised this resort to the argument 
 of a bully. We know very well that they will not hold them- 
 selves bound by their offers at any time, if they have the 
 least encouragement to increase their demands after they 
 are made. We are sure that nothing less than great dis- 
 appointment both in Europe and America could have 
 brought them down to their present terms, and we are suffi- 
 ciently apprized that the smallest turn of affairs would make 
 them immediately renew all their most insolent demands, 
 and advance others still more extravagant. We, however, 
 are not altogether such creatures of sunshine and of rain. 
 We must adhere to our principles through good and evil 
 fortune. If the British government really intend to make 
 
,814] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 225 
 
 peace when their next messenger arrives from Ghent, we 
 may have it upon his return; if not, we shall have in all 
 probability the certainty of a rupture.^ 
 
 I shall not have time to answer my dear Charles's letter 
 this day. We are as much oppressed with occupation as we 
 have been at any period since our arrival here. We have 
 nevertheless as much dissipation as we can wish. Wc have 
 redoutes and concerts twice a week, and the French theatre 
 four times. A company of strolling English players came 
 last week, and perform this evening for the fourth and last 
 time. They solicited our permission to advertise themselves 
 as performing under the patronage of the American ministers. 
 They were advised that it would be their best expedient to 
 fill the house. We did not, however, comply with their 
 request. . . . 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, 6 December, 18 14. 
 
 ... It is the opinion of all my colleagues that we shall 
 
 finish here before the close of the year. I think that however 
 
 doubtful. They are at the same time much more sanguine 
 
 than I am that we shall sign a peace. The last step of the 
 
 1 "As to the disputed phrase in the ist Article, I think the Americans mean to 
 yield; but we should be equally obliged to you to tell us whether you think it worth 
 insisting upon, as we may be mistaken in our opinion of the intentions of the Amer- 
 icans. They certainly evinced no anxiety to sign the treaty now. We told them 
 that if they would concede the disputed Article, we were ready tosign immediately; 
 but that if by declining they compelled us to refer home upon that point, we must 
 be understood as not being bound to accede to the Articles already agreed on. This, 
 however, produced no effect, and we therefore await your final instructions." 
 Goulburn to Earl Bathurst, December I, 1814. Wellington, SuppUm.ntary Des- 
 patches, IX. 460. On the same day Liverpool wrote to Castlereagh of the '-favour- 
 able turn of the negotiations at Ghent." 
 
226 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 British government has brought us so near, that if it was 
 made in sincerity we cannot fail to conclude. But independ- 
 ent of the distrust which we ought to have for every act of 
 an enemy who has been carrying on at the same time such a 
 war and such a negotiation, there is something insidious in 
 their last proposals which forbids all confidence in them. 
 They appear to abandon the whole of their former inadmis- 
 sible demands, and under the artifice of ambiguous expres- 
 sions and of passing over without notice an important part 
 of our preceding note, they cling to objects of no value, but 
 involving principles which we cannot yield with honor. They 
 were so far from being fairly disclosed on the face of their 
 note, that it was only at the conference that we brought out 
 the avowal of them. At the same time the temper of two 
 of the British commissioners ^ was as acrimonious and in- 
 veterate as it has been at any period of the negotiation. It 
 is therefore impossible for me to confide in the smooth 
 promises of the present state of things. An adversary who, 
 after demanding empires as an indispensable preliminary, 
 falls to playing pushpin for straws, deserves anything but 
 confidence. They have also adhered to their professed 
 policy of varying their proposals according to circumstances, 
 and have told us now, as they did when they demanded a 
 surrender of about one-third part of our territory, that if 
 we do not give them what they ask at present, they will 
 hereafter claim more if they dare. 
 
 If, upon the return of the messenger they have now dis- 
 patched, we have to deal with the same quibbling, equivocat- 
 ing, pettifogging spirit that we have found in all their trans- 
 actions hitherto, we shall not finish without more references 
 to England, and probably not in the course of the present 
 year. The report of a probability that peace will be made 
 
 ^ Goulburn and Adams. 
 
i8i4l JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 227 
 
 is now much circulated all over England. The prospect at 
 Vienna is certainly not so flattering as had been anticipatcii. 
 The issue of the campaign in America is yet not asccrlaincii. 
 If the confirmation of the taking of Sacketts Harbor and 
 Chauncey's fleet reaches London before the answer is dis- 
 patched to us, we may still have to linger here for montiis 
 without coming to any conclusion. . . . 
 
 The tone of all the English newspapers has changed so 
 much in their notices of American affairs, that the Times, 
 the most rancorous and abusive of them all, has published 
 a letter from Canada, saying that if England intends to 
 maintain her dominions in America, she must send out troops 
 not by thousands or tens of thousands, but by hundreds of 
 thousands. . . . 
 
 The English strolling Jews are not yet gone. After being 
 refused our patronage, they obtained that of Lord Gambicr, 
 and play three times again this week. They took our five 
 Napoleons for five tickets, and then to show their loyalty, 
 concluded their play by singing God save the King on the 
 stage. The joke was not so good as It would have been if we 
 had granted them our patronage. 
 
 TO LEVETT HARRIS 
 
 Ghent, 8 December, 1814. 
 
 Dear Sir; 
 
 • • • " 
 
 The popular sentiment throughout Europe is favorable 
 to us In our present contest with Great Britain; and since 
 the publication In America of the Instructions to the mission 
 at this place, and of our dispatches that were transmitted by 
 Mr. Dallas, It Is manifest to the world that Great Britain 
 
228 
 
 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 has entirely changed the objects of the war, and carries it 
 on henceforth for purposes of conquest in North America. 
 The maritime questions make no figure in our negotiarion, 
 whatever they may do at the Congress of Vienna. I do not 
 credit the report that any of them have been brought for- 
 ward by the French plenipotenriaries. I suppose you are 
 not ignorant of the stipulation which Great Britain exacted 
 last spring, and to which France was required to accede, 
 and did accede before Louis XVIII left England, that no 
 maritime question should be discussed at Vienna. France 
 therefore has upon that question been tongue tied; and not- 
 withstanding all the newspaper rumors it appears that very 
 little respect or regard has been shown by the other powers 
 at Vienna to anything that the French plenipotentiaries have 
 said or written upon other subjects. England openly and 
 avowedly makes the Congress at Vienna a league against 
 France, and at the same time exacts of the French govern- 
 ment measures of subserviency which they have not the 
 fortitude to refuse. 
 
 We have received instructions from our government, In 
 answer to the dispatches which we had sent by the John 
 Adams. You will see in the English newspapers what those 
 dispatches were. The President has entirely approved our 
 determination unanimously to reject the demands upon 
 which alone the British government had declared that they 
 would negotiate. We did reject them, and yet Great Britain 
 did negotiate. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has very 
 truly stated in Parliament that the negotiation in November 
 was a very different thing from the negotiation in August; 
 but you must not lightly credit the rumors now circulated 
 in England that there Is a fair prospect of a successful issue 
 to the conferences. Many of the insurmountable obstacles 
 to the conclusion of a peace have been removed; there still 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 229 
 
 remain, however, enough to disappoint any hopes thai wc 
 could have derived from the removal of the rest, and wc have 
 no reason for confiding that others will not yet be raised; for 
 one of the circumstances under which we have been all along 
 compelled to treat has been a notification, frequently re- 
 peated, that our antagonists will hold themselves bound to 
 abide by none of their own terms, unless immediately ac- 
 cepted; and that they will rise in their demands whenever 
 encouraged so to do by success in the war. Nor has this 
 been an empty menace held up in terrorem. It has on one 
 occasion been carried into effect, and a new pretension 
 advanced upon the first appearance of success in America, 
 which was again abandoned when the subsequent accounts 
 of disaster had been received. 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, 9 December, 18 14. 
 ... I speak of it as doubtful whether we shall finish here 
 before the spring, because notwithstanding the present com- 
 plexion of the rumors and prevailing opinions in England, 
 the prospect of peace is very little brighter than it has been 
 at our gloomiest hours. We may now from day to day re- 
 ceive the answer from England to our last proposals and the 
 result of the conference we had with the plenipotentiaries 
 on the first of this month. My belief is that the tr>'ing 
 moment will be then. But you have drawn inferences from 
 some of my former letters which make some explanation nec- 
 essary. There has never been one moment of unnecessary 
 delay on our part. I did upon one occasion offer to my col- 
 leagues to stand out upon a point where the British told us 
 
23 o 
 
 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 they had spoken their last word. No one of my colleagues 
 concurred with me at that time, and I have told you the 
 reason. They differed from me as to the extent and meaning 
 of the concession. I acquiesced in their judgment. On 
 another occasion we altered a measure upon which a majority 
 had agreed, because one gentleman ^ refused to sign the 
 paper upon the substance of which we had taken a deter- 
 mination. On a third occasion a proposal of my own which 
 had been rejected by my colleagues when first presented, 
 was renewed by me from a deep conviction of its importance, 
 and was finally agreed to by them. It was, as I have written 
 you, not then authorized by our instructions, though fully 
 warranted by those we have since received. In all these 
 transactions you will perceive that the great principle which 
 has prevailed among us all has been that of mutual concilia- 
 tion and deference to the opinions of one another. If my 
 colleagues had concurred with me in the first instance to 
 which I refer, probably the negotiation would then have 
 broken off. If we are finally to break, it would certainly 
 have been better for us to have broken then. If we finally 
 get a good peace, it will as certainly be better than it would 
 have been to have broken upon that point. As to the second 
 instance, we have now, at a later period, made the proposal 
 to which our colleague then refused to subscribe, and he has 
 now assented to it. With regard to the third I am still per- 
 suaded that if we do obtain peace, it will be the effect of 
 that proposal. I ought therefore gratefully to acknowledge 
 that if I have occasionally been under the necessity of sacri- 
 ficing my opinions to those of my colleagues, they have been 
 equally liberal and indulgent to me. . . . 
 
 1 Clay. 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 231 
 
 NOTE TO THE BRITISH COMMISSIONERS ' 
 
 December 12, 18 14. 
 
 The undersigned had flattered themselves that the objects 
 in discussion between his Britannic Majesty's Plenipoten- 
 tiaries and them had been so far reduced by the principles 
 which had in the course of the negotiation been agreed upon, 
 and by the comparative minuteness of the few remaining 
 Interests to be adjusted, that a mutual accommodation upon 
 those few subjects would be facilitated by the means of 
 verbal conferences, rather than by the more formal inter- 
 change of official notes. They were Induced by this con- 
 sideration to request the conference of the first instant which 
 led to those of last Saturday and of yesterday. Perceiving, 
 however, that the result of them has been to leave those 
 points unsettled, and that the British plenipotentiaries still 
 require of the undersigned on them concessions which the 
 undersigned are not authorized to yield, they find themselves 
 again reluctantly compelled to state In writing their objec- 
 tions to the only parts of the projected treaty, proposed to 
 them by the British plenipotentiaries, and to which the 
 undersigned have declared their Inability to accede. 
 
 While they express their deep regret that upon these points 
 the views of the British plenipotentiaries appear to be yet 
 so widely variant from their own, they cannot but indulge 
 the hope that objects of so trivial comparative Interest will 
 not be permitted to defeat the important purpose of peace 
 which both governments have so earnestly at heart. 
 
 The first of these points relates to the mutual restoration 
 of territory taken by either party from the other durmg the 
 
 ^ The note sent, dated December 14, is in American Stat, Papers, Foreign Rcla- 
 tions, III. 743. See Adams, Memoirs, December 12, 1814. 
 
232 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 war. In admitting this principle, which the undersigned 
 had repeatedly declared to be the only one upon which they 
 were authorised to treat, the British plenipotentiaries have 
 proposed an alteration in the article offered by the under- 
 signed, and the effect of which is avowed by the British 
 plenipotentiaries to be, to except from its operation the 
 islands in Passamaquoddy Bay — islands taken by military 
 force since the commencement of this negotiation, and of 
 which contrary to the general principle adopted as the basis 
 of the negotiation it is now professed to be intended by the 
 British government to retain possession. 
 
 It was stated by one of the British plenipotentiaries In 
 conference, that this would be no deviation from the ad- 
 mitted principles of the status ante bellum; but the under- 
 signed have been unable to comprehend upon what grounds 
 this position was assumed. That the right to those Islands 
 Is claimed by Great Britain can be no reason for refusing to 
 restore them to the situation in which they were previous 
 to the commencement of the war, since by the mutual agree- 
 ment of the parties a method Is provided for the final adjust- 
 ment of that claim. 
 
 In requiring that these Islands should, like all other terri- 
 tory taken during the war, be returned at the peace, the 
 undersigned have no wish to prejudge the question concern- 
 ing the title to them. They are willing expressly to provide 
 that the restoration shall not be understood to impair or In 
 any manner affect any right which the party restoring may 
 have to the territory restored. But the consent by them that 
 territory taken by military force during the war should be 
 retained after the peace would be equivalent to the admis- 
 sion of a title to that possession in Great Britain which they 
 are not and cannot be authorised by the government of the 
 United States to make. They are authorised to agree to a 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 
 
 233 
 
 suitable provision for the settlement of a disputed right, and 
 the possession will of course follow the decision upon that 
 question. But they cannot agree that possession taken by 
 force during the war should be sanctioned by their consent 
 previous to the decision upon the right. 
 
 The objection of the undersigned to the words originally 
 proposed by the British plenipotentiaries, limiting the prom- 
 ise of restoring territory taken during the war to territory be- 
 longing to the party from which it was taken, was that they 
 left it in the power of one party to judge whether any por- 
 tion of territory taken by itself did or did not belong to the 
 other; and that it thereby opened a new door to dispute in 
 the very execution of an article intended to close an old one. 
 This objection having been removed by the offer of the 
 British plenipotentiaries to confine the operation of the ex- 
 ception to the islands above mentioned, the undersigned 
 deem it unnecessary further to notice it. 
 
 Should the British government finally adhere to the de- 
 termination of excepting those islands from the general 
 principle of a mutual restoration of captured territory, the 
 undersigned will be reduced to the alternative of subscribing 
 to a condition without authority from their government, or 
 of terminating the negotiation by their refusal. 
 
 The stipulation now proposed by Great Britain as a sub- 
 stitute for the last paragraph of the eighth article as pre- 
 viously proposed by the British plenipotentiaries, appears 
 equally objectionable; as a stipulation merely that the parties 
 will hereafter negotiate concerning the rights in question, 
 it appears unnecessary. Should the parties both be hereafter 
 disposed to such a negotiation, no stipulation can be needed 
 for the purpose. Should either of them be averse to nego- 
 tiating, the stipulation would be unavailing to the other. 
 The undersigned are not aware what claim Great Britain 
 
234 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 can have to the navigation of the Mississippi, unless she 
 found that claim on the article in the peace of 1783. If she 
 founds it on that article, she must admit the claim of the 
 United States to the fisheries within British jurisdiction 
 secured by the same treaty. The United States asks no new 
 article on the subject. The undersigned have offered to 
 accede to a new article confirming both the rights. They 
 have offered to be silent with regard to both. To any stipu- 
 lation abandoning the right as claimed by the United States 
 they cannot subscribe. The undersigned must here repeat 
 an observation already made by them in conference. That 
 the demand by the British plenipotentiaries for an article 
 to secure to British subjects the navigation of the Mississippi 
 has been made since the undersigned had been assured that 
 the note from the British plenipotentiaries of 21 October 
 contained all the demands of Great Britain; and that no 
 trace of it is to be found in that note. 
 
 The undersigned have the same remark to make with 
 respect to the two new articles proposed by the British pleni- 
 potentiaries. They are both liable to considerable objec- 
 tions. From an earnest desire to comply with any proposi- 
 tion which may be acceptable to the British government, 
 and to which they can accede, the undersigned will agree to 
 the substance of the article to promote the abolition of the 
 slave-trade. The other article appears to the undersigned 
 unnecessary. The courts of the United States will without 
 it be equally open to British subjects; and they reply that 
 without it the British courts will be equally open to citizens 
 of the United States. 
 
I8I4J JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 235 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, 13 December, 1S14. 
 . . . Last Friday the messenger of the British plenipo- 
 tentiaries returned from London, and they requested a con- 
 ference for the next morning.^ It was held at our house and 
 lasted three hours. ^ We had yesterday another of equal 
 length at theirs; and the result has been as I wrote you on 
 Friday that I expected it would be.^ The negotiation labors 
 at this moment more than it ever has done before. I distrust 
 more and more the sincerity of the British government, who 
 after having formally abandoned everything of the value of 
 a nut-shell in their demands, hold out inflexibly upon the 
 paltriest trifles directly in the face of their general conces- 
 sions, and seemingly for the purpose of preventing our ac- 
 ceptance of them. You are not mistaken in your conjectures 
 
 * For the instructions brought by him see Letters and Despatches of Lord CastU- 
 reagh, X. 214. They favored a peace. 
 
 ^American State Papers, Foreign Relations, III. 743; Adams, Memoirs, Decem- 
 ber 10, 1814. "At a conference today we did our utmost to give effect to your 
 wishes as conveyed to us in the last despatch. What the result will be cannot be 
 known until the Americans have finished their deliberations. They certainly re- 
 ceived our propositions with a better grace than usual, and if any judgment can be 
 formed as to their future intentions from their manner at this day's conference, 1 
 should conclude that they were not prepared to make a very serious resistance, 
 except perhaps upon that part of the new Article which states the right to the 
 fishery to be derived from the treaty of 1783-" Goulburn to Earl Bathurst, Decem- 
 ber 10, 1814. Wellington, Supplementary Despatches, IX. 471. Again Wellington 
 wrote about the lOth to Gallatin giving assurance of his support for peace. Pray 
 do not take offence at what I say. In you I have the greatest confidence. 
 I hear on all sides that your moderation and sense of justice together with your 
 good common sense place you above all the other delegates, not excepting ours. 
 The Emperor Alexander has assured me of this. He says he can place absolute 
 reliance in your word. I have always had the greatest admiration for the countr>' 
 of your birth. You are a foreigner, with all the traditions of one fighting for the 
 peace and welfare of the country of your adoption." Diary of James Gallatin, 54- 
 
 ' Adams, Memoirs, December 12, 1814; Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings, XLVIII. 
 
 IS7- 
 
236 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 that I have suffered much in mind — very little however, 
 from any disagreement with my colleagues. Our harmony 
 has been as cordial as perhaps ever existed between five 
 persons charged with so important and so difficult a trust. 
 But it is the temper in the British notes and in the confer- 
 ences on the part of two of the British plenipotentiaries 
 which brings mine to the severest of trials. You know all 
 the good and all the evil of my disposition; but you cannot 
 know the violence of the struggle to suppress emotions pro- 
 duced by the provocations of overbearing insolence and 
 narrow understandings. They have, however, been sup- 
 pressed. But after the last two conferences we are apparently 
 farther from the conclusion than we were before them. The 
 British plenipotentiaries present to us articles sent to them 
 ready drawn from England, and when we ask what they 
 mean, what the object of them is, they answer they cannot 
 tell; the article was sent them from England, we must con- 
 strue It for ourselves. If we propose the alteration of a word, 
 they must refer it to their government. If we ask for an 
 explanation, they must refer it to their government. It is 
 precisely the French caricature of Lord Malmesbury. "My 
 Lord, I hope your Lordship is well this morning." . . . 
 "Indeed, Sir, I do not know, but I will send a courier to my 
 Court and Inquire." And thus all we have obtained from 
 the two conferences of three hours each is, another courier 
 to the Court to Inquire. We are to send them a note, and 
 they are to dispatch It by a messenger for fresh Instructions. 
 I hope the note will go this day; perhaps not until tomorrow. 
 There can be no answer sooner than the 21st, and even then 
 It may be merely matter for more discussion, and more mes- 
 sengers. In the meantime we still keep personally upon eat- 
 ing and drinking terms with them. We are to dine with them 
 this day. 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 237 
 
 Speaking of English ambassadors in France reminds mc 
 of his Grace the Duke of Wellington. It appears that he 
 does not trouble himself to use much ceremony with the 
 French noblesse. He goes to gala dinners in frock and boots, 
 and makes the company wait for him by the hour. Then 
 to apologize for delay he says he has been making a prom- 
 enade in the Bois de Boulogne. The story goes that Marshal 
 Macdonald told him that if he was fond of that walk, he 
 should be happy to meet him there. But the ladies have 
 given him the best chastisement; they call him Monsieur le 
 Due de Vilain ton. . , . 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAIvlS 
 
 Ghent, 16 December, 18 14. 
 My Best Friend, 
 
 This appellation reminds me of an occurrence on Monday 
 last, which I may tell you exactly as it happened, and which 
 will show you the sort of tone wh'ch my colleagues observe 
 with me, and I with them. We had been three hours in 
 conference with the British plenipotentiaries, and it had 
 been perhaps the most unpleasant one that we have held 
 with them. We had returned home, and were in session 
 conversing together upon what had been passing in the con- 
 ference, when Mr. Clay remarked that Mr. Goulburn was a 
 man of much irritation. Irritability, said I, is the word, 
 Mr. Clay, irritability; and then fixing him with an earnest 
 look, and the tone of voice between seriousness and jest, I 
 added "like somebody else that I know." Clay laughed, 
 and said "Aye, that we do; all know him, and none better 
 than yourself." And Mr. Gallatin, fixing me exactly as I 
 had done Mr. Clay, said emphatically, "that is your best 
 
238 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 friendy "Agreed," said I, ^^but one'' — and we passed on 
 in perfect good humor to another topic. There was, however, 
 truth in the joking on all sides. Of the five members of the 
 American mission the Chevalier has the most perfect control | 
 of his temper, the most deliberate coolness; and it is the 
 more meritorious because it is real self-command. His feel- 
 ings are as quick, and his spirit as high as those of anyone 
 among us; but he certainly has them more under govern- 
 ment. I can scarcely express to you how much both he and 
 Mr. Gallatin have risen in my esteem since we have been 
 here, living together. Mr. Gallatin has not quite so constant 
 a supremacy over his own emotions; yet he seldom yields 
 to an ebullition of temper, and recovers from it immediately. 
 He has a faculty, when discussion grows too warm of turning 
 off its edge by a joke, which I envy him more than all his 
 other talents, and he has in his character one of the most 
 extraordinary combinations of stubbornness and of flexibility 
 that I ever met within man. His greatest fault I think to 
 be an ingenuity sometimes intrenching upon ingenuousness. 
 Our next personage in the sensitive scale is Mr. Russell. 
 As the youngest member of the mission he has taken the 
 least active part in the business, and scarcely any at the 
 conferences with the British plenipotentiaries. He is more 
 solitary and less social in his disposition than the rest of us, 
 and after living with us two months, left us and took separate 
 lodgings for some trifling personal convenience or saving of 
 expense. He nevertheless bears his proportion of all the 
 entertainments that we give. But he has a high sense of his 
 personal dignity, and sometimes takes oflPense where none 
 is mtended to be given. This has never happened upon any 
 circumstance connected with the business of the mission, 
 for he has never entered into the discussions which we have 
 had among ourselves; but we have seen the manifestations 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 239 
 
 of his temper in the occurrences of social intercourse, as well 
 in our particular circle, as in our relations with the people 
 of the country. There has, however, never been anything 
 like a misunderstanding between him and any of us. In 
 the conduct of our business he has the greatest deference for 
 the opinions of Mr. Clay. The greatest diversities of senti- 
 ment and the most animated mutual oppositions have been 
 between this last gentlemen and your best friend. They 
 are unquestionably the two members of the mission most 
 under the influence of that irritability which we impute to 
 Mr. Goulburn; and perhaps it would be difficult to say which 
 of them gives way to it the most. Whether Mr. Clay is as 
 conscious of this infirmity as your friend, whether he has 
 made it as much the study of his life to acquire a victory 
 over it, and whether he feels with as much regret after it has 
 passed every occasion when it proves too strong for him; he 
 knows better than I do. There is the same dogmatical, over- 
 bearing manner, the same harshness of look and expression, 
 and the same forgetfulness of the courtesies of society in both. 
 An impartial person judging between them I think would say 
 that one has the strongest, and the other the most cultivated 
 understanding; that one has the most ardency, and the other 
 the most experience of mankind; that one has a mind more 
 gifted by nature, and the other a mind less cankered by 
 prejudice. Mr. Clay is by ten years the younger man of the 
 two, and as such has perhaps more claim to indulgence for 
 irritability. Nothing of this weakness has been shown in 
 our conferences with the British plenipotentiaries. From 
 two of them, and particularly from Mr. Goulburn, we have 
 endured much; but I do not recollect that one expression 
 has escaped the lips of anyone of us that we would wish to 
 be recalled. 
 
 We dined with them on Tuesday and had a party more 
 
240 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 stiff and reserved than on any former occasion. There was 
 at the same time more studious politeness on the part of 
 Mr. Goulburn; as if he too was conscious of his trespass upon 
 decorum in the conference of the preceding day. On Wednes- 
 day we sent them our note, in which we have made a step 
 towards the conclusion, to which we have all acceded with 
 the most extreme reluctance. My belief is that it will be 
 lost upon the British government, and that our concession 
 will be of no effect. Our position is now far more painful 
 that it was when we had the immediate prospect of a rupture 
 in August. Then we were sure of the support nearly unani- 
 mous of our own country in rejecting demands the most ex- 
 travagant and absurd. Now we have the appearance of fight- 
 ing for feathers; and are sure of disapprobation whether we 
 yield them, or prolong the war by persisting in our refusal. 
 From the moment when the British government sunk in 
 their most obnoxious demands and held out upon these rags 
 and tatters of contention, I suspected that they were playing 
 a game of duplicity, and that they struck upon points which 
 they knew we must reject, merely to have the pretext for 
 continuing the war, and for putting upon us the blame of its 
 continuation. Everything that has since happened cor- 
 roborates this suspicion. Our last note, like all the rest, has 
 been referred to the British government. We shall have the 
 answer about the 21st of this month, and I hope it will be 
 the last occasion for a reference. We are told that there has 
 been a settlement to the satisfaction of all the great powers 
 of the principal objects in discussion at Vienna, and that 
 the armies on the continent are all to be placed immediately 
 on the peace establishment. If this arrangement had been 
 delayed a month longer, it might have made our peace cer- 
 tain. At this moment it may have an unfavorable effect 
 upon the issue of our negotiation. 
 
isul JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 241 
 
 In the meantime we partake of balls, concerts and plays, 
 as often as we desire. Last Monday evening was one of the 
 mixed entertainments of concert and ball. At the concert 
 they performed "Hail Columbia! Air americain a grand 
 orchestre." So it was announced in the bill of performance. 
 Would you believe, that all the Hanoverian officers, forming 
 no small part of the company, received an order, from au- 
 thority, to leave the hall when that air should be played.^ 
 This order was probably given to intimidate the managers, 
 and prevent the performance of the air; but not producing 
 that effect, the order was revoked after the concert was be- 
 gun, and the officers while at the ball received permission 
 to stay and hear the air, which they did. It is singular 
 enough that their general ^ had sent us his cards but ten days 
 before. . . . 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 Ghent. 20 December, 18 14. 
 Our interval of leisure still continues. The British mes- 
 senger who took our last note to England has not yet re- 
 turned, but may now be expected from day to day. The 
 policy of protracting and avoiding a conclusion of any kind 
 cannot be much longer continued. If, as we have too much 
 reason to apprehend there has been no sincerity in the late 
 advances from that government towards conciliation, we 
 must by the next instructions to their plenipotentiaries have 
 it ascertained beyond a doubt. In the meantime, whether 
 the leaky vessels are on their side or on ours, so much is 
 known of the apparent state of the negotiation that an 
 opinion has become prevalent in England, France, and Hol- 
 
 ' Baron Charles Alten. 
 
242 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 land, that peace will be made. There Is in the Times news- 
 paper of last Tuesday, the 13 th, an editorial article as violent 
 as usual against America, arguing plausibly at least that the 
 British ministry cannot possibly intend to conclude the 
 peace, but stating that the policies in the City had the day 
 before been 30 guineas to return 100 if peace should be 
 signed before the end of the year. Then follows a paragraph 
 which I give you word for word from the paper: 
 
 It was even asserted, though without foundation, that the pre- 
 liminaries had been already digested, and received the signatures 
 of the Commissioners on the 3d instant. fVe have however some 
 reason to believe that the speculations on this subject are influenced^ 
 in some measure^ by secret information, issued for the most unzvorthy 
 purposes, from the hotel of the American Legation at Ghent. After 
 what has been seen of the total want of principle in American states- 
 men of the Jefersonian school, the world would not be much astonished 
 to learn that one of the American negotiators had turned his situation 
 to a profitable account by speculating both at Paris and London on 
 the result of the negotiation. Certain it is that letters received yes- 
 terday from the French capital, relative to the proceedings at 
 Ghent, contain intimations like those which have been circulated 
 here on American authority, viz. that the new proposals of the 
 British will be acceded to, on or before the beginning of the new 
 year, provided that no better terms can ere then be obtained. 
 
 It is impossible for me to pronounce against which of the 
 American negotiators this insinuation is pointed; but I have 
 no doubt it was Milligan's return to London that gave rise 
 to the paragraph, and after what has happened it is not un- 
 charitable to suspect that he himself has again been spread- 
 ing reports of the state of the negotiation, and speculating 
 upon them himself. I do not believe that his principal has 
 debased himself by sharing in this shameful traffic; but the 
 
isi4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 243 
 
 charge in the Times probably refers to him. Milligan's 
 movements have generally been noticed in the newspapers, 
 and he has always passed under the denomination of iMr. 
 Bayard's private secretary. I felt so indignant at Milligan's 
 first expedition to England, and his conduct there, that I 
 expressed my sentiments about it openly and without re- 
 serve. Some of his friends thought I had suspected him un- 
 justly; and after his return here assured me how deeply he 
 was mortified at the surmises which had gone abroad con- 
 cerning him. ... I hope he will not show his face here 
 again; for if he does, I shall be strongly inclined to treat him 
 according to his deserts.' It is to be sure curious enough to 
 see the Chevalier put down as a statesman of the Jeffersonian 
 school, but that is not more unjust than it is to charge upon 
 the Jeffersonian school the baseness of allying private stock- 
 jobbing with public office. That is the vice of the Hamil- 
 tonian school; and the most devoted partisans of the British 
 in the United States are those who have always been most 
 deeply stained with that pollution. . . . 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, 23 December, 18 14. 
 . . . The Englishman who so directly put the question to 
 you at the ball, whether we were likely to make peace, must 
 have had a small opinion of your discretion, or, what is more 
 probable, a very small store of his own. Of such inquiries, 
 however, we have had many — some from total strangers, 
 who came to our house merely to ask the question, and others 
 from acquaintances, friends, and even relations. One of the 
 most amusing inquiries I have had was a very good corre- 
 spondent of mine, who on our first arrival here wrote me, 
 
244 
 
 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 offering all the important information that he could collect, 
 and asking of me such information concerning the state of 
 the negotiation as was not of a nature to*be kept secret^ point- 
 ing out to me at the same time a channel of conveyance by 
 which it could be transmitted to him with the utmost pos- 
 sible dispatch. Reasonable as this request was, I gave my 
 correspondent to understand that he must get his public 
 news concerning this negotiation from the public journals, 
 and must expect none from me. As he is a man of argument 
 he argued the point in his reply and intimated, though not 
 in an offensive manner, that an affectation of mystery upon 
 subjects which needed no mystery was no mark of diplomatic 
 skill, and no part of diplomatic duty. I knew the observa- 
 tion to be just, understood its application, and was diverted 
 with its ingenuity. But I was inflexible. I insisted upon 
 having all the benefit of the correspondence on my side; that 
 he should give me what information he pleased, and when 
 he should think proper, with the full understanding that he 
 should receive nothing respecting the negotiation from me 
 in return. I have now on file a letter from him containing 
 a number of questions and remarks, to which I shall at my 
 leisure return an answer as mysterious as ever. He flattered 
 me at one time with the prospect of seeing him here in person; 
 but I wrote him, if he had any commercial speculation in 
 view, I should prefer seeing him at some other time and place. 
 Notwithstanding this we may still be favored with a visit 
 from him; but I shall have as little difficulty with himself 
 as I have had with his correspondence.^ 
 
 The case is not precisely the same with the inquisitiveness 
 of a particular friend of ours now at Paris. He has assailed 
 Smith and me with questions which neither of us can with 
 propriety answer, and for purposes of his own, for which he 
 
 ^ George Joy was the inquirer. 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 245 
 
 ought not to have expected or asked any sort of communica- 
 tion from us. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than 
 to render him any service in my power consistent with my 
 duty, but I am not pleased to find him have so little regard, 
 or take so little heed to the delicacy of my situation, and to 
 the duties of his own, and it is not without a struggle that I 
 have forborne to express to him my full sense of his indiscre- 
 tion. 
 
 The British messenger returned yesterday morning, and 
 the plenipotentiaries sent us their answer to our last note.^ 
 We are to have a conference with them at our house this day 
 at noon, and the result of it will ascertain whether they must 
 refer again to their government, or whether we may at last 
 discover a prospect of agreeing upon terms of peace. I have 
 told you candidly our situation since the abandonment by 
 the British government of all the demands which we could 
 have no hesitation in rejecting. They have made it impos- 
 sible (and therein consists all the skill they have shown in 
 this negotiation) for us to give satisfaction to our country, 
 either by concluding the peace, or by continuing the war. 
 I have been since our last note in a state of peculiar anxiety; 
 for the difference between us and our opponents hinged 
 upon a point on which I had determined not to sign the 
 treaty, even if it should be acceded to by my colleagues. I 
 am not without hopes that the difficulty will be removed 
 this day; and if it is, that we may at least have the consola- 
 tion of restoring to our country the blessings of peace. 
 
 We shall on this supposition all sign the treaty, and I be- 
 lieve it will be ratified in America. But you must expect 
 that we shall all be censured and reproached for it, and none 
 with more bitterness than your nearest friend. We shall, 
 
 'The instructions, dated December 19, 1814, are in Letters and Despauhes of 
 Lord CastleTeagh, X. 221. 
 
246 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 however have the conscious satisfaction of having sur- 
 rendered no right of the nation, of having secured every 
 important interest; of having yielded nothing which could 
 possibly have been maintained, and of redeeming our union 
 from a situation of unparalleled danger and deep distress. 
 I am also well assured that our enemies, whom peace will 
 I fear not make sincerely our friends, will give as little satis- 
 faction to their nation by the treaty, as we shall to ours. 
 When the terms to which they must at last subscribe are 
 compared with their demands, they will show a falling off, 
 which will leave them less to boast of than to excuse. In- 
 deed, neither party will have cause to exult in the issue, and 
 after the peace is made the sources of dissension will yet be 
 so numerous that it will be hardly less difficult to preserve 
 than it was to obtain. Of the event, however, we must speak 
 as still extremely doubtful. Mr. Bentzon has returned here 
 again from London. He left Dover on the 20th and there 
 saw in the newspapers a proclamation offering a high bounty 
 both for soldiers and for seamen. Every preparation for 
 another campaign continues to be made in England, with as 
 much activity as it could be if there was no negotiation 
 pending, and with such indications how is it possible to be- 
 lieve that the British government sincerely intend to con- 
 clude the peace? My next letter will, I hope, give you in- 
 formation upon which more reliance can be placed. . . .^ 
 
 ^ The agitation on the property tax increased so far that the ministry feared it 
 would be impossible to carry it in Parliament without an engagement to give it up 
 should the war not be renewed. Liverpool informed Castlereagh, December 23, 
 1814: "This, as well as other considerations, makes us most anxious to get rid of 
 the American war. I trust our last communication will enable the Commissioners 
 to bring the negotiation to a close. But even if peace is signed, I shall not be sur- 
 prised if Madison endeavours to play us some trick in the ratification of it. . . . 
 The disposition to separate on the part of the Eastern States may likewise frighten 
 Madison; for if he should refuse to ratify the treaty, we must immediately propose 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 247 
 
 TO ABIGAIL ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, 24th December, 18 14. 
 My dear and honored Mother: 
 
 A treaty of peace between the United States and Great 
 Britain has this day been signed by the British and American 
 plenipotentiaries at this place. It is to be dispatched to- 
 morrow by Mr. Hughes, the Secretary of the American 
 mission, who is to sail in the Transit from Bordeaux. I have 
 not time to write a single private letter excepting this; but 
 I request you to inform my brother that I have received his 
 letter of the 2nd October, brought by Mr. William Wyer to 
 France. I was much disappointed in not receiving either by 
 him, or by the Ajax^ the second Dutch vessel arrived from 
 Boston, any letter from you. I have none later than that of 
 1st May. 
 
 You know doubtless that heretofore the President in- 
 tended in case of peace to send me to England. If the treaty 
 should be ratified, I am uncertain whether he will still retain 
 the same intention or not. I have requested to be recalled 
 at all events from the mission to Russia. I shall proceed 
 from this place in a few days to Paris, to be there in readiness 
 to receive the President's orders, and I shall write immedi- 
 ately to my wife requesting her to come and join me there. 
 If we go to England, I beg you to send my sons George and 
 John there to me. After the peace there can be no want of 
 good opportunities for them, and I wish them to embark at 
 the most favorable season for a safe passage. If any other 
 person should be sent to England, I intend to return as soon 
 
 to make a separate peace with them, and we have good reason to believe that they 
 would not be indisposed to listen to such a proposal." Wellington, SuppUvunian 
 Despatches, IX. 495. 
 
248 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 as possible to America and shall hope before midsummer to 
 see once more my beloved parents. 
 
 Of the peace which we have at length concluded it Is for 
 our government, our country and the world to judge, It is 
 not such as under more propitious circumstances might have 
 been expected, and to be fairly estimated must be compared 
 not with our desires, but with what the situation of the 
 parties and of the world at and during the negotiation made 
 attainable. We have abandoned no essential right, and if 
 we have left everything open for future controversy, we 
 have at least secured to our country the power at her own 
 option to extinguish the war.^ I remain etc. 
 
 TO JOHN ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, 26 December, 18 14. 
 My Dear Sir: 
 
 Mr. Hughes, the Secretary to the American mission for 
 negotiating peace, was dispatched early this morning with 
 one copy of the treaty signed by the British and American 
 plenipotentiaries the evening before last. It was executed 
 
 1 Liverpool gave to Canning the reasons for desiring peace: the opinion of the 
 Duke of Wellington that there was no vulnerable point in the United States to 
 take and to keep; a better frontier for Canada would be found to be impracticable; 
 the clamor raised over the property tax. "The question, therefore, was whether, 
 under all these circumstances, it was not better to conclude the peace at the present 
 moment, before the impatience of the country on the subject had been manifested 
 at public meetings or by motions in Parliament, provided we could conclude it by 
 obliging the American Commissioners to waive all stipulations whatever on the 
 subject of maritime rights, by fulfilling our engagements to the Indians who were 
 abandoned by the treaty of 1783, and by declining to revive in favour of the United 
 States any of the commercial advantages which they enjoyed under former treaties. 
 As far as I have any means of judging, our decision is generally approved." De- 
 cember 28, 1814. Wellington, Suppleynentary Despatches, IX. 513. 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 249 
 
 in triplicate to provide against the accidents which might 
 befall any single copy on the passage. Mr. Clay's private 
 secretary, Mr. Carroll, is to go this day with another copy 
 to England, there to embark as speedily as possible. We 
 shall send the third copy by a dispatch vessel which we have 
 ready at Amsterdam, unless she should be locked in by the 
 ice, as from the present severity of the weather we have some 
 reason to apprehend. Mr. Hughes goes to Bordeaux, there 
 to take passage In the Transit, the vessel in which Mr. Boyd 
 came to Europe. Mr. Carroll may perhaps go in company 
 with Mr. Baker, ^ the Secretary to the English mission, who 
 is to be the bearer of the treaty with the English ratifica- 
 tion. In the hurry of dispatching Mr. Hughes I found It 
 possible to write only one short private letter to my dear 
 mother, and I shall probably have only time to write this 
 one to send by Mr. Carroll. I transmitted, however, by Mr. 
 Hughes a duplicate of my last letter to you dated 27 Octo- 
 ber, which I still Intreat you to answer, if I am destined to 
 a longer continuance in Europe, and upon which I ask all the 
 advice and information which it may be in your power to 
 bestow. It relates principally to the subject of the greatest 
 difficulty we have had In the negotiation, and that which of 
 all others is left In the state the most unsatisfactory to us, 
 '! and particularly to me. It has been now for a full month 
 ascertained that unless new pretensions on the part of Great 
 Britain were advanced a treaty of peace would be signed; 
 but It was not until last Thursday that I ceased to doubt 
 whether it would receive my signature. The British pleni- 
 potentiaries had declared to us at the outset of the negotia- 
 tion, that it was not the Intention of the British government 
 to grant to the people of the United States in future the 
 liberties of fishing, and drying and curing fish, within the 
 
 1 Anthony St. John Baker. 
 
2SO THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 exclusive British jurisdiction without an equivalent. There 
 is, as you must remember, in the third article of the treaty 
 of 1783 a diversity of expression, by which the general 
 fisheries on the Banks are acknowledged as our right, but 
 those fishing privileges within British jurisdiction are termed 
 liberties. The British government consider the latter as 
 franchises forfeited ipso facto by the war, and declared they 
 would not grant them anew without an equivalent. Aware 
 that by this principle they too had forfeited their right to 
 navigate the Mississippi, recognized in the same treaty of 
 1783, they now demanded a new provision to secure it to 
 them again. 
 
 We were instructed not to suffer our right to the fisheries 
 to be brought into discussion. We had no authority to ad- 
 mit any discrimination between the first and the last parts 
 of the third article of the treaty of 1783; no power to offer 
 or agree to an equivalent either for the rights or the liberties. 
 I considered both as standing on the same footing, both as 
 the continuance of franchises always enjoyed, and the dif- 
 ference in the expressions only as arising from the operation 
 of our change from the condition of British subjects to that 
 of a sovereign people upon an object in one part of general 
 and in the other of special jurisdiction. The special juris- 
 diction had been that of our own sovereign; by the Revolu- 
 tion and the treaty of peace it became a foreign, but still 
 remained a special jurisdiction. By the very same instru- 
 ment in which we thus acknowledged it as a foreign juris- 
 diction, we reserved to ourselves, with the full assent of its 
 sovereign, and without any limitation of time or of events, 
 the franchise which we had always enjoyed while the juris- 
 diction had been our own. 
 
 It was termed a liberty ^ because it was a freedom to be en- 
 joyed within a special jurisdiction; the fisheries on the Banks 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 251 
 
 were termed rights, because they were to be enjoyed on the 
 ocean, the common jurisdiction of all nations; but there was 
 nothing in the terms themselves, and nothing in the article 
 or in the treaty, implying an intention or expectation of 
 either of the contracting parties that one more than the other 
 should be liable to forfeiture by a subsequent war. On the 
 maturest deliberation I still hold this argument to be sound, 
 and it is to my mind the only one by which our claim to the 
 fisheries within British jurisdiction can be maintained. 
 But after the declaration made by the British government 
 it was not to be expected that they would be converted to 
 this opinion without much discussion, which was forbidden 
 to us, and the results of which must have been very doubt- 
 ful upon minds at all times Inclined, and at this time most 
 peculiarly prone, rather to lean upon power than to listen 
 to reason. We stated the general principles in one of our 
 notes to the British plenipotentiaries, as the ground upon 
 which our government deemed no new stipulation necessary 
 to secure the enjoyment of all our rights and liberties In the 
 fisheries. They did not answer that part of our note; but 
 when they came to ask a stipulation for the right of British 
 subjects to navigate the Mississippi, we objected that by 
 our construction of the treaty of 1783 it was unnecessary. 
 If we admitted their construction of that treaty so as to give 
 them a new right to the navigation, they must give us an 
 equivalent for it. We offered an article recognizing the con- 
 tinuance of the rights on both sides; this offer met however 
 with very great opposition among ourselves, for there were 
 two ^ of us against making it, and who thought the naviga- 
 tion of the Mississippi incomparably more valuable than the 
 contested part of the fisheries. Not so did the British govern- 
 ment think; for they, instead of accepting It, offered us an 
 
 1 Clay and Russell. 
 
252 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 article stipulating to negotiate hereafter for an equivalent 
 to be given hy Great Britain for the right of navigating the 
 Mississippi, and hy the United States for the liberties of the 
 fisheries within British jurisdiction. This was merely to 
 obtain from us the formal admission that both the rights 
 were abrogated by the war. To that admission I was de- 
 termined not to subscribe. The article was withdrawn last 
 Thursday by the British plenipotentiaries, who accepted our 
 proposal to say nothing in the treaty about either, and to 
 omit the article by which they had agreed that our boundary 
 wxst from the Lake of the Woods should be the forty-ninth 
 parallel of north latitude. They at the same time referred 
 again to their original declaration that the fisheries within 
 British jurisdiction would not hereafter be granted without 
 an equivalent. It is evident that it must be the subject of 
 a future negotiation; the only thing possible to be done now 
 was to reserve our whole claim unimpaired, and with that 
 I consented to sign the treaty. 
 
 We were also obliged to except from the immediate restitu- 
 tion of territory taken during the war the islands in Pas- 
 samaquoddy Bay. The British claim them as having been 
 before the peace of 1783 within the limits of Nova Scotia, 
 and insisted upon holding them, not as taken during the war 
 but as of right belonging to them. At first they declared , 
 their right to be too clear even for discussion; but they finally 
 agreed to refer to commissioners and to a friendly sovereign 
 the title to them, and even to the island of Grand Manan in 
 the Bay of Fundy, which has been since 1724 In their posses- 
 sion. We persisted In demanding that the Passamaquoddy 
 Islands should be included In the general restoration, until 
 they manifested a determination to break oflf rather than 
 yield the point. Their inflexibility upon two objects ex- 
 clusively interesting to the state of Massachusetts is a mel- 
 
 
1814] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 253 
 
 ancholy comment upon that policy by which Massachusetts 
 has arrayed herself against the government of the Union. 
 Had Massachusetts been true to herself and to the Union, 
 Great Britain would not have dared to hinge the question 
 of peace or war upon Moose Island, or upon the privileges 
 of Massachusetts fishermen. As a citizen of Massachusetts 
 I felt it to be most peculiarly my duty not to abandon any 
 one of her rights, and I would have refused to sign the treaty 
 had any of them been abandoned. But it was imposssible to 
 force a stipulation in favor of the fisheries; and for a tem- 
 porary possession of Moose Island, merely until it should be 
 ascertained whether it belongs to her or not, we could not 
 think of continuing the war. . . .^ I have great satisfaction 
 in saying that our harmony has been as great and constant 
 as perhaps ever existed between five persons employed to- 
 gether upon so important a trust. Upon almost all the im- 
 portant questions we have been unanimous. I am etc. 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, 27 December, 18 14. 
 On Saturday last, the sixth of December, the Emperor 
 Alexander's birthday, a treaty of peace and amity was 
 signed by the British and American plenipotentiaries in 
 this city. I had written you the day before that there was 
 to be a conference at 12 o'clock. It lasted three hours, 
 and the result of it was an agreement to meet the next day 
 at the Chartreux, the house where the British plenipoten- 
 
 * This letter was shown by John Adams to James Lloyd, who had been chosen 
 to the United States Senate in succession to Adams, and he prepared an elaborate 
 statement on the fisheries question. It is printed in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings, 
 XLV. 380. 
 
254 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 tiaries reside, for the purpose of signing the treaty. This 
 was accordingly done at 6 o'clock in the evening. Mr. Baker, 
 the secretary to the British mission, had a carriage in the 
 yard ready to start for London the moment after the con- 
 clusion. He went at 7 o'clock the same evening for Ostend, 
 where there was a vessel in readiness to sail the moment 
 he should arrive there. We have reason to suppose he may 
 have reached London yesterday morning, and that the news 
 of the peace may have been announced in the Courier of 
 last evening. In order to give Mr. Baker the opportunity 
 of carrying to his government the first intelligence of the 
 event, we agreed with the British plenipotentiaries that it 
 should not be divulged here until the next day at noon. The 
 secret was kept, I believe, as faithfully as any such secret 
 can be; but it happened that Mr. Bentzon, who as I have 
 written you had returned to this place a few days before 
 from London, happened accidentally to have been invited 
 to dine with us. Our usual dining hour is four o'clock, but 
 it was near seven when we returned from the conference, j 
 where he knew we had been. He was watchful of every word 
 said at dinner, and loitered about our separate apartments 
 until 10 o'clock. I do not think he obtained positive knowl- 
 edge of the fact, but he ascertained enough to satisfy him- 
 self, and he went off before midnight. Baker had the start 
 of him about four hours. The conclusion of the treaty was 
 officially communicated by the British plenipotentiaries to 
 the Intendant on Christmas day, the day of all the year most 
 congenial to the proclamation of peace on earth. We re- 
 ceived his congratulations the same evening at a large party 
 assembled according to the usage of the country at his house, 
 and an invitation to dine with him on Wednesday, to cele- 
 brate the event. We had, however, already engaged the 
 British plenipotentiaries to dine with us on that day. 
 
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 255 
 
 Mr. Hughes left us at four o'clock yesterday morning, 
 and Mr. Carroll at ten last evening. Three copies of the 
 treaty were executed on each side, to guard against any 
 accident which may befall any single copy on the passage. 
 Mr. Baker is to go out immediately to America with the 
 English ratification. Mr. Hughes goes to Bordeaux, there 
 to embark in the Transit, and takes one copy of the treaty. 
 Mr. Carroll goes to England to embark, if it should be agree- 
 able to the British government, in the same vessel with 
 Mr. Baker, If not, by any other opportunity that he can 
 obtain. He has the second copy of the treaty. We intended 
 to have sent the third copy by the Herald, but as in all 
 probability she is frozen up at Amsterdam, we shall be ob- 
 liged to wait for some other occasion. My colleagues all 
 intend to visit Paris, and all, excepting Mr. Russell, London. 
 Mr. Gallatin proposes likewise to go to Geneva. The Nep- 
 tune is to be ordered to Plymouth or Falmouth, and they 
 expect to sail about the first of April, which may very pos- 
 sibly lengthen out to the first of May. 
 
 In that interval there will be time to learn from the United 
 States whether the treaty will be ratified, and whether our 
 government will confer any new appointment in Europe 
 upon them, or either of them. There will be at the least 
 missions of London and St. Petersburg to be filled. In my 
 letter to you of the 13 th of the month I hinted to you the 
 course that I should take, in case the peace should be made. 
 I have accordingly written to the Secretary of State, that 
 I shall go to Paris, and there wait for the President's orders. 
 Whether he retains the intention of sending me to England 
 or not, I have definitely requested to be recalled from the 
 Russian mission. If the peace should not be ratified in 
 America, we shall have, I doubt not, ample time to return 
 home in the Neptune. If ratified, and we do not go to Eng- 
 
256 THE WRITINGS OF [1814 
 
 land, there can be no scarcity of opportunities for our return 
 to the United States either from France or England. I 
 therefore now write you to break up altogether our estab- 
 lishment at St. Petersburg . . . and to come with Charles 
 to me at Paris, where I shall be impatiently waiting for you. 
 I calculate upon your receiving this letter about the twen- 
 tieth of January, and I suppose you will not be able to make 
 all the necessary arrangements to leave St. Petersburg 
 sooner than the middle of February. If the season should 
 still be too severe, I wish you to wait until it shall be milder. 
 Take care to engage a good man, and woman servant to 
 come with you. Mr. Harris will procure for you an order for 
 courier horses, and you will travel at your leisure. You will 
 find a very tolerable lodging for the night at any of the post- 
 houses, and Mr. Gallatin and Mr. Bayard from their own 
 experience recommend most earnestly that you travel in no 
 other carriage than a kibitka. . . . 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, 30 December, 18 14. 
 . . . The peace will doubtless enable you to part with 
 mutual looks and feelings of kindness from our English 
 friends and acquaintances. If there has been no sympathy 
 during the war between their joys and sorrows and ours, 
 there will, it is hoped, henceforth be no opposition between 
 them. Indeed, although the peace is not what I should have 
 wished, and although it may acquire no credit in our country 
 to those who made it, I consider the day on which I signed 
 it as the happiest of my life; because it was the day on which 
 I had my share in restoring peace to the world. You know 
 from my letters that during the last ten days previous to 
 
1814] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 257 
 
 the last note which we received from the British plenipoten- 
 tiaries, I had the painful prospect of a treaty's being con- 
 cluded without my signature. A stipulation was proposed 
 to us, to which I had determined not to subscribe. My col- 
 leagues would ultimately have admitted it, rather than break 
 off the negotiation. It was at last withdrawn by the British 
 government, and although it left the subject open for a 
 dangerous future controversy, that was impossible for me 
 to prevent. The relief to my mind when the proposed article 
 was withdrawn, was inexpressible. And now, although I 
 am well aware that there are things in the treaty which will 
 give great dissatisfaction in America, and most particularly 
 to my native state of Massachusetts, yet I have the comfort 
 of reflecting that no one right of any sort has been aban- 
 doned; and that no reasonable man can hesitate a moment 
 in saying that between such a peace, and the continuance 
 of the war for another year, it was impossible to make a 
 question. The conditions of the treaty will not be published 
 in Europe until its return from America, ratified or rejected; 
 for our government have it at their option to take or to re- 
 fuse it; and notwithstanding all its faults I confidently ex- 
 pect it will be ratified. I have given to Mr. Harris a sum- 
 mary of its principal terms, and have authorised him to 
 communicate them in confidence to the Russian govern- 
 ment. He is also at liberty to communicate them to you; 
 and you may give him and others whom you please the in- 
 formation, that the hostilities are to cease as soon as possible 
 after the ratification in America. All captures at sea, after 
 certain dates, according to the distances, are to be restored — 
 twelve days after the ratifications, on the coast of North 
 America; thirty days, in the British and Irish Channels; 
 forty days, in the North Seas and the Baltic; and one hun- 
 dred and twenty days in the remotest parts of the world. 
 
258 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 We hope the American ratification will be given In February, 
 or the beginning of March. The American flag will therefore 
 be one of the first welcomed at Cronstadt and Archangel the 
 ensuing season, and our vessels that have been there war-j 
 bound for nearly three years may sail again for their homes 
 with the first favorable breezes and open waters of the ap-; 
 proaching year. . . .^ 
 
 TO JAMES A. BAYARD, HENRY CLAY AND 
 JONATHAN RUSSELL 
 
 Ghent, 2 January, 18 15. 
 
 Gentlemen: 
 
 I have received the letter which you did me the honor to 
 address to me on the 30th ultimo and beg leave to state to 
 you what I understood to have passed relative to the books, 
 maps, other articles and papers, belonging to the mission 
 at their meeting of that day. 
 
 I had expressed it as my opinion that at the termination 
 of the mission the custody of these efl"ects, particularly of the 
 papers, would devolve upon me, subject to the orders of our 
 government. The principle upon which the opinion is 
 founded is the usage in similar cases, supported by the prece- 
 dent in the case of the prior joint mission. Under that pre- 
 cedent Mr. Gallatin now holds the whole original papers of 
 communications from the Russian government, and Mr. I 
 Bayard the full powers to that mission to treat of peace and 
 commerce with Great Britain which he received from Mr. 
 Gallatin. It is true that the principle was then neither con- \ 
 tested nor discussed. 
 
 1 The American plenipotentiaries broke up housekeeping this day, and Gallatin, 
 Bayard and Adams returned to the Hotel des Pays-Bas. 
 
iSisl JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 259 
 
 Mr. Clav, having on a preceding day and at the meeting 
 of the 20th ultimo expressed an opinion that the papers of 
 the present mission ought to be transmitted to the Depart- 
 ment of State, and a wish to have them with him for his 
 personal convenience In the Neptune^ the subject was dis- 
 cussed, a variety of opinions were given, but I did not under- 
 stand that any vote was taken or any resolution was adopted. 
 I expressed my willingness to deliver all the papers in my 
 possession which should be specified to me by a majority of 
 the mission to any person to be named hy them with authority 
 to give me a receipt for them, and on receiving from him 
 such receipt. I conceived this to be Indispensable to my own 
 justification for putting the papers permanently out of my 
 hands. My motive for asking that the papers should be 
 specified was that there appeared to me a manifest impropri- 
 ety that some of them, particularly the full powers and 
 Instructions received from the Department of State, should 
 be sent back to that Department, and I had thought that 
 upon the discussion of the 30th ultimo this had been gener- 
 ally admitted. My motive for asking that the person to 
 whom I should deliver the papers should be named was, that 
 many of them being original papers of great Importance I 
 could not consistently take upon myself to decide whom the 
 majority of the mission would consider as such. 
 
 I understood Mr. Clay to have said at the meeting of the 
 30th ultimo that he would draw up such a requisition to me, 
 but I expected that the draft to be made by him would, like 
 every other paper hitherto drawn up by any one member of 
 the mission, be submitted to the consideration of all the 
 members before It would be definitely settled, and that I 
 should have an opportunity of stating my objections to the 
 whole or to any part of it. Your letter contains a request 
 totally different from that which I had understood Mr. Clay 
 
26o THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 to promise that he would draw up, Inasmuch as that was to 
 specify both the person to whom I should deliver the papers 
 and the papers to be delivered, and this specifies neither the 
 one nor the other, but under the vague and general terms of 
 "other persons" leaves me doubtful whether it was your 
 intention to include in your request all the papers without 
 exception, or to leave me to the exercise of my own discre- 
 tion in making the exceptions. 
 
 ' You will perceive, gentlemen, that I cannot consider the 
 paper signed by you and presented to me by Mr. Clay as the 
 act of a majority of the mission, since it was signed without 
 consultation with the whole mission upon its contents, al- 
 though all the members of the mission were here and might 
 have been consulted. I deem this circumstance so important 
 in point of principle that I have thought it my duty to 
 answer your letter in writing. My objections to a compli- 
 ance with your request itself I propose to state at a meeting 
 of the members of the mission remaining here. In the mean- 
 time I pray you to be assured that, with a full sense of the 
 deference due from me to your opinions, and with an earnest 
 desire to comply as far as the obligations of my duty will 
 permit with the wishes of you all and of every one of you,^ 
 I am etc. 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, Hotel des Pays-Bas, 3 January, 181 5. 
 . . . You perceive that I dwell with delight upon the 
 contemplation of the peace; not that the treaty has been 
 satisfactory to me, or that I flatter myself it will be satis- 
 factory to my country. For the justification of the American 
 negotiators, the present relative situation of the two parties 
 
 ^ See Adams, Memoirs, January 6, 18 15. 
 
i8is] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 261 
 
 to the war, and the state in which the European pacifica- 
 tion had left the world, must be duly weighed. We have 
 obtained nothing but peace, and we have made great sacri- 
 fices to obtain it. But our honor remains unsullied; our ter- 
 ritory remains entire. The peace in word and in deed has 
 been made upon terms of perfect reciprocity, and we have 
 surrendered no one right or pretension of our country. This 
 is the fair side of the treaty. Its darkest shade is that it has 
 settled no one subject of dispute between the two nations. 
 It has left open, not only all the controversies which had 
 produced the war; but others not less important which have 
 arisen from the war itself. The treaty would more properly 
 be called an unlimited armistice than a peace, and the day 
 we agreed to sign it, I told my colleagues that it would im- 
 mortalize the negotiators on both sides, as a masterpiece of 
 diplomacy, by the address with which it avoided the adjust- 
 ment of any one dispute that had ever existed between the 
 parties. Certain it is, that no other than such a peace could 
 have been made. 
 
 We have felt some curiosity to know how the peace would 
 be received in England. Mr. Baker arrived, as we had ex- 
 pected, on Monday the 26th, about two in the afternoon, 
 at London. But owing to the accident which had happened 
 to him on the way between this place and Ostend, he was 
 not the first to announce the news. The stock jobbers (and 
 probably Bentzon) were before him. There had been a re- 
 port on Saturday that the peace was signed; but on Monday 
 about noon it was circulated as a certainty. The Courier of 
 that day in one paragraph mentioned it, and adds that the 
 business done upon the Stock Exchange was immense. 
 The funds rose nearly one per cent. But the government 
 had no information of the event. Then in a second edition, 
 dated 4 o'clock, is another paragraph stating by authority 
 
262 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 from government that the peace had been signed on Saturday 
 the 24th. We have not yet seen any Courier or Chronicle 
 of a later date, but Mr. Goulburn was kind enough to bring 
 me yesterday the Times down to Friday last, the 30th. It 
 has abated none of its virulence against America. In an- 
 nouncing on the 27th the ''fatal intelligence" of the treaty, 
 it calls upon the nation to rise unanimously and address the 
 Regent against its ratification. It continues every day to 
 Friday pouring forth its lamentations and its execrations; 
 and when despairing of the perfidy that it had recommended, 
 of a refusal to ratify, still resting upon a savage hope that 
 before the ratification can take place in America, the British 
 will take care to inflict some signal stroke of vengeance to 
 redeem their reputation. It states that after the first day 
 of the peace's being known, there was a depression instead 
 of a rise of the funds; and attributes it to an universal 
 belief that the state of affairs at Vienna rendered the 
 prospect of a new European war inevitable, as nothing 
 else could possibly have induced the cabinet to conclude 
 such a peace. This reasoning is probably not altogether 
 unfounded. ... 
 
 We broke up our establishment at the Hotel Lovendeghem, 
 Rue des Champs, last Friday. . . . Yesterday Lord Gam- 
 bier and Dr. Adams left the city for London. We dined with 
 General Alten and a large party of English and Hanoverian 
 officers. In the evening we went to the concert and redoute 
 paree. It was excessively crowded and the music of the 
 concert was adapted to the celebration of the peace. At 
 one end of the hall there was a transparent inscription: 
 Harmonie / entre Albion et Columbia / Paix de Gand / 
 conclue XXIV Decembre. God save the King and Hail 
 Columbia were part of the performances. The hall was 
 extremely crowded with company, and the notes of peace 
 
i8i5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 263 
 
 gave a double delight to the pleasures of the song and the 
 dance. . . . 
 
 The anecdote about Decatur is excellent; but I am not 
 sure that it was not too severe upon Garden. But the trick 
 the English actors played upon us, and that I told you of, 
 was a match for it — taking our money, asking our patronage^ 
 and then singing, 
 
 O Lord our God arise 
 Scatter his enemies 
 
 before our faces. ... 
 
 I presume you will be presented to the Empress mother 
 (and to the Empress if she returns), but let it only be for an 
 absence to join me — not a final leave, because I am not yet 
 recalled. If you have an opportunity at the audience, tell 
 their Majesties that I expect to be recalled, and if I should 
 be, how infinitely I shall regret not having it in my power to 
 take leave of them in person, and how ineff"aceable the re- 
 membrance I shall ever retain of their gracious condescen- 
 sion to us, while at their court. 
 
 TO LOUISA GATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, 6 January, 181 5. 
 There is a newsboy's new year's address, in vulgar dog- 
 gerel Flemish verse, circulating with many others, but which 
 it seems some of the printers declined publishing. It alludes 
 to the hon mot of the Prince de Ligne about the Gongress at 
 Vienna "Le Gongres danse, mais il ne marche pas," and then 
 recommends to the sovereigns and great ministers assembled 
 at the Austrian capital to turn their eyes towards Ghent, 
 and take a lesson from what has been doing here. That 
 
264 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 Lord Gambler and Gallatin were never seen to valse; that 
 Goulburn was never found in a country-dance; that the 
 British and American ambassadors dined at what hour they 
 pleased; but they worked after dinner, and one morning, 
 when nobody expected it, lo, it was found they had made a 
 treaty, and all was settled. Whether the Congress at Vienna 
 have wasted any of their time upon carousels, and sledging 
 parties, and boar-hunting, I am not sufficiently informed to 
 pronounce; but although we have been sober enough in our 
 diversions; it is doing us too much honor to compliment us 
 upon the dispatch with which we have executed our business. 
 If it has taken us six months to make a treaty, merely put- 
 ting an end to the war between Britain and America, with- 
 out settling one point of dispute, ten years would by the rule 
 of proportion be a short term for the monarchs and states- 
 men at Vienna to balance the future destinies of Europe; 
 and after all it is probably from the thorns of their dissen- 
 sions that we have plucked the rose of peace. . . .* 
 
 TO LEVETT HARRIS 
 
 Ghent, 13 January, 181 5. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 The Irregularities in the transmission of letters between 
 this place and St. Petersburg have been so great and so con- 
 tinual that I have ceased altogether Inquiring into the causes 
 of them, but I have within these two days had four new evi- 
 dences of them. The day before yesterday I received at 
 once your two letters of 2/14 and of 9/21 ultimo, and yester- 
 day morning two letters from Mrs. Adams dated the 15th 
 and i6th. My last to you was of 27 December announcing 
 
 ^ Bayard and Clay left Ghent early on the morning of January 7. 
 
i8is] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 265 
 
 the signature of the peace, but as it was already known at 
 London you will probably receive the news from thence 
 sooner than by my letters. Whatever the coolness or re- 
 serve between the representatives of the United States and 
 Great Britain at St. Petersburg may have been while the 
 war between their two countries was raging, I hope and 
 trust it will disappear upon the return of peace. The Eng- 
 lish papers state that the Duke of Wellington, who was in- 
 formed of the signature of the treaty by a courier from the 
 British plenipotentiaries here, immediately wrote a note to 
 Mr. Crawford informing him of the event and called upon 
 him in person the next morning to congratulate him upon 
 it. An example of so much courteousness and liberality 
 (for the authenticity of which I have however as yet no 
 other than newspaper authority) ought to be a precedent 
 for the diplomatic officers of both nations throughout the 
 world, and I dare say the public servants of the United 
 States will everywhere manifest the pleasure which they feel 
 at the restoration of the pacific relations between the two 
 countries by every act of civility towards the British lega- 
 tions which may be proper. 
 
 I have not entered into any correspondence with Count 
 Nesselrode since I have been here, because the regular chan- 
 nel of communication between the United States and Russia 
 was through you and the Imperial Department of Foreign 
 Affairs. Count Nesselrode had never been in any manner 
 intimated to me as a Minister with whom I was authorized 
 to communicate, or who was authorized to answer me if I 
 had written to him upon subjects of a public nature. But 
 it was not on my part a mere scruple of etiquette. I was 
 fully satisfied that if it had been the pleasure of the Emperor 
 to take an interest, either in the progress of the negotiation 
 which was committed to us, or in the subject which was 
 
266 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 presented to his consideration in your note to Mr. Weyde- 
 meyer, such an intimation would have been given to me, 
 either directly from Count Nesselrode, or through you from 
 Mr. Weydemeyer. It never was the intention of our govern- 
 ment, and I will now say to you in confidence, it was ex- 
 pressly contrary to my instructions to press upon the Em- 
 peror's friendly disposition towards the United States, or to 
 make his friendship in any manner burdensome to himself. 
 Our country was grateful to the Emperor for what he had 
 done, for his offer of mediation, for the candor with which 
 he rejected the false impressions that were attempted to be 
 made upon him by representing us as the allies or the instru- 
 ments of Napoleon, for the equity of which he judged of our 
 conduct and our motives. It was no part of our policy to 
 trouble him with importunity. And although at one period 
 of our negotiation it was thought expedient that I should 
 make a direct communication to Count Nesselrode, and I 
 had prepared one accordingly, yet upon more mature de- 
 liberation the idea was abandoned and at this moment I 
 cannot but feel some satisfaction that our business was con- 
 ducted to its conclusion without having given so much as a 
 hint of our existence to any one of the sovereigns or ministers 
 of state assembled at Vienna.^ 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 January 10, 181 5. 
 
 Party violence, Hughes writes, had increased in Congress, 
 
 and was increasing; and the debates, particularly among the 
 
 young members, often became personal. I cannot easily 
 
 imagine anything more violent than a speech of an old ac- 
 
 ^ See Adams, Memoirs, September 5-7, 1814. 
 
1815] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 267 
 
 quaintance of yours, Mr. Cyrus King/ which the English 
 newspapers have republished, and which has given great 
 satisfaction to the enemies of America. I hope that with 
 the blessing of Providence the peace will contribute to arrest 
 the New England confederation in its absurd and senseless 
 career; but I apprehend the root of the evil lies too deep to 
 be eradicated even by the peace. It is in vulgar and popular 
 prejudice prevailing in each part of the Union against each 
 other; and in the workings of individual ambition graduated 
 upon a small scale, incapable of rising to distinction upon 
 the theatre of the whole union, and aspiring to the sway of 
 a fragment of it. 
 
 January 13, 1815. 
 
 Mr. Gallatin did not leave this city till yesterday morn- 
 ing. He goes to spend a month at Geneva, and then return 
 to Paris. His son, James, says that he would be pleased 
 with the mission to Russia, but important as that is likely 
 to be, I should be glad to see him in some place where he 
 would render still more useful service to the public. With- 
 out disparagement to any other of my late or present col- 
 leagues I consider him as having contributed the largest and 
 most important share to the conclusion of the peace, and 
 there has been a more constant concurrence of opinion be- 
 tween him and me upon every point of our deliberations, 
 than perhaps between any two other members of the mis- 
 sion. 
 
 January 17, 1815. 
 
 Since we quitted the Hotel Lovendeghem our two land- 
 lords Lannuier and Deusbon have been selling at public 
 auction our furniture. That operation of itself would not 
 have taken much time, nor have produced much money; 
 
 ^ Cyrus King (1772-1817). His speech, delivered December 3, 1814, is in the 
 Annals of Congress, 13th Cong., III. 720. 
 
268 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 but under the name of effects having belonged to us they | 
 have emptied all the upholsterers' shops in the city. The 
 sale has lasted, I believe, a week or ten days; and the good 
 people of the place consider the Congress of Ghent as an 
 epoch of so much importance in the history of their city, 
 that they have given extravagant prices for some of our 
 relics. I am told that an old inkstand, which was used at 
 the conference, was sold for thirty francs, though it was not 
 worth as many sous. Even the furniture from the British 
 hotel was sold at our house, for the sake of putting it in favor. 
 The worst part of the joke was that they put off quantities 
 of bad wine, as if it had been ours. We did not leave a bottle 
 for sale. 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, 20 January, 181 5. 
 I received yesterday morning yours of 27 December, and 
 readily excuse the omission of a letter on the birthday in the 
 satisfaction of reflecting that you were at that time partak- 
 ing in the celebration of a day memorable in the annals of 
 Russia, as it will henceforth be memorable in those of our 
 country, and particularly memorable in the days of my life. 
 It is yet for my country to judge how far it is to be considered 
 as a day of joy or of sorrow. I do not apprehend that it, the 
 treaty signed on that day, will be rejected; but that it will 
 be as unpopular in America as it Is said to be in England is 
 not improbable, and such is the operation of party spirit that 
 it will be most unpopular in my own state of Massachusetts, 
 where it was most earnestly desired and where the war which 
 it is to terminate is the most obnoxious. I wrote you more 
 than once before the signature that the only remaining ob- 
 stacles to the conclusion were objects of little value in them- 
 
i8is] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 269 
 
 selves, and in which the people of Massachusetts alone had 
 an interest. They are three small islands at the eastern ex- 
 tremity of the United States, the title to which has been in 
 dispute for several years between Massachusetts and the 
 British province of Nova Scotia; and a liberty to fish on the 
 coast of the British provinces, and to dry and cure fish upon 
 their desert shores. You have seen In the published papers 
 that at the outset of the negotiation the British plenipoten- 
 tiaries told us that the islands in question were as clearly 
 their town as Northamptonshire, and that their right to 
 them was not even a subject of discussion. They had how- 
 ever been several years prior to the war in our possession, 
 had been recognized as ours by Great Britain herself, In a 
 convention concluded between Lord Hawkesbury and 
 Mr. King In 1803, and had only been taken by an expedition 
 from Halifax this summer. After the British plenipoten- 
 tiaries had demanded of us about one-third part of the ter- 
 ritory of the United States, under the name of an Indian 
 boundary, and had been flatly refused, they fell back upon 
 a demand to keep all that they had taken, that is the eastern 
 countries of Massachusetts to Penobscot River. When 
 beaten ofi" from that ground they made a forlorn hope of 
 those three miserable islands, the whole territory of which 
 is not equal to the ground covered by the city of St. Peters- 
 
 ■ burg, and the whole population of which does not amount to 
 two hundred souls. Small and Insignificant as the object 
 was, you will easily conceive, however, that for me, the only 
 native citizen of Massachusetts in the mission, it was im- 
 possible to sign a treaty renouncing the right of the state to 
 them. It was finally agreed that all the questions of dis- 
 puted territory should be referred to commissioners to be 
 appointed by both parties, and. If they cannot agree, to the 
 
 .decision of some friendly sovereign or state. Even then an 
 
 t 
 
270 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 attempt was made hy the manner in which the article was 
 drawn up to exclude those islands from that reference. They 
 were at last formally and expressly included in the reference, 
 but nothing could prevail upon the British government to j 
 restore the possession of them, together with all other terri- 
 tory taken, until the decision should take place upon the 
 title. The question left for us was, should we continue the 
 war, rather than leave the British in possession of these three 
 disputed islands, until it should be decided whether they 
 belonged to them or to us. We concluded not to break off 
 upon that point, and assented to an exception which leaves 
 the intermediate possession to them, unless we should have 
 retaken them before the ratification of the treaty. This sacri- 
 fice was a painful one to me, and I yielded to it with great 
 reluctance. 
 
 The fishing right stood upon a different foundation. It 
 had been secured to us by a stipulation in the treaty of 1783. 
 The British plenipotentiaries gave us notice, that Great 
 Britain would not renew the stipulation without an equiva- 
 lent. But there was also a stipulation in the treaty of 1783, 
 that the British should enjoy the free navigation of the 
 Mississippi River, a right of which the British plenipoten- 
 tiaries demanded the renewal. We had no equivalent to 
 give for the fishing liberty, and our instructions forbade us 
 to make it a subject of discussion. We declared to the 
 British plenipotentiaries that our fishing rights and liberties 
 needed no new stipulation. We did not consider them as 
 abrogated by the war, and that they by the same reason 
 needed no stipulation for the navigation of the Mississippi. 
 If, however, they chose to have one they must give an equiva- 
 lent for it. We would consent either to a stipulation con- 
 firming the liberties on both sides, or to say nothing in the 
 treaty about either. They then proposed to us an article, 
 
1815] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 271 
 
 that the parties agreed to negotiate hereafter for an equiva- 
 lent, to be given by Great Britain for the navigation of the 
 Mississippi, and by the United States for the fishing liberties. 
 The only effect of this article would have been the acknowl- 
 edgment by both sides that both the rights were abrogated, 
 an acknowledgment to which I had fully determined not 
 to subscribe. We rejected It, and the last reference of the 
 British plenipotentiaries to their government was to ascer- 
 tain whether they should sign the treaty without that arti- 
 cle. It was omitted, but with a reference by them to their 
 former declaration that the liberties of the fisheries within 
 their exclusive jurisdiction would not in future be granted 
 without an equivalent. This Is the worst feature of the 
 peace, because It leaves the right asserted on one side and 
 denied on the other; so that the moment the fishermen resort 
 again to the fishing grounds within the British jurisdiction 
 they are liable to be forcibly driven from them, and there 
 is a new cause of war. This also is a privilege In which the 
 people of Massachusetts alone have any Interest; they have 
 therefore m.ore reason than any other part of the Union to 
 be dissatisfied with the peace, and as a native of the State 
 they have a right to hold me more severely responsible for 
 it than any of my colleagues. On the other hand they had 
 no particular Interest In the Indian article. That bears ex- 
 clusively upon the western and southern states. Its most 
 pernicious feature Is the consent that Great Britain should 
 be allowed to treat for them. As however. It only replaced 
 them In the condition they were in before the war; and as 
 the relative strength both of English and of Indians com- 
 pared with the United States must diminish and dwindle to 
 nothing In time of peace, I hope that article will have no 
 important evil consequence, and I have some reason to be- 
 lieve our acceptance of It has not been disapproved. . . . 
 
272 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 Ghent, 24 January, 181 5. 
 
 ... A few days before Messrs. Bayard, Clay and Galla- 
 tin left this city, Mr. Van Huffel, a painter, and president 
 of the Societe des Beaux Arts, took a fancy to have likenesses 
 of the American ministers, in miniature drawn with a black 
 lead pencil. Those gentlemen all sat to him each an hour 
 or two, and after their departure I went to his house for the 
 same purpose.^ But after he had begun with his pencil he 
 persuaded himself, and by dint of importunity persuaded me 
 to let him put the figure upon canvas instead of paper; and 
 in oil colors, instead of black lead. It was also understood 
 that the picture was to be not for him, but for me; that is to 
 say, if you think it worth your acceptance for you. The 
 likeness is good, and the picture not a bad one. I leave it 
 here to be finished. . . . 
 
 If the rumors from Vienna are well founded, neither the 
 airs of Henri Quatre nor of God save the King will be long 
 favorites at the imperial palace of St. Petersburg. They are 
 sometimes played here at the theatre, at the concerts and 
 redoutes; but neither of them is half so popular as Hail 
 Columbia. You would not easily Imagine how this last has 
 become in this city the vaudeville of the day. Soon after 
 our acquaintance with the inhabitants had become con- 
 siderably extensive, and some of our young men had mani- 
 fested that they had no partiality for British tunes, the 
 musicians Inquired whether we had not some American 
 national air.f* Oh, yes! there was Hail Columbia! Had any 
 of us got it noted.'' No. Could anybody sing or play it.'' 
 
 ' A set of these sketches, being portraits of Adams, Gallatin, Bayard, Clay and 
 Hughes, are in the possession of Mr. Christopher H. Manley, of Baltimore. 
 
i8i5J JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 273 
 
 This was an embarrassing question. But Peter, Mr. Gal- 
 latin's black man, could whistle it, and whistle it he did; and 
 one of the musicians of the city noted it down from Peter's 
 whistling; and Hughes then remembered that he could scrape 
 it, tant bien que mal, upon the fiddle, and he could sing verses 
 of it when he was alone. And from those elements the tune 
 was made out, and partitioned, and announced as rair na- 
 tional des Americains a grand orchestre, and now it is every- 
 where played as a counterpart to God save the King. The 
 day we dined at the Intendant's after the peace, his daughter- 
 in-law, Madame d'Hane told Mr. Goulburn that she liked 
 Hail Columbia better than God save the King, which she 
 thought "trop langoureux'' — Hail Columbia was "plus gai." 
 Mr. Goulburn said to her "cela prouve seulement, Madafne, 
 que vous n' etes pas anglaise.^' I was sitting next to Madame 
 d'Hane when this dialogue between her and Mr. Goulburn 
 took place across the table. She is a young and beautiful 
 woman; but to answer your question, she is not the fair lady 
 who according to your cards takes up so much of my atten- 
 tion. That fair lady is younger still, and unmarried. I refer 
 you for her name to my letter of the 6th inst.,^ where you 
 will find that I have not been insensible to the necessity of a 
 reputation for gallantry to the diplomatic character. You 
 must not be jealous of my Muse, and as for all the rest of the 
 fair sex of Ghent, your friend, Mr. Gallatin, used to answer 
 them by the assurance that all my affections absent from 
 home were platonic. He one day told me this himself; and 
 I recommended it to him for the future, to pay his court to 
 the ladies for himself, and to leave them, if they had the 
 curiosity to know my character, to find it out in their own 
 way. . . . 
 
 1 Marianne, the twelve-year-old daughter of Mr. Meulemeester. See Adams, 
 il/^wioirj, January 4, 1815. 
 
274 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS 
 
 Bruxelles, Hotel de Flandre, 27 January, 181 5. 
 
 Me void, at length out of Ghent, ^ though I believe if it 
 had not been for the shame of fixing so many times a day 
 for departure, and still postponing the act, I should have 
 stayed there a fortnight longer. The natural philosophers 
 say that inertness is one of the properties of matter by which 
 they understand the aptitude of remaining In whatever 
 situation it is, whether in motion or at rest. Thus they af- 
 firm that if a house or a tree were once put in motion, they 
 would continue to move forever. If they were not stopped 
 by some external impediment, and that if anything ever so 
 
 addicted to motion (Mrs. 's tongue for Instance) were 
 
 once set to rest. It would be forever immoveable, unless some 
 external Impulse should again give It a start. Whether I 
 have more of matter in my composition than my neighbors, 
 I shall not Inquire; but of that inertness which when once 
 at rest requires an external impulse to be put in motion, I 
 certainly have my full share. You know how long I have 
 lived in Russia, almost without passing beyond the bounds 
 of St. Petersburg, and now I have been upwards of seven 
 months at Ghent, without making an excursion of a single 
 day to visit any of the neighboring cities. It has been to me 
 one of the labors of Hercules to take my departure, sixteen 
 days after the time that I had fixed; and now that I am safely 
 lodged at Bruxelles, it is highly probable that the five days 
 I had allotted to this place will be extended to ten or fifteen. 
 The attractions of Paris are not an impulsion strong enough 
 to put me in motion. . . . 
 
 My letters have informed you time after time of the hos- 
 
 ^ He left that city on the morning of January 26, and arrived at Paris, February 4. 
 
i8is] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 275 
 
 pitable, kind and even affectionate treatment that we all ex- 
 perienced from the inhabitants of Ghent. It was continued 
 to the last, and I left the place with such recollections as I 
 never carried from any other spot in Europe. The interest 
 which the people took in our cause was the source of their 
 attentions to us, and it was the more sensibly felt by me 
 because I had come from and travelled through countries 
 where a very different sentiment prevailed. You have writ- 
 ten me, and Mr. Harris writes the same, that our cause has 
 of late had many friends likewise in Russia; but if there had 
 been any before, they had judged it most prudent to keep 
 the secret confined to their own breasts, while the partisans 
 of our adversary proclaimed their partiality on the house 
 tops.^ Of Sweden, which I had seen in its happier and better 
 days, I would willingly lose the memory of having seen it 
 again. The national character has undergone a revolution 
 more disgusting than that of its government. A close alli- 
 ance with Russia, a French soldier of fortune supplanting 
 the children of Gustavus Vasa, as hereditary successor to 
 the throne, and the lust of conquest corroding every heart 
 for the acquisition of Norway, had so totally corrupted, 
 perverted and debased every natural Swedish sentiment that 
 
 1 "The sensation produced here by the new order of things is, as you may sup- 
 pose, great indeed. In the court circle the peace is regretted as being thought pre- 
 mature on our part. It seems wished that we had continued to occupy the enemy 
 another year and to occasion to him a reduction of his influence in Europe. The 
 events at Vienna, known to us as they are but by rumor, sufficiently however 
 evince an irritation which the conduct of Great Britain in the Congress there has 
 excited in more than one great power; and the engines of the British party are at 
 work here to effect changes in the commercial system better adapted to British in- 
 terests. . . The Russian traders, whose interests have suffered so much from 
 the war, have, many of them, brought me their felicitations in person; and in spite 
 of the captious remarks in the Times newspaper of the 27 December, I perceive a 
 feeling of satisfaction very apparent with the English traders here." Levett Harris 
 to John Quincy Adams, 7/19 January, 181 5. Ms. 
 
276 THE WRITINGS OF [iSij 
 
 there was no room left for any just or generous feeling in 
 favor of America. There was no such feeling to be seen; 
 but short as my stay in that country was, I saw so much of 
 the contrary, of the vilest subserviency to our enemy, that 
 I could only ask myself with astonishment, is this the same 
 people whom I saw in 1782 — brave, generous, and warm- 
 hearted, like the king who then reigned over them? Is it 
 the mildewed ear that has spread the blast over a whole 
 nation? No, Sweden Is not in its natural state; nor do I be- 
 lieve the present order of things there calculated to be per- 
 manent. It Is but a breed of barren metal from the iron 
 crown of Bonaparte, and on the fall of that from his brow 
 was struck with the rust under which it will moulder into 
 ashes. . . . 
 
 COMMISSION 
 
 By JAMES MADISON,— President of the United States of 
 
 America, 
 
 To John Q. Adams — Greeting: 
 
 Reposing especial Trust and Confidence in your Integrity, 
 Prudence and Ability, I have nominated and by and with the 
 advice and consent of the Senate appointed you the said John Q. 
 Adams, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of 
 the United States of America at the Court of His Royal Highness 
 the Prince Regent of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and 
 Ireland; authorizing you hereby to do and perform all such mat- 
 ters and things as to the said place or office do appertain or as may 
 be duly given you in charge hereafter and the said office to Hold 
 and exercise during the pleasure of the President of the United 
 States for the time being. 
 
 In Testimony Whereof, I have caused the seal of the United 
 States to be hereunto affixed. 
 
 Given under my hand at the City of Washington the Twenty 
 
i8isl JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 277 
 
 Eighth day of February in the year of our Lord one thousand Eight 
 hundred and Fifteen, and of the Independence of the United States 
 the Thirty Ninth. 
 
 James Madison. 
 By the President, 
 
 Jas. Monroe, Secretary of State. 
 
 TO ABIGAIL ADAMS 
 
 Paris, 21 February, 18 15. 
 My Dear Mother: 
 
 • ••••.. 
 
 Three months more would have completed thirty years 
 since I last saw the city of Paris. It was In May, 1785, that 
 I left your house at Auteuil to go and embark at L'Orient 
 for New York. Thirty years Is the period upon the average 
 of one generation of the human race. When I departed from 
 the city, its streets, its public walks. Its squares, Its theatres, 
 swarmed with multitudes of human beings as they do now. 
 And In walking through the streets now they present so 
 nearly the same aspect as they did then, this Rue de Riche- 
 lieu, where I now lodge, looks so exactly like the Rue de 
 Richelieu where I first alighted with my father In April, 1778, 
 thirty-seven years ago, that my Imagination can scarcely 
 realize the fact, that of Its Inhabitants certainly not one In 
 a hundred, probably not one In a thousand, is the same. 
 That very Hotel de Valois, where my father had his lodg- 
 ings, still exists as a public hotel, and a few days ago I had 
 the curiosity to go and look at the apartments which he 
 then had. That house however is no longer what it was, 
 and the chambers and the furniture equally Indicate the 
 depredations of time. The Hotel du Rol, Place du Carrousel, 
 another house in which we lived, has been demolished, and 
 
278 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 great changes have been made In the whole of that quarter 
 of the city neighboring upon the Tuileries. I have met here 
 three or four acquaintances of that date — General La Fay- 
 ette, Count Marbois, and Mr. Le Ray de Chaumont. Ma- I 
 dame de Stael I had not the honor of being acquainted with 
 then, but you will certainly recollect her husband, who was 
 Swedish Ambassador here and to whom she was afterwards 
 married. She has now a daughter, shortly to be married,^ 
 and General La Fayette's children, whom we used to see at 
 his house as infants, have now families of their own nearly 
 grown up. I met them all yesterday at the house of the 
 Count de Tracy, one of whose daughters is married to 
 General La Fayette's son, George. A brother of this lady, 
 Mr. Victor de Tracy, was a major in the French army in 
 the campaign of 181 2 and was taken prisoner at the time of 
 the retreat from Moscow. It was some months before his 
 family ascertained where he was, and they found he had 
 been sent to a remote and not very comfortable part of 
 Russia. Count de Tracy and General La Fayette wrote to 
 me requesting me to endeavor to obtain either the exchange 
 of Mr. de Tracy, or the permission for him to return to 
 France upon parole. I found it Impossible to obtain either 
 of these favors; but the Emperor Alexander, In consequence 
 of my application, gave orders that Mr. de Tracy should be 
 permitted to come to St. Petersburg and reside there, as 
 Count Romanzoff told me, under my special custody. He 
 came accordingly and spent the last winter at St. Petersburg. 
 He was still there when I left it in April last, but was shortly 
 afterwards released with all the other French prisoners in 
 Russia and returned home. He and his father, and all the 
 family, appreciating their obligations to me more by my 
 intentions and good wishes than by the trifling services 
 
 1 Albertine de Stael, who married the Duke de Broglie (1785-1870.) 
 
i8is] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 279 
 
 which it was in my power to render him, have manifested 
 their sense of it in the most affecting manner. General La 
 Fayette, who resides at La Grange, a country seat about 
 twenty miles from Paris, came last week to the city for the 
 particular purpose of seeing me; and yesterday I had the 
 pleasure of dining with him, and his son and daughter, and 
 their children, at Count de Tracy's, together with the Major, 
 the Countess de I'Aubepin, another sister, her husband and 
 children, and to receive the thanks of the whole of this 
 amiable and respectable family for a good office to one of its 
 worthy members. Count de Tracy was a Senator under 
 the late government, and is now a peer of France. The 
 General is in no public situation. He was always obnoxious 
 to the late Emperor, and it is extraordinary, though perhaps 
 not altogether unaccountable, that the restored family have 
 taken no notice of him. 
 
 Count Marbois is likewise a peer of France and first Presi- 
 dent of the Court of Accounts. I have been several times 
 at his house, and met there his daughter the Duchess of 
 Plaisance. She had this title by her marriage with the 
 Duke Charles de Plaisance, the son of the late arch-treasurer 
 of the Empire, who in the previous consular government was 
 the third consul. 
 
 In the autumn of 181 2 Madame de Stael was at St. Peters- 
 burg, and I then had the honor of becoming acquainted with 
 her. At that time she was among the warmest friends to 
 the cause of the allies against Napoleon, and inclined to 
 favor the British as his principal enemies more than could 
 entirely meet my concurrence. She then gave me an invita- 
 tion, if I should ever again be in the same city with her to 
 go and see her; of which I have now availed myself, and the 
 more readily, because since the overthrow of Napoleon, and 
 the European peace, she has been among the most distin- 
 
28o THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 guished friends of our country, and contributed in no small 
 degree to give the tone to the public opinion of France and 
 of Europe, with regard to the vandalism of the British ex- 
 ploit at Washington. She has a son ^ who, as she says, is 
 tres aimable, and a beautiful daughter soon to be married to 
 the Duke de Broglie. 
 
 I have met here some other and more recent acquaintances 
 of my own countrymen, and Russians, and formed a few 
 new ones. My colleagues, Messrs. Bayard, Clay, and Rus- 
 sell, are here; the two former expect to go in a fortnight or 
 three weeks to London. Mr. Gallatin is still at Geneva, but 
 expected shortly here. We are all waiting for the decision 
 of the American government upon the treaty of peace, and 
 for the subsequent orders which may be transmitted to us. 
 
 I have had the honor of being presented to the King and 
 royal family, Monsieur Count D'Artois, his sons, the Dukes 
 D'Angouleme and De Berri, and the Duchess D'Angouleme, 
 the daughter of Louis 16. The King spoke to me in English, 
 and asked if I was related to the celebrated Mr. Adams. I 
 have paid a visit to my father's old friend the Duke de Vau- 
 guyon, but he was ill and sent me an apology for not receiv- 
 ing me, and a promise to call upon me when sufficiently re- 
 covered to go abroad. 
 
 Among the new acquisitions of Paris since my former 
 acquaintance with it is the famous Museum of the Louvre, 
 which I have visited several times, but in which the collec- 
 tion of pictures, statues and other monuments of sculpture 
 and painting is so vast and extensive that I have not yet 
 been able to examine with attention the tenth part of them. 
 As the Museum is open to the public every day I shall devote 
 much of the leisure I may yet have to visiting it. 
 
 • •••••* 
 
 * Auguste de StaeL 
 
isis] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 281 
 
 TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE 
 No. 145. [James Monroe] 
 
 Paris, 23 February, 181 5. 
 Sir: 
 
 Since the departure of Mr. Hughes and Mr. Carroll 
 from Ghent with two copies of the Treaty of Peace, no op- 
 portunity has occurred of transmitting a letter to you. 
 Mr. Hughes arrived at Bordeaux on the first of January of 
 the present year, and sailed in the Transit a few days after. 
 They did not however get clear of the river Garonne until 
 the 1 2th. The British government allowed Mr. Carroll to 
 take passage in the corvette Favourite^ the vessel in which 
 Mr. Baker was dispatched with the Prince Regent's ratifica- 
 tion. They sailed on the second of January from Plymouth. 
 A duplicate of the ratification was sent about the same time 
 by Mr. Stewart. We had intended to have sent the third 
 copy of the treaty by the Herald, an American schooner 
 lying at Amsterdam, for which we had obtained a passport 
 from the British Admiralty; but she was frozen up in the 
 river just at the time of the signature of the treaty with the 
 prospect of being immovable until spring. We therefore 
 transmitted that copy to Mr. Beasley, with the request that 
 he would forward it to the United States by the first op- 
 portunity that might occur. By a letter from him of the 
 loth instant I learn that he then expected to be favored 
 with such an opportunity in the course of three or four days. 
 
 No answer has been communicated to us from the British 
 government to the notification which we gave them, that 
 we had a further full power to negotiate and conclude a treaty 
 of commerce. No answer will probably be given until the 
 
282 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 decision of the government of the United States upon the 
 treaty of peace shall have been received. If that should be 
 ratified I do not anticipate any objection from the British 
 side to a negotiation for commerce, and it would seem to be 
 the more expedient to both parties, inasmuch as the treaty 
 of peace has left unadjusted every subject of dispute between 
 the two nations previous to the war, together with others 
 to which the war has given rise, besides those which may 
 arise upon the construction of the treaty itself. If they 
 should consent to this negotiation, they will, it is to be pre- 
 sumed, propose that it should be held at London. Under 
 these circumstances my colleagues have thought It advisable 
 to wait for the arrival of the decision in the United States 
 upon the treaty of peace and the instructions of the Presi- 
 dent subsequent to that decision. They are now all here 
 with the exception of Mr. Gallatin, who Is upon a visit to 
 Geneva, but who is expected here in a few days. Mr. Bayard 
 and Mr. Clay propose to go shortly to London, and the 
 Neptune, now at Brest, Is to be In readiness to sail on the 
 first of April from thence, or from an English port as may 
 be found most convenient. 
 
 As there is no present prospect of a new maritime war in 
 Europe, the collisions of neutral and belligerent rights and 
 pretensions, and the still more irreconcileable right of mari- 
 ners and pretended rights of Impressment, may be suffered 
 to slumber until the occasion shall rise when real Interests 
 will again be affected by them. It Is doubtful whether 
 Great Britain will ever be under the necessity of making 
 such extraordinary exertions to maintain a naval supremacy 
 In any future European war as she has been In the wars which 
 have just terminated. She has henceforth no rival to her 
 naval power to apprehend in Europe. Whatever the state 
 of things may be In time of peace she has but to raise her 
 
I8I5J JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 283 
 
 arm to interdict the ocean to every European state. But 
 as she can find no enemy in this hemisphere to oppose her 
 on that field, it will of course cease to be for her the field of 
 glory and even of combat. Her late successes in war by 
 land, as well as her new relations with the continent of 
 Europe, must Infallibly continue to increase the proportion 
 of her exertions in that department while the navy and the 
 naval service will continue to decline. That they are upon 
 the decline the uniform experience of the present war with 
 the United States places beyond all question. Whenever 
 she may be next engaged In a European war the great strug- 
 gle must be expected to take place on land. Her system of 
 blockade will doubtless recur, but the practice of impress- 
 ment may perhaps not be found necessary. Should a re- 
 spectable naval force be kept up during the peace by the 
 United States and exhibit them In a state of preparation to 
 contest a blockade of their own coast, I take it for granted 
 that neither impressment nor paper blockades will ever 
 again form a subject of controversy between them and 
 Great Britain. At the same time the conduct of all the 
 maritime powers of Europe under the present pretended 
 blockade of the American coast will release the United 
 States from all obligations of considering the question of 
 blockade in reference to any duty founded upon the rights 
 of the blockaded party. 
 
 But the adjustment of the boundaries between the United 
 States and the British provinces in America, the islands in 
 the Bay of Fundy, our rights of fishery within the exclusive 
 British jurisdiction, and the British claim to the navigation 
 of the Mississippi, will be subjects which cannot fail of en- 
 tering Into the discussions of any treaty of commerce to be 
 negotiated. The mode of settlement agreed upon for the 
 boundary question, though accepted by us as a substitute 
 
284 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 for that which we had proposed, is far from promising so 
 speedy or so satisfactory a termination. It is scarcely to be 
 expected that in either of the cases referred to two commis- 
 sioners they will concur in their opinions, and there may be 
 difficulties and inconveniences in the reference to a friendly 
 sovereign or state which were not fully considered when the 
 arrangement was proposed. Who the sovereign or state shall 
 be.^ In what manner the reference to him shall be made.'' 
 The certainty of his acceptance of the office and the manner 
 in which he may think proper to decide the questions, may 
 all interpose embarrassments and obstacles to the execution 
 of those articles. On the other hand the exercise of our fish- 
 ing rights within the British jurisdiction on the American 
 coast may give occasion to immediate collisions of force. 
 I presume that our people will frequent the fishing grounds 
 as heretofore, but from the notice given and repeated by 
 the British plenipotentiaries it is to be expected that this 
 fishing will be broken by force. The only alternative then 
 for the United States will be to protect it by force or to nego- 
 tiate upon the right. It is probable that the real object of 
 the British government in disputing the right at present, as 
 well as in the adherence to the claim of the islands in Passa- 
 maquoddy Bay, is to make them equivalent for obtaining 
 the cession of territory necessary for the communication 
 between their provinces of New Brunswick and of Canada. 
 
iSisJ JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 285 
 
 TO LEVETT HARRIS 
 
 Paris, 2 March, 181 5. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 Since I had the pleasure of writing to you on the 5th of 
 last month I have had that of receiving your favors of 19 
 and 25 January and of 1st of February with their inclosures. 
 There is a French vessel on the point of sailing from Havre 
 for Amelia Island, but to proceed as soon as the blockade of 
 New York shall have been raised to that port. I have sent 
 dispatches to the Secretary of State by Mr. Storrow, one of 
 our countrymen who will go as a passenger in this vessel, 
 and among them have forwarded copies of your correspond- 
 ence with Mr. Weydemeyer relative to the treaty of peace 
 concluded at Ghent. 
 
 There is no doubt as Count Romanzoff remarked to you 
 that the British were closely pressed at Vienna at the moment 
 we signed the peace, and that their difficulties at that Con- 
 gress together with their disappointments in America pre- 
 sented as a favorable occasion for terminating our war. 
 That occasion it is equally evident was momentary. Neither 
 at any earlier period, nor as I believe at this time, would the 
 same chance have existed. The great objects at the Con- 
 gress of Vienna are now settled entirely to the satisfaction 
 of Great Britain. What the desire of our government has 
 been upon the treaty we sent them I will not anticipate, but 
 if I would have doubted of the policy on our part of signing 
 as we did and when we did, all such doubts would at this 
 instant be removed. I have invariably believed that the 
 issue of the Congress at Vienna would be pacific, and that 
 the peace in Europe would continue to be general for at least 
 a few years. It is probable that the state of peace itself 
 
286 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 will bring upon the British government some embarrass- 
 ments which may operate to our advantage. And I confess I 
 should just now have felt very awkwardly if by refusing peace 
 upon the terms which we did accept because the English 
 were closely pressed at Vienna, we should now see them as 
 we do completely released from that pressure, and with 
 carte blanche from all Europe against America. We had 
 before our departure from Ghent received letters from two 
 ministers of his Majesty the King of Prussia, reclaiming the 
 monument of the Queen which had been taken on its pas- 
 sage from Leghorn to Hamburg by an American privateer. 
 It would have given me great pleasure to have contributed 
 to obtain the restitution of that, as well as of all the boxes 
 belonging to Baron Strogonoff, for whom I entertain a very 
 particular respect. But I have been informed that the 
 vessel was retaken and brought into some port of France. 
 I think Cherbourg or La Rochelle. It is therefore only from 
 the recaptors that the articles in question are to be recovered, 
 and they will doubtless be recoverable even upon the British 
 principles of maritime law. 
 
 INSTRUCTIONS 
 
 Department of State, March 13th, 1815. 
 Sir: 
 
 The restoration of peace having afforded an opportunity to re- 
 new the friendly intercourse with Great Britain, the President 
 availed himself of it without delay, by the appointment of a Min- 
 ister Plenipotentiary to the British government. Your long and 
 meritorious services induced him with the advice and consent of 
 the Senate, to confer that appointment upon you for which I have 
 the honor to transmit to you a commission and a letter of credence. 
 Of this intention you were some time since advised. 
 
i8is] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 287 
 
 On entering on the duties of this trust, your attention will 
 naturally be drawn to the means of preserving the peace which 
 has been so happily restored, by a termination, so far as it may be 
 practicable, of all causes of future variance. These will form the 
 subject of a more full communication hereafter. I shall confine 
 this letter to some subjects incident to the new state of things 
 which will probably come into discussion in your first interview. 
 
 A faithful execution of the treaty recently concluded on both 
 sides cannot fail to have a happy effect on the future relations of 
 the two countries. That the United States will perform with 
 strict fidelity their part you are authorized to give to the British 
 government the most positive assurance. Arrangements have 
 been already made for surrendering those parts of Upper Canada 
 which are occupied by our troops, and to receive in return the 
 posts that are held within our limits by the British forces. This 
 important stipulation, if no obstacle occurs on the part of the 
 British commanders, will be carried into effect in a few weeks. 
 Commissioners will also be appointed for establishing the boundary 
 between the United States and the British provinces according to 
 the treaty, who will be prepared to enter on that duty as soon as 
 the British commissioners arrive. It is hoped that the British 
 government will lose no time in appointing commissioners and 
 sending them out to commence the work. 
 
 I regret to have to state that the British commander in the 
 Chesapeake had construed that part of the first article relating to 
 slaves and other property very differently from what appears to 
 be its true import. He places slaves and other private property 
 on the footing of artillery, and contends that none were to be given 
 up except those who were at the time of the ratification in the 
 forts and places where they were originally captured. The absurd- 
 ity of this construction is too evident to admit the presumption 
 that it will be countenanced by his government, since it would be 
 impossible under it to recover any. The very act of taking the 
 slaves removed them from the places where they were captured. 
 They have in the Tangier Islands and in the vessels stationed in 
 
288 THE WRITINGS OF [iSij 
 
 this Bay many that were taken from the estates on its shores, none 
 of whom could be recovered. It is probable that the same con- 
 struction will be given by the British commanders along the coast 
 of Southern States, where it is understood many slaves have been 
 taken recently, and are held on islands and on board their vessels 
 within the limit of the United States. 
 
 As soon as it is known what course the British commanders will 
 finally pursue in this aifair, I will apprise you of it. I transmit to 
 you an act of Congress proposing an abolition of all discriminating 
 duties in the commercial intercourse between the United States 
 and other nations. The British government will, it is presumed, 
 see in this act a disposition in the United States to promote on 
 equal and just conditions an active and advantageous commerce 
 between the two countries. This may lay the foundation of a 
 treaty, but in the mean time it is desirable that the British govern- 
 ment should obtain the passage of a similar act by the Parlia- 
 ment. 
 
 I transmit to you also a copy of a message from the President to 
 Congress proposing the exclusion by law of all foreign seamen, 
 not already naturalized from the vessels of the United States. 
 
 The session was too near its termination at the time of the rati- 
 fication of the treaty to allow the examination of this subject. It 
 may be expected, however, that it will hereafter be adopted. The 
 object of this regulation need not be explained to you. You will 
 do justice in your communications with the British government 
 to the amicable policy which dictates it. 
 
 In the treaty lately concluded at Ghent Great Britain takes a « 
 priority over the United States, as is presumed, in both instru- 
 ments. She does so in that received here, and it is inferred that 
 she does it in that received by her government, from the circum- 
 stance that she holds that rank in the ratification of the Prince : 
 Regent. 
 
 Great Britain takes the first rank as a power and our ministers i 
 likewise sign under those of Great Britain. This, though compara- 
 tively an inferior object, is not unimportant. It was, there is no 
 
 i 
 
iSisl JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 289 
 
 doubt, lost sight of in the very important object of peace. In all 
 other treaties between the United States and other powers the 
 ministers of each party sign in the same line. This was done in 
 the treaty of peace with Great Britain and in the subsequent 
 treaties with her government. In the treaty with France in 1803 
 the United States took rank in the instrument delivered to this 
 government, which was reciprocated in that delivered to the 
 government of France. In the treaty with Spain in 1 795 Mr. Pinck- 
 ney signed before the Prince of Peace, the United States had 
 rank likewise over Spain in the instrument delivered to them. It 
 is understood that in treaties between all powers this principle of 
 equality is generally, if not invariably, recognized and observed. 
 In the exchange of ratifications it was thought proper to advert 
 to these circumstances that neither this treaty nor those which 
 preceded it might become a precedent, establishing a relation be- 
 tween the United States and Great Britain different from that 
 which exists between them and other powers. As the governments 
 of Europe attach much importance to this circumstance, it Is one 
 to which we ought not to continue to be altogether inattentive. 
 It is a mortifying truth that concessions, however generous the 
 motive, seldom produce the desired effect. They more frequently 
 inspire improper pretensions in the opposite party. It may be 
 presumed that Mr. Baker will communicate the substance of my 
 remarks to him on this subject to his government. They were made 
 with that intention. Should a suitable opportunity present itself 
 it may have a good effect that you should explain to the British 
 government the sentiments of the President on it. I have the 
 honor to be with great consideration, sir, your ob. humble servt. 
 
 Jas. Monroe. 
 
 ■I 
 
290 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 TO ABIGAIL ADAMS 
 
 Paris, 19 March, 181 5. 
 My Dear Mother: 
 
 Yesterday morning I received the first information of the 
 ratification by the government of the United States of the 
 treaty of peace concluded at Ghent on the 24th of last De- 
 cember. The ratification was received at London last Mon- 
 day evening, the 13th instant, and the communication of 
 the event by Lord Castlereagh to the Lord Mayor was made 
 about eleven o'clock that night. It was brought by the 
 Favourite corvette, the same vessel which had taken the 
 British ratification to the United States. Lord Fitz Roy 
 Somerset, the British Minister at this Court, wrote a letter 
 to Mr. Crawford the evening before last informing him of 
 the event. There had been a rumor in circulation the pre- 
 ceding day that the ratification in America had been refused. 
 It is stated in the English newspapers that the advice of the 
 Senate to the ratification was unanimous, a circumstance ; 
 which, if authenticated, will be the more gratifying to me, 
 as I had not flattered myself with the hope that it would be 
 so. I have no letters yet from England since the arrival of : 
 the Favourite, and know not whether she brought dispatches 
 or letters for me or for any of my colleagues. If there are 
 none, doubtless in the course of a few days we shall receive 
 orders or instructions by other opportunities. As the treaty 
 was ratified on the 17th of February, all hostilities upon the 
 American coast were to cease on the first of this month, and 
 this day puts an end to them on the Atlantic coasts of Eu- 
 rope and in the British and Irish channels. Peace upon the 1 
 ocean will at least for a moment be restored. Whether 
 longer than for a moment will depend upon events of which I 
 
i8i5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 291 
 
 I can form no rational and confident anticipation. After 
 all the strange, unforeseen and wonderful vicissitudes which 
 the annals of Europe have exhibited during the last twenty- 
 five years, the turn which affairs have just now taken, and 
 the aspect of the country where I am, are more strange, 
 more astonishing, and more unexpected, than anything that 
 had yet occurred. The sovereigns of Europe were just 
 terminating at Vienna their negotiations. All the objects 
 of important interest which had been in discussion among 
 them had been settled by a convention to which all the 
 great powers were parties. Europe had the prospect of a 
 long and profound peace when, on the first day of this month, 
 Napoleon Bounaparte landed with eleven hundred and forty 
 men and four pieces of cannon at Cannes in the Department 
 of Var, not far from Marseilles. It is five hundred miles 
 distant from Paris, and I am afraid you will think I am sport- 
 ing with credulity when I assure you that now, at the mo- 
 ment when I am writing, the impression almost universal 
 throughout Paris is, that within six days he will enter this 
 city as a conqueror, without having spent an ounce of gun- 
 powder on his march. 
 
 I have not yet brought myself to that belief. I am no 
 longer indeed confident that it is impossible, because the 
 progress that he has undoubtedly made has by the simple 
 fact disproved the correctness of my anticipations. At the 
 first news of his landing I considered it as the last struggle 
 of desperation on his part. I did not believe that he would 
 be joined by five hundred adherents, and fully expected that 
 he would within ten days pay the forfeit of his rashness with 
 his life. 
 
 But on the tenth day after his landing he entered Lyons, 
 
 the second city of France, after a march of two hundred 
 
 ' miles. All the troops sent against him had either joined his 
 
292 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 standard, or refused to fire upon his troops. At Grenoble, 
 which was surrendered to him without resistance, he found 
 a depot of artillery, arms, and ammunition. The King's 
 brother Count d'Artois, the Duke of Orleans and Marshal 
 Macdonald, who were immediately dispatched from Paris 
 to assemble troops and oppose the invader, arrived at Lyons 
 barely in time to ascertain that the attempt to resist him 
 there would be fruitless, and returned to Paris to see if any- 
 thing more effectual can be done here. After passing two 
 days at Lyons, Napoleon proceeded on his march, and on 
 Friday last, the 17th, was at Auxerre, not more than one 
 hundred miles from Paris. 
 
 In the mean time nothing is seen or heard here but mani- 
 festations of attachment and devotion to the King and the 
 House of Bourbon. In the streets, at all the public places, 
 in all the newspapers, one universal sentiment is bursting 
 forth of fidelity to the King, and of abhorrence and execra- 
 tion of this firebrand of civil and foreign war. The two 
 chambers of the legislative body, the principal tribunals 
 of justice, the municipal administrations of the departments 
 and cities, the National Guards, the Marshals, Generals, 
 and officers and garrisons of almost every city in the king- 
 dom, are flocking to the Tuileries with addresses of inviolable 
 attachment to Louis 18 and of their readiness to shed their 
 blood in his cause. If the slightest reliance could be placed 
 upon the most boisterous and unanimous expressions of 
 public feeling, the only conclusion would be that here are 
 twenty-five millions of human beings contending against 
 one highway robber. In private conversation the universal 
 expectation is that Buonaparte will enter Paris as he entered 
 Lyons, without opposition; but that the inevitable conse- 
 quence will be a foreign and civil war. 
 
 Of his proceedings, of the force now with him, and of the 
 
i8i5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 293 
 
 manner in which he has advanced, scarcely anything authen- 
 tic is known. He has issued several proclamations with great 
 vehemence, but none of which have been suffered to be 
 published. After stating that he landed with only one 
 thousand men, they affirm that he entered Lyons with not 
 more than four thousand five hundred, and that his troops 
 are daily deserting from him in prodigious numbers. On 
 the road between Lyons and this city there have been insur- 
 rections of the populace in his favor; but one of the extraor- 
 dinary features of this romance is, that the cities through 
 which he marches, as soon as he had passed through them, 
 immediately return to the royal authority. This has already 
 happened at Grenoble and at Lyons. 
 
 The defection in the troops of the army is unquestionably 
 very great, and if not universal, is scarcely less formidable 
 than if it were. For the government knows not what troops 
 ( it can trust. The soldiers all cry Vive le Roi without hesita- 
 tion. They permit their officers to pledge them to what they 
 please. They march wherever they are ordered, but not a 
 regiment has yet been found that would fire upon the soldiers 
 of Buonaparte. They will not use their arms against their 
 former fellow soldiers. The vast majority of them are will- 
 ing to be neutral. 
 
 Notwithstanding the general opinion I do not believe that 
 he will enter Paris without bloodshed; nor even that he will 
 reach Paris at all. The government has been collecting a 
 force upon which they can depend, which will meet him 
 before he can arrive here, and the first actual resistance he 
 meets will I think determine his fate. At the same time I 
 must admit that the facts have hitherto turned out so con- 
 trary to all my expectations that my confidence in my own 
 judgment is shaken. At all events the week will not pass 
 over without some decisive result. . . . Messrs. Gallatin, 
 
294 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 Bayard and Russell are here. Mr. Gallatin goes In a day or 
 two for London. Mr. Clay went last week. Mr. Bayard is 
 confined with a severe indisposition, and has been danger- 
 ously ill. Mr. Crawford has also been very unwell but has 
 now recovered. 
 
 My wife and son Charles left St. Petersburg on the 12th of 
 February. I have a letter from her of the 5th instant from 
 Berlin. She then expected to be here at the latest by this 
 day, and I am now in hourly expectation of her arrival. 
 
 Monday Morning, 20 March, 18 15. 
 The King left the palace of the Tulleries at one o'clock 
 this morning, taking a direction to the northward. Napo- 
 leon is expected to enter Paris this day or tomorrow. Yet 
 nothing but unanimity in favor of the Bourbons is discern- 
 ible. How It will be tomorrow I shall not anticipate. 
 Affectionately yours. 
 
 TO JOHN ADAMS 
 
 Paris, 21 March, 181 5. 
 My Dear Sir: 
 
 I wrote you a short letter by Mr. Storrow, who left this 
 city to embark at Havre for the United States at the end of 
 the last month, and I inclosed with it a file of Journal des 
 Debats from the time of my arrival in Paris until then. A 
 fortnight afterwards I received a line from Mr. Storrow at 
 Havre, mentioning that he was still detained there, and of- 
 fering to take any other dispatches or letters that I might 
 have ready. I had barely time to write to the Secretary of 
 State, and to inclose to you a second file of the newspaper 
 down to the 14th instant. This second file is more interest- 
 
 li 
 
 1 
 
1815] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 295 
 
 ing than the other, as it contains the first official indications 
 here of a new series of events unfolding itself to the astonish- 
 ment of mankind. Mr. and Mrs. Smith have concluded to 
 embark at the same port of Havre in the Fingal, which has 
 been waiting there only for the news of the American rati- 
 fication of the Ghent treaty. They are to leave Paris to- 
 morrow, if it be allowed, and with this letter I shall send 
 you a third file of the newspaper which will bring the first 
 part of this new drama to its denoument. I wrote my mother 
 the day before yesterday a short and very general narrative 
 of the apparition of Napoleon Buonaparte. . . . The night 
 of the same day when I thus wrote, Napoleon slept at Fon- 
 tainebleau. At one o'clock yesterday morning the King and 
 royal family left the Tuileries, and took the road to Lille. 
 The King issues a proclamation which was only published 
 yesterday morning after his departure, closing the session 
 of the two legislative chambers which he had convoked im- 
 mediately on being informed of the landing of Napoleon. 
 It convoked them both anew, to meet at a place to be pointed 
 out to them hereafter. It adds that by the defection of a 
 part of the army the enemy had succeeded in approaching 
 the capital, and that although sure of the attachment of the 
 immense majority of the inhabitants of Paris, the King had 
 determined by a temporary retirement to a different part 
 of the kingdom to avoid the calamities which might befall 
 the metropolis by resistance before it. In the course of the 
 morning of yesterday a detachment of Napoleon's advanced 
 guard entered the city amidst the acclamations of the same 
 multitude which has been for the last fortnight making the 
 atmosphere ring with the cries of Five le Roy. They took 
 possession of the Tuileries, where the three-colored flag is 
 now waving in triumph, and last evening the walls of all the 
 public places were covered with the proclamation of Napo- 
 
296 THE WRITINGS OF I1815 
 
 leon, par le grace de Dieu, et les Constitutions^ Empereur des 
 Francais, addressed to the people and to the army, pasted 
 over the proclamations scarcely dry of Louis 18, declaring 
 Napoleon Buonaparte a traitor and rebel, and command- 
 ing all civil and military authorities, and even every individ- 
 ual citizen, to seize and deliver him to a court martial, to 
 identify his person and apply the penalties of the law. Be- 
 tween ten and eleven o'clock last night, I saw in the garden 
 of the Palais Royal, a huge bonfire of all the proclamations, 
 indignations, execrations, addresses, verses and appeals to 
 the people and army against the Corsican monster and ty- 
 rant, which had been loading the columns of the arches the 
 preceding fortnight, and many of which had been stuck up 
 there the same morning, probably by the identical hands 
 which were now with shouts of thunder committing them 
 to the flames. 
 
 It was expected that Napoleon himself would have entered 
 the city last evening, but it is said that there is to be a 
 triumphal entry at noon this day. 
 
 I had written thus far when the Journal de V Empire of this 
 day was brought in to me. When the allied forces entered 
 Paris this time last year, the Journal de V Empire was in one 
 night metamorphosed into the Journal des Debats. On my 
 arrival in Paris I subscribed for it. Last night it underwent 
 the counter metamorphosis, and this morning it is again the 
 Journal de VEmpire, though it still bears the timbre royal. 
 You will find it in the file, and if you will take the trouble of 
 comparing the contents of the Journal des Debats of yester- 
 day, 20 March, with those of the Journal de V Empire of this 
 day, 21 March, you will see an epitome of what is taking 
 place at Paris, and perhaps throughout France. The other 
 public journals do not even think it worth while to change 
 their names. 
 
i8is] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 297 
 
 It appears by this paper that the Emperor Napoleon ar- 
 rived at the palace of the Tullerles last evening about eight 
 o'clock, and it may give you some idea of the tranquillity 
 with which he entered, that it was not until I received the 
 paper that I knew he was in the city. He entered Grenoble 
 and Lyons about the same time, and in the same manner, 
 with a report circulating that he was not to come until the 
 next day. There may be a particular motive for this. Not 
 more than four or five regiments of troops have entered the 
 city with him, and it is not yet possible to say what the 
 numbers of the troops who have joined him amount to. 
 Thus much however appears to be certain, that on the first 
 day of this month, at the moment of landing, he announced 
 himself to the nation and the army as their Emperor, and 
 that he has been recognized as such by all that portion of 
 both who have come in his presence. That no legitimate 
 and universally acknowledged sovereign ever traversed his 
 dominions with more perfect acquiescence and submission 
 on the part of his subjects than he has found throughout the 
 whole road, or was ever received in his capital with more 
 tranquillity and unresisting obedience. It now remains to 
 be seen whether the partisans of the Bourbons in any other 
 part of the country will manifest at the moment of crisis an 
 attachment more active and more energetic than has been 
 found in their friends at the metropolis. 
 
 The newspaper says it is not known what road the family 
 of Bourbon took on leaving Paris, but it is well known that 
 they took the road towards the north. A notification was 
 sent to the accredited foreign ministers that the Court was 
 about to remove to Lille, and inviting them to join it there; 
 with the option however of returning to their own govern- 
 ments. The garrison of Lille has been amongst the most 
 ardent in their protestations of fidelity to the King; but 
 
298 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 whether he will trust himself to their hands may be doubted, 
 and if he does, whether it will be safe for him to remain long 
 with them. 
 
 At present the prospect is that in a very few weeks all 
 France will be ranged once more under domination of Napo- 
 leon. I can scarcely offer a conjecture what part will be 
 taken by the other powers of Europe on this occasion. 
 Napoleon holds out the olive branch to them in the remark 
 that the French must forget that they have been the masters 
 of other nations, but he holds out the sword in the declara- 
 tion that foreign nations must not be suffered to inter- 
 meddle in the affairs of France. At all events the settlement 
 of European affairs at the Congress of Vienna cannot be 
 considered as definitive. 
 
 In some of the letters which I received from you last year 
 you made inquiries for certain books which I did not find it 
 possible to procure before my arrival here. I now send you 
 by Mr. Smith the Timaeus of Locris and Ocellus Lucanus, 
 with the translations and commentary of the Marquis D'Ar- 
 gens; and I add to them another piece of anti-christianity, of 
 the same translator and commentator, the defence of Pagan- 
 ism by the Apostate Julian. Scaliger's Prophecy of Enoch 
 it has been impossible for me to find even here, though 
 I have hunted for it at all the classical shops and stalls of the 
 city. 
 
 My wife has not yet arrived, and as she has had ample 
 time to come since she wrote me on the 5th instant from 
 Berlin, I am anxious for her arrival. Since the approach of 
 Napoleon towards Paris vast numbers of foreigners, and 
 many others, have left the city and taken flight in all direc- 
 tions. They have employed all the post horses on the road, 
 so that I am apprehensive my wife may have been detained 
 for want of them. Possibly there may be some momentary 
 
i8is] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 299 
 
 impediment to the passage of travellers at the frontiers. I 
 hope to be relieved from any anxiety before Mr. Smith goes. 
 I am etc. 
 
 TO ABIGAIL ADAMS 
 
 Paris, 22 April, 181 5. 
 My Dear Mother: 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Smith left Paris on the 22d of March, to 
 embark in the Fingal at Havre for New York. I wrote to 
 you by them on the 19th. They sailed on the 30th with a 
 fair wind, and having a fine ship and the most favorable 
 season of the year for a voyage to America, I hope they are 
 at this time near the port of their destination. Here the 
 easterly winds have constantly prevailed from the time of 
 their departure. My wife and son Charles arrived here the 
 day after they went away. Mrs. Adams performed the 
 journey from St. Petersburg in forty days, and it has been 
 of essential service to her and Charles' health. She entered 
 France precisely at the time when the revolution was taking 
 place which has overthrown again the family of Bourbons, 
 and witnessed the enthusiasm of the troops and of the people 
 in favor of Napoleon. 
 
 Prepared as every person accustomed to reflect upon 
 political events ought to have been for occurrences of an ex- 
 traordinary nature in France, I must acknowledge that those 
 which have been passing around me have been not only un- 
 expected to me but totally contrary to my most confident 
 expectations. When I first heard of the landing of Napoleon 
 five hundred miles distant from Paris, with eleven hundred 
 men and four pieces of cannon, I considered it as the last 
 struggle of a desperate adventurer, and did not imagine that 
 he would penetrate twenty leagues Into the interior of France. 
 
300 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 After knowing him to have reached Grenoble, Lyons and 
 even Auxerre, I could not still believe that he would become 
 without bloodshed master of Paris; and at this hour I can 
 scarcely realize that he is the quiet and undisputed sovereign 
 of France. It was impossible not to perceive that the govern- 
 ment of the Bourbons was not cordially cherished by the 
 people of France; but the king was generally respected, his 
 administration had been mild and moderate, and so thor- 
 oughly had the sentiments of the French nation been mis- 
 represented in the course of the last year that I believed the 
 domination of Napoleon to have been universally detested 
 by them. The facts which I have before my eyes have now 
 brought me to a different conclusion. Although the attach- 
 ment of the army to Napoleon has been manifested in the 
 most unequivocal manner, there has been scarcely any mili- 
 tary agency in his restoration. If the people in any one of 
 the cities through which he passed to come here had been 
 opposed to him, he could not have made his way. If the 
 people of Paris had been seriously averse to his government, 
 the national guards of the city alone would have outnum- 
 bered five times all the troops that had then declared in his 
 favor. I wrote you in my last that the cities through which 
 he had passed, immediately after he had left them returned 
 to the royal authority. That was one of the fables circu- 
 lated by the adherents to the royal cause, which I had the 
 simplicity to believe. It was entirely without foundation. 
 Bordeaux, with the Duchess of Angouleme within its walls 
 animating the partisans of her house to resistance, capitu- 
 lated to an imperial general with 150 men, before they could 
 approach the city. The Duke d'Angouleme, who of all the 
 royal family alone succeeded in collecting five or six thou- 
 sand men, prepared to defend the cause by force of arms, 
 was overpowered by the numbers of National Guards who 
 
i8is] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 301 
 
 gathered against him, before any competent number of the 
 regular army could be brought to bear upon him, and was 
 by those National Guards detained as a prisoner, when the 
 commander of the regular troops had already consented to 
 a stipulation that he should be allowed to embark and quit 
 the country. Indeed the sympathy of sentiment between 
 the people and the army is greater in France than in any 
 other country. From the system of conscription as it has 
 been carried into effect, and the wars in which France has 
 been for more than twenty years constantly engaged, the 
 leading men of every village in the country are old soldiers 
 who have served under the banners of Napoleon. Men who 
 having passed through their five years of service have been 
 released from the armies and returned to the conditions of 
 civil life. This class of men form a link of association be- 
 tween the army and the people. They are according to 
 their several standings in society the persons who enjoy the 
 highest consideration in their neighborhoods. They give the 
 tone to the opinions and feelings of the rest of the people, 
 and they are as enthusiastically devoted to Napoleon as any 
 part of the existing army. The purchasers of national prop- 
 erty are another numerous and powerful class of people 
 attached to him by their interests. Their numbers at the 
 lowest estimate that I have heard made amount to two mil- 
 lions of people. Louis 18 by his declarations previous to 
 his restoration had solemnly promised that none of the sales 
 of this property that had taken place should be invalidated. 
 He had confirmed this promise by an article in the constitu- 
 tional charter, which he held out as a grant from him to his 
 people; notwithstanding which his own ministers in their 
 official papers, all the public journals under the absolute 
 control of his court, all the princes of his family by their 
 discourses, and even himself by indirect means, were con- 
 
302 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 tinually alarming the possessors of that species of property 
 and had staggered its security to such an extent, that since 
 the restoration it had fallen to one quarter part of its sale- 
 able value. Besides this all the ancient nobility were assert- 
 ing anew their claims to the feudal rights which had been so 
 oppressive upon the people, and the priesthood equally 
 favored by the King and court were already clamorous for 
 the reestablishment of tythes. The persons who had acted 
 the most distinguished parts in the Revolution were ex- 
 cluded from all appointments, and even arbitrarily removed 
 from judicial offices and literary and scientific institutions. 
 The institutions themselves are degraded, the National In- 
 stitute in its four classes was dissolved, the old academies 
 were restored, and the King undertook of his mere authority 
 to expel from them twenty-two of their numbers, and to 
 appoint other persons in their stead. By this series of meas- 
 ures, and a few instances of arbitrary acts oppressive to in- 
 dividuals, the government of Louis 18 in the short space of 
 two months had rendered itself more odious to the mass of 
 the nation, than all the despotism and tyranny of Napoleon 
 had made him in ten years. 
 
 But while the French nation has been thus earnest and 
 thus nearly unanimous in receiving again Napoleon for their 
 sovereign, the allies of the Congress of Vienna have declared 
 that there can be neither peace nor truce with him; that by 
 violating his convention with them (which they had pre- 
 viously violated in all its parts) he had forfeited the only 
 legal title he had to existence, and had delivered himself up 
 to the public vengeance. It Is not easy precisely to deter- 
 mine what those high and mighty personages meant by 
 these expressions, and the most charitable manner that I 
 can account for them is to suppose that they had no meaning 
 at all. As Napoleon was at all events not the subject of the 
 
isisl JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 303 
 
 allied sovereigns, they could not mean that he should be 
 punished for his unpardonable offence (the breach of a 
 treaty) by the sentence of their judicial tribunals. As a 
 sovereign (and by the very treaty of Fontainebleau to which 
 they refer they had all acknowledged him as such) the only 
 way by which they could punish his offences was by war. 
 It is a new maxim in the law of nations that a sovereign by 
 the breach of a treaty forfeits all legal right to existence; its 
 application might perhaps be found inconvenient to some 
 of the high allies themselves. After all, it is to war that they 
 must resort, and their declaration may import that if in 
 that war they should take him prisoner, they will put him 
 to death without ceremony. They did not imagine that 
 before they could put in execution any threat against him 
 he would be at the head of the whole French nation, with 
 an army of four hundred thousand men to support him. 
 But the worst of their declaration is that It pledges them ir- 
 revocably to a new war which may be more dreadful than 
 those from which Europe was just emerging. He has an- 
 swered them by offering peace, and almost Imploring peace 
 of them. There is every probability that his offers will be 
 rejected. They are determined on a second invasion of 
 France. I believe, though with some distrust of my own 
 judgment, that they will meet resistance greater than they 
 expect. Hitherto no hostilities have taken place, but the 
 troops are marching with all possible expedition to the 
 frontiers, and the allied sovereigns are to transfer their 
 Congress at Vienna to their headquarters at Frankfort on 
 the Main. 
 
 I received a few days since your favors of the 28 Feb- 
 ruary and 8 March, which arrived at Liverpool and were 
 -transmitted to me from London. I am waiting here for the 
 commission to Great Britain, and the instructions of our 
 
304 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 government.^ The state of Mr. Bayard's health will not 
 admit of his going at present to St. Petersburg. His inten- 
 tion still is to return to the United States in the Neptune^ 
 and he expects to sail in about three weeks or a month from 
 Havre. Mr. Russell is gone to Sweden. Mr. Gallatin and 
 Mr. Clay are in London. Mr. Gallatin must wait for new 
 credentials to the Emperor Napoleon, unless before they 
 arrive Louis 18 should again be restored. Mr. Crawford 
 goes to England next week and intends also to return home 
 in the Neptune. 
 
 My dutiful and affectionate remembrance to my father 
 and dear friends around you, and believe me as ever faith- 
 fully yours. 
 
 TO JOHN ADAMS 
 
 Paris, 24 April, 18 15. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 I wrote you by Mr. Storrow and by Mr. Smith, who left 
 this city with the intention of embarking in different vessels 
 for the United States, but who both actually went in the 
 Fingal from Havre. I sent you by them a regular file of the 
 Journal des Debats from the time of my arrival here until it 
 was metamorphosed into the Journal de V Empire. Mr. Craw- 
 ford is now going to England, intending to embark there for 
 America. I avail myself of the opportunity to write you 
 again, and to inclose the file of the Journal de V Empire from 
 the time of Mr. Smith's departure. 
 
 I have received your favors of 20 February and 10 March, 
 with the inclosed letter from the President to you, and the 
 
 * On April 5 he had learned by way of London that Gallatin had been appointed 
 minister to France, Bayard to Russia, and himself to England. 
 
i8i5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 305 
 
 copy of instructions to you In 1779 In relation to the fish- 
 eries. As you promise to write me again upon the subject, 
 I hope to receive your letter In time to use to the best ad- 
 vantage the Information it will contain. I have heard by 
 letters from England, as well as by yours, of the new mission 
 assigned to me; but I have not received the commission or 
 dispatches of any kind from the government. I am in 
 hourly expectation of their arrival. I have never been 
 charged with a public trust from which there was so little 
 prospect of any satisfactory result, or which presented Itself 
 with so little anticipation of anything agreeable to myself 
 or my family. The peace mission had anxieties and Inaus- 
 picious prospects enough; but the division of responsibilities 
 between five colleagues, the release from the servitude and 
 oppressive expenses of court attendance, and the faculty of 
 living in a reputable manner without rushing Into ruin, 
 made them supportable, and the issue having been more 
 fortunate than we could have any reason to hope, above all 
 the consolation of having rendered an acceptable service to 
 our country, has been ample satisfaction and compensation 
 for all the disquietudes with which it was attended. I had 
 Indulged the hope that the negotiation with Great Britain 
 Immediately subsequent to the peace would still have been 
 under a joint commission. We had In fact separate full 
 powers to negotiate a treaty of commerce. We communi- 
 cated them to the British government Immediately after 
 the signature of the peace, but no answer has been returned 
 to our communication. Towards the close of the month 
 of February Lord Castlereagh was here upon his return from 
 Vienna. Mr. Bayard lodged at the same hotel where he did 
 and had an interview with him. Mr. Clay, who Is now in 
 London, had also had an Interview with him, and from the 
 opinions expressed by his Lordship It appears that the British 
 
3o6 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 government are not at this time inclined to negotiate a 
 treaty of commerce. 
 
 It gives me great satisfaction to find your opinion con- 
 curring with mine, that our rights to the fisheries remain 
 precisely as they stood by the treaties of peace in 1782 and 
 1783, and I hope and trust that our government and country 
 will entertain the same opinion and be prepared to maintain 
 it against all opposition; that the rights will all be immedi- 
 ately exercised by the fishermen, and that if they should be 
 in any manner contested by the British government, they 
 will be supported on our part with all necessary spirit and 
 vigor. We must not flatter ourselves with the belief that the 
 restoration of peace by compact with Great Britain has re- 
 stored either to her government or people pacific sentiments 
 towards us. By an unparalleled concurrence of circum- 
 stances Britain during the year 18 14 gave the law to all 
 Europe. After reducing France to a condition scarcely 
 above that of a British colony she wielded the machines of 
 the congress at Vienna according to her good will and pleas- 
 ure. Lord Castlereagh, since his return to England, has 
 boasted in Parliament, and with great reason, that every 
 object in discussion at Vienna in which Great Britain took 
 any interest had been adjusted entirely to his satisfaction. 
 The King of France had publicly and solemnly declared, 
 that it was, under God, to the councils of the British Prince 
 Regent that he was indebted for his restoration to the throne 
 of his ancestors — a declaration commendable on one hand t 
 as a candid acknowledgment of the truth, but very indis- 
 creet on the other, as fixing the seal of the deepest degrada- 
 tion upon the very people whom he was thus to govern. But 
 what Is the situation of a King of France holding his crown 
 as a donation from a British Regent.'' Louis 18 furnished 
 a deplorable answer to this question. He was in substance 
 
isis] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 307 
 
 a Vice-Roy under the Duke of Wellington. Since the fall of 
 his government, I have had unequivocal Information that 
 one of the first measures of the council of Louis 18 was a 
 serious deliberation, whether he should not declare war 
 against the United States, and make a common cause with 
 England in that quarrel. It was finally determined that 
 such a step would be inexpedient, because it would too vio- 
 lently shock the sentiments of the French nation which were 
 all in our favor. But even after determining to declare a 
 state of neutrality, the instructions to the commanding 
 officers at all the maritime ports were, to show every favor 
 to the British and every partiality against the Americans 
 short of absolute hostility. The applications from the Amer- 
 ican ministers were slighted and most of them were left un- 
 answered. Those from the British Ambassador, however 
 arrogant and overbearing, were sure of meeting with com- 
 pliance. Every manifestation of the public sentiment all 
 over the country was directly the reverse. The Americans 
 were everywhere treated with kindness and respect, while 
 the English were loaded with detestation and ridicule. 
 This subserviency of the French to the British court has 
 been one of the great causes of the astonishing facility with 
 which Napoleon has again overthrown the Bourbons, a 
 facility which I can scarcely credit with the demonstration 
 of the fact before my own eyes. The allied sovereigns have 
 declared that there can be neither peace nor truce with 
 Napoleon, and they appear to have determined irrevocably 
 to wage anew a common war against France for the sole 
 avowed purpose of destroying him. He has offered them 
 peace, and almost implored peace of them; but he Is prepar- 
 ing with all possible vigor and activity for the defence of 
 the country against Invasion. The great mass of the people 
 and of the army are in his favor. His own measures since 
 
3o8 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 his return have all been calculated for popularity. Those 
 of the Bourbons and of the allies against him have increased 
 his partisans more than anything done by himself. There 
 is a spirit of enthusiasm rising in the nation to support him 
 with which I think the allies, numerous, formidable, and 
 animated as they are, will find it no easy task to contend. 
 I have been so utterly disappointed in all the anticipations 
 I had formed that the Bourbons would have energetic ad- 
 herents and supporters in France, that I speak with great 
 diffidence in stating the belief that Napoleon will have 
 firmer and more devoted friends. When the myriads of 
 allies enter upon the French territory, he may perhaps again 
 be deserted and betrayed. But the symptoms are all of a 
 different character. A very few weeks will suffice to solve 
 the problem. 
 
 If Napoleon should be destroyed, and France again re- 
 stored to the Bourbons, England will again be the dictatress 
 of Europe. It is however scarcely possible to suppose that 
 the Bourbons can ever hold the crown of France, even with 
 the show of independence left them at their last restoration. 
 The army cannot be annihilated with Napoleon. The na- 
 tion can never endure the dominion of a king appealing to 
 divine right as his only title to the throne; of nobles reclaim- 
 ing feudal prerogatives, and priests exacting tithes. As his 
 last resource there is an impression here that Napoleon, if 
 the allies make him the pretext of the war, will declare 
 France again a republic, and if the nation will not fight for 
 him, it is yet probable that they will endure every extremity 
 against the Bourbons. Mj 
 
 In one of the last newspapers on the file which I inclose,^ 
 you will find the supplementary constitution, which is now 
 to be presented to the acceptance or rejection of the people. 
 The numbers of the votes returned will Indicate to a certain 
 
 II 
 
i8is] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 309 
 
 degree the real dispositions of the nation. The constitution 
 itself approaches nearer to the English model than any of 
 those they have hitherto tried. The legislative bodies have 
 more independence and more power than had been granted 
 to them since the government of the Directory. The popular 
 features introduced in it, and the control under which it 
 places the imperial dignity itself clearly prove that it is not 
 upon a mere military movement that Napoleon now relies 
 for support. He courts the people still more than the sol- 
 diers, and in the recent events the impulse has evidently 
 been stronger from the people upon the army than from the 
 army upon the people. 
 
 Should Napoleon now maintain his ground the supremacy 
 of England in the affairs of Europe will cease. Cramped 
 and crippled as France is by the dimensions to which the 
 Bourbons had consented to reduce her, under his administra- 
 tion with a few years of peace she will not be a counterpoise 
 to the inordinate influence of Britain, but occupy enough 
 of her attention and anxieties to make it her unequivocal 
 policy to be upon good terms with us. It is in her interest 
 alone that we shall ever find a pledge of her equity and 
 moderation. 
 
 My wife and Charles are well and join me in assurances 
 of duty and affection with which I remain ever faithfully 
 yours. 
 
3IO THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 TO THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY 
 
 [George Washington Campbell] 
 
 London, 24 April, 18 15. 
 Sir: 
 
 The day after I had the honor of writing you last I re- 
 ceived the answer of Messrs. Willinks and Van Staphorst 
 to the letter which I had written them communicating your 
 proposals for the sale of the stock which had been sent last 
 summer to Europe. They stated that they believed a sale 
 might be effected at 75 @ y6 per cent and inclosed a calcula- 
 tion to show from the state of the exchange between Amster- 
 dam and this place that it would be equivalent to 90 @ 91 
 at London. 
 
 On receiving a few days after your instructions of 23 May 
 I immediately wrote to them again and also consulted with 
 Mr. Alexander Baring concerning the execution of them. 
 Mr. Baring assured me that the interest payable here on the 
 1st instant upon the Louisiana loan should at all events be 
 paid, and also the bills which you had authorized the bankers 
 at Amsterdam to draw upon his house for the purpose of 
 discharging the interest payable on the same loan in Holland 
 should be duly paid, though he intimated that this addition 
 to the large advances already due to his house from the 
 United States would not be altogether convenient. 
 
 With regard to the immediate disposal at the market price 
 here of a sufficient portion of the certificates to refund the 
 sum of 246,000 dollars to be paid for this interest: the first 
 that the certificates were in the keeping of Mr. Jackson ^ at 
 Paris and second that they declare the interest upon them 
 
 ^ Henry Jackson, United States charge d'affaires. 
 
i8i5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 311 
 
 expressly to be payable semi-annually at Amsterdam, which 
 Mr. Baring observed would make them utterly unsaleable 
 here. I wrote immediately to Mr. Jackson requesting him 
 to transmit the certificates to me, but have not yet received 
 them or his answer, and suggested to Mr. Baring expedients 
 for a stipulation to be confirmed at the Treasury of the 
 United States that the payment should be made in London. 
 He thought the sale might be most conveniently effected at 
 Amsterdam, and appeared disposed to renew the proposal 
 of taking the whole three millions at 90 per cent, he to ef- 
 fect the sale there, and save the advantage of the exchange 
 by drawing for the proceeds of the sale to this country. 
 Although the exchange at Philadelphia or Baltimore upon 
 London, as quoted by the latest advices from the United 
 States, might render a sale of the certificates here at 90 
 equivalent to the 95 by which I am limited in your instruc- 
 tions, yet in the uncertainty whether that exchange will con- 
 tinue at the same rate I do not feel myself warranted in 
 accepting the proposals of Mr. Baring. For while subscrip- 
 tions are making to the loan in the United States at 85, a 
 remittance here of funds received from such subscriptions, 
 even by bills upon which a premium of five per cent should 
 be paid, would be at least as advantageous to the United 
 States as a sale here at 90. 
 
 To give you a correct and more particular insight into the 
 nature of Mr. Baring's proposals I requested him to commit 
 them to writing, and have consequently received from him 
 a letter of which I inclose herewith a copy. 
 
 I believe it may be assumed as a general principle that 
 the United States will never be able to obtain by a sale of 
 the certificates of their stock in Europe more, and very 
 rarely indeed so much as they can at the corresponding 
 times obtain for them at home. Credit is of so sympathetic 
 
312 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 a nature that the demand In Europe will always be regulated 
 by the demand in America. If the communications of the 
 American government with their agents abroad were in 
 point of briskness and dispatch upon a footing with those 
 of private speculation, they might occasionally have the 
 advantages derived from anticipated information which con- 
 stitute the whole secret and science of European stock job- 
 bing. But in the actual state of these communications I pre- 
 sume the government is constantly many days, and often 
 weeks and months, behind the public newspapers in the re- 
 ceipt of all official intelligence from their agents abroad, as 
 they in their turn are always equally in arrear in the intelli- 
 gence which they receive from home. Whether any better 
 organization of the official intercourse will be thought ex- 
 pedient must be determined by the government itself. 
 I am etc. 
 
 TO PETER PAUL FRANCIS DE GRAND 
 
 Paris, 28 April, 18 15. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 I received at Ghent on the 24 November last your favor 
 of 16 October preceding. I was on the 27th writing an answer 
 to it and, as there was until then no prospect that the nego- 
 tiation upon which we were engaged would terminate in the 
 conclusion of a peace, I was descanting upon the manner in 
 which the British were waging war In America, and upon 
 the course which their government were pursuing in their 
 transaction with us, in a temper which the topics touched 
 upon In your letter and the excitement of the outrage at 
 Washington, as well as of the treatment we had ourselves 
 experienced, had not been calculated to render very amicable. 
 
 t 
 
i8is] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 313 
 
 While I was writing, and before I had finished my letter, a 
 communication was brought to me from the British pleni- 
 potentiaries. It was their note of 26 November, which I 
 presume has been published among the documents of the 
 negotiation in America. It was the first opening to the ex- 
 pectation that the British government would eventually ac- 
 cede to our terms — the first dawn of peace that had arisen 
 to our hopes. It produced so immediate an effect upon my 
 disposition that I could not finish my letter to you in the 
 spirit with which it had been commenced. I laid it aside, 
 and as my confidence in the new pacific appearances was not 
 very strong, reserved it for conclusion in case it should ul- 
 timately prove to be desirable. The state of uncertainty 
 between hope and distrust continued until the 23rd of De- 
 cember, and on the 24th we signed the treaty. My fragment 
 of a letter to you became then altogether unseasonable. An 
 immediate pressure of official duty then succeeded which 
 left us not a moment for that of our private correspondence. 
 I remained at Ghent for a month subsequent to the conclu- 
 sion of the treaty, and then came to this city where I am 
 waiting for orders from the government of the United States. 
 Here I received a few days since your favors of 5 and 6 of 
 March, with a duplicate of that of 16 October. They were 
 brought by Mr. Copeland. During the continuance of the 
 war the predominating sentiment of my mind was of regret 
 that it existed. The situation in which we were left by the 
 sudden and wonderful turn of aff"airs in Europe was so full 
 of danger, and the support given to our enemy by the dis- 
 affection of so large a portion of our own countrymen was 
 so disheartening, that, highly as I always estimated the 
 general character of the nation, there were moments when 
 I almost despaired of our issuing honorably from the war. 
 When by the most extraordinary concurrence of circum- 
 
314 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 stances Britain became the mistress of Europe, and, at peace 
 with all the rest of the world, pointed the whole force of her 
 empire against us, the most sanguine temper could not have 
 anticipated that precisely then would be the period of our 
 most glorious triumphs. Our naval heroes from the com- 
 mencement of the war had maintained and increased the 
 honor of the nation, but the campaign of 18 14 was necessary 
 to restore the credit of our reputation for the conduct of war 
 upon the land. The effect of the war had been to raise our 
 national character in the opinion of Europe, and I hopfe it 
 will have the consequence of raising us in the British nation 
 and government; that it will convince them that we are not 
 to be trampled upon with impunity; that, dearly as we love 
 peace, the experiment of kicking us into war is not a safe one; 
 and that it is a far wiser policy in them not to drive us to 
 extremities which may be essential, but which cannot fail 
 to bring forth energies which they might flatter themselves 
 we did not possess so long as they should suffer them to lie 
 dormant. Most seriously do I wish that the result of the 
 war may also be instructive to ourselves; that the confidence 
 in our own vigor and resources which its issue is calculated to 
 inspire may be tempered by the full and serious considera- 
 tion of the deficiencies that it has disclosed; that it will teach 
 us to cherish the defensive strength of a respectable navy, 
 to persevere in the encouragement of our domestic manufac- 
 tures; that it will lead us to a more vigorous and independ- 
 ent system of finance; and, above all, that it will teach those 
 among us who in the time of the distresses of their country 
 have taken a pride in hanging as a dead weight upon its 
 councils, who have refused their aid to its exertions and 
 have denied even their gratitude and applause to the valiant 
 achievement of its defenders, that they have equally mis- 
 taken the true path of honor and patriotism. They have 
 
isisl JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 315 
 
 now full leisure to reflect that without their assistance, with- 
 out even the trifling boon of their applause, in spite of all 
 their opposition, in spite of their utmost ill-will, and in spite 
 almost of their treason, the nation has issued in face of the 
 whole world in face of its enemy and with its own conscious 
 satisfaction honorably from the war. Their prejudices are 
 indeed so inveterate, their self-conceit is so arrogant, and 
 their views of public afi"airs are so contracted, that I have 
 little expectation of ever seeing them converted from the 
 error of their ways. I trust, however, that they will find it 
 more difficult than ever to convince the country that all the 
 talents or all the integrity of the nation are in their hands. 
 I perceive in the newspaper brought by Mr. Copeland that 
 some feeble eflforts were making by their wise and virtuous 
 party to damp the general joy at the ratification of the treaty, 
 by representing it as a disadvantageous one to us. These 
 efl'orts are however much more insignificant than I had ex- 
 pected they would be. It Is so unusual to find either candor, 
 consistency, or even decency, in the spirit of party, that I 
 fully reckoned upon seeing the same persons, who had been 
 loading the federal presses with groans and execrations at 
 our rejecting the terms first proposed by the British com- 
 missioners, turn against the peace itself the moment after 
 it should be published, and proclaim it the disgrace of the 
 nation. I was even far from hoping that the treaty would be 
 unanimously ratified by the Senate. The federal members 
 of that body have done honor to themselves by rising on 
 that occasion above the suggestions of party feelings, and 
 have left them to rankle only in the state legislature of 
 Massachusetts and the gazettes. The Hartford Convention 
 probably did not realize the hopes or expectations of those 
 by whom it was convoked. From the apologetic manner in 
 which its proceedings are defended by one of its members 
 
3i6 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 upon his return, It would seem not to have given satisfaction 
 to its own partisans. The commission afterwards sent by 
 the Massachusetts legislature to propose that the resources 
 of the general government should be placed at the disposal 
 of that of the state was unlucky in arriving at Washington 
 just in time to meet the ratification of the peace. ^ But the 
 precedent may be laid up for a more propitious time. The 
 peace of Ghent, it is to be hoped, will be longer lived than 
 that of Europe, settled by the treaty of Paris on the 30th 
 May, 1 8 14, and which the Congress of Vienna has been 
 dancing all the last winter to consoHdate as the basis of the 
 permanent tranquillity of Europe. They had previously by 
 a solemn treaty constituted Napoleon Buonaparte Emperor 
 of the island of Elba. On the first of March last, Louis le 
 Desire was quietly seated upon his throne in the 20th year 
 of his reign by divine right, and in the first year by the bay- 
 onets of the allied armies. The Emperor of Elba lands in 1 
 France with eleven hundred men and four pieces of cannon. 
 On the twentieth day after his landing he takes possession 
 of the palace of the Tuileries, after a triumphant and unre- 
 sisted march of two hundred leagues. Louis le Desire, who 
 had proclaimed the Emperor of Elba a traitor and rebel, and 
 commanded him to be shot without a trial by any court 
 martial that should catch him, escapes only by a rapid flight 
 beyond the French territory from being his prisoner. The 
 Duke of Bourbon capitulates for permission to escape from 
 the Vendee, the Duchess of Angouleme from Bordeaux, and 
 the Duke of Angouleme, after attempting resistance a few 
 days, becomes actually the Emperor of Elba's prisoner, and 
 obtains only from his clemency the permission to quit the 
 
 ^ A bill was before the Senate for paying the war claims of Massachusetts, but 
 it was killed in the House of Representatives. The commissioners from Massachu- 
 setts were Harrison Gray Otis, Thomas Handasyd Perkins and William Sullivan. 
 See Morison, Harrison Gray Otis, H. i6i; Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings, XLVHI. 
 
i8is] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 317 
 
 country. In the mean time the high allies at Vienna solemnly 
 declared that the Emperor of Elba, constituted by them- 
 '^" selves, had no longer any legal right to existence, because 
 he had broken the treaty; that there could be neither peace 
 nor truce with him, and that he had delivered himself up to 
 the public vengeance. They have since bound themselves 
 to wage a new joint war, professedly for the sole purpose of 
 accomplishing his destruction; they have refused to listen 
 to his entreaties for peace, and have solemnly stipulated 
 never to treat with him or with any person in his name. 
 This war is now on the eve of blazing. I cannot undertake 
 to foretell its result. . . . 
 
 TO GEORGE WILLIAM ERVING 
 
 London,^ 5 June, 1815. 
 My Dear Sir: 
 
 I have received your letters of 10 and 22 ultimo, and like 
 the relisher of a feast they have principally served to sharpen 
 my appetite for more. There was none for the Duke of 
 Seventlno. He has done me the honor to call upon me, and I 
 regretted anew that you declined entrusting to me the pinch 
 of snuff for him. I shall be much obliged to you if you will 
 keep every large bundle of American newspapers that may 
 be directed to me and happen to fall Into your hands. I 
 have no doubt of being amply supplied here with that valu- 
 able domestic manufacture and, even if I should not, the 
 Times and the Courier, you know, will make me amends. 
 I found upon my arrival here my two eldest sons fresh from 
 the headquarters of good principals,^ and had news enough 
 
 1 Adams left Paris, May i6, and reached London on the 2Sth. 
 
 2 Massachusetts. 
 
3i8 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 for one batch by them. Mr. Lee's correspondent should 
 have told him that at the Massachusetts elections both sides 
 had lost thousands of votes since the last year. That Is, 
 neither party was so sharp set. Perhaps this is a better 
 symptom than any change of men could have been. It is 
 true that the Strong party fell away more than the other. 
 Your favorite, I fancy, will stand no chance next year nor 
 any other. The federal papers of last summer insinuated 
 that he had declared himself In private against the war, and 
 they half promised to take him up if he would come out with 
 an open opposition against it. How say you t ' ••: 
 
 The Constitution did take the British sloops of war and 
 arrived with one of them in the United States; the other was 
 retaken. But this action makes no figure in the print shops 
 of London. We have only the Endymion alone taking the 
 President^ and Bonaparte trying to swallow the world which 
 Mr. Bull alone takes out of his mouth. Lord Castlereagh, 
 however, cheers Mr. Bull with the assurance that he will not 
 really have to perform this service alone. 
 
 The Austrian Cabinet is so distinguished for good faith 
 and sincerity that you may well rest hopes upon a negotia- 
 tion In that quarter. If your 1000 guinea bet at Lloyd's 
 depends upon that reed, gare la maree. Excuse me from 
 taking a share with you. Adieu, and let me hear from you 
 as often as possible. Truly yours. 
 
i8is] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 319 
 
 TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE 
 
 No. I. James Monroe] 
 
 London, June 23, 1815. 
 Sir: 
 
 I gave immediate notice of my appointment and of my 
 arrival to Lord Castlereagh, the principal Secretary of State 
 for the Department of Foreign Affairs, and requested an 
 interview with him, for which he appointed Monday the 
 29th ultimo. I then delivered to him a copy of the creden- 
 tial letter to the Prince Regent, who afterwards appointed 
 the 8th of this month, a levee day, to receive it. Lord Castle- 
 reagh had intimated to me that if I desired it, a private 
 audience at an earlier day would be granted to me by the 
 Prince to receive the letter of credence, but I did not con- 
 sider it to be necessary. On the day of the levee Mr. Ches- 
 ter,^ the assistant Master of the Ceremonies, enquired of me 
 whether I had a letter for the Queen. I informed him that 
 I had not. 
 
 He said that such a letter was usual though not indispen- 
 sable; that it was generally given by courts where there were 
 family connections with this court, and had always been 
 sent by the Republic of Holland. That an audience however 
 would be granted to me by the Queen when she could come 
 to town. 
 
 At the meeting with Lord Castlereagh I had some loose 
 conversation with him on the subjects mentioned in your in- 
 structions of 13 March, and on some others which had arisen 
 from certain occurrences here. 
 
 ' Robert Chester. 
 
320 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 j: 
 
 I stated to him that the first object to which my attention 
 was directed in the instructions which I had received from 
 the American government, was the means of preserving the 
 peace which had been so happily restored; that I was author- 
 ized to give the most positive assurances that the United 
 States would perform with strict fidelity the engagements 
 contracted on their part, and I presented as tokens of a dis- 
 position to proceed still further in the adoption of measures 
 of a conciliatory nature towards Great Britain, the act of 
 Congress for the repeal of the discriminating duties, and the 
 message of the President recommending to Congress the 
 adoption of measures for confining to American seamen the 
 navigation of American vessels; and that although Congress, 
 owing to the shortness of time, had not acted upon that mes- 
 sage, its principles would probably be hereafter adopted. 
 I promised to furnish him copies of these papers which I 
 accordingly sent him the next morning. 
 
 He said that what had been done by the government of 
 the United States with regard to seamen had given the 
 greater satisfaction here, as an opinion, probably erroneous, 
 had heretofore prevailed that the American government 
 encouraged and invited the service of foreign seamen. 
 That as to the principle he was afraid that there was little 
 prospect of a possibility of coming to an agreement, as we 
 adhered to the right of naturalization for which we con- 
 tended, and as no government here could possibly abandon 
 the right to the allegiance of British subjects. 
 
 I answered that I saw no better prospect than he did of 
 an agreement upon the principle. But it was not the dis- 
 position of the American government or nation to apply 
 the force of arms to the maintenance of any mere abstract 
 principle. The number of British seamen naturalized in 
 America was so small that it would be no object of concern 
 
i8is] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 321 
 
 to this government. If British subjects were excluded for 
 the future, there could be no motive for taking men from 
 American vessels. If the practice totally ceased, we should 
 never call upon the British government for any sacrifice of 
 their principle. When the evil ceased to be felt, we should 
 readily deem it to have ceased to exist. He said that there 
 would be every disposition in this government to guard 
 against the possibility of abuse, and that the Admiralty 
 was now occupied in prescribing regulations for the naval 
 officers, which he hoped would prevent all cause of complaint 
 on the part of the United States. He then mentioned the 
 late unfortunate occurrence at Dartmoor prison, and the 
 measures which had been taken by agreement between him 
 and Messrs. Clay and Gallatin on that occasion. I said I 
 had received a copy of the report made by Mr. King and 
 Mr. Larpent after their examination into the transaction, 
 and of the written depositions which had been taken as well 
 on that examination as previously at the Coroner's inquest.^ 
 That after what had been done I considered the procedure 
 as so far terminated that I was not aware of any further step 
 to be taken by me until I should receive the instructions of 
 my government on the case. From the general impres- 
 sion on my mind by the evidence that I had perused, I re- 
 gretted that a regular trial of Captain Shortland had not been 
 ordered, and I thought it probable that such would be the 
 opinion of my government. He said that undoubtedly there 
 were cases in which a trial was the best remedy to be resorted 
 to, but there were others in which it was the worst; that a 
 t| trial, the result of which should be an acquittal, would place 
 the whole affair in a more unpleasant situation than it 
 
 1 See Charles King to Rufus King, August 14, 1815, in Life and Correspondence of 
 Rufus King, V. 483. The report of King and Francis Seymore Larpent is in the 
 Boston Patriot, July 22, 1815. 
 
322 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 would be without it; that the evidence was extremely con- 
 tradictory; that it had been found impossible to trace to 
 any individual the most unjustifiable part of the firing, and 
 that Captain Shortland denied having given the order to fire. 
 I admitted that the evidence was contradictory, but said 
 that from the impression of the whole mass of it upon me, 
 I could not doubt, either that Captain Shortland gave the 
 order to fire, or that under the circumstances of the case it 
 was unnecessary. It was true the result of a trial might be 
 an acquittal, but as it was the regular remedy for a case of 
 this description, the substitution of any other was suscepti- 
 ble of strong objections, and left the officer apparently justi- 
 fied, where I could not but consider his conduct as altogether 
 unjustifiable. 
 
 I mentioned the earnest desire of the American govern- 
 ment for the full execution of the stipulations in the treaty 
 of Ghent, and that my instructions had expressed the hope 
 of an appointment as soon as possible of the commissioners 
 on the part of this country for proceeding to the settlement 
 of the boundaries. He asked what would be the most con- 
 venient season of the year for transacting this business. I 
 said I believed It might be done at any season, but, as the 
 line would be in a high northern latitude, the summer season 
 would probably be most for the personal convenience of the 
 commissioners. He said the appointments would be made 
 with reference to that consideration. 
 
 I further observed that the British Admiral stationed in 
 the Chesapeake had declined restoring slaves that he had 
 taken, under a construction of the first article of the treaty 
 which the government of the United States considered er- 
 roneous, and which I presumed this government would like- 
 wise so consider; that a reference to the original draft of the 
 British projet, and to an alteration proposed by us and as- 
 
i8i5] ' JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 323 
 
 sented to by the British plenipotentiaries, would immediately 
 show the incorrectness of this construction. 
 
 He said he thought it would be best to refer this matter 
 to the gentlemen who were authorized to confer with us on 
 the subject of a treaty of commerce. 
 
 He asked me if Mr. Clay and Mr. Gallatin had communi- 
 cated to me what had passed between them and this govern- 
 ment on that head. I said they had. After inquiring 
 whether I was joined in that commission, he said that the 
 same person had been appointed to treat with us who had 
 concluded with us the treaty of Ghent, and that Mr. Robin- 
 son,^ the Vice President of the Board of Trade, had been 
 added to them. They had already had some conferences 
 with Messrs. Clay and Gallatin, and their powers were now 
 made out and ready for them to proceed in the negotiation. 
 
 On the 6th instant I received from Lord Castlereagh a 
 note, informing me that the Prince Regent had appointed 
 the Hon. Charles Bagot his Envoy Extraordinary and 
 Minister Plenipotentiary to the United States.^ He was 
 presented to the Prince upon his appointment at the levee 
 on the same day that I had presented my credentials — a 
 circumstance which was remarked by the Prince himself, 
 doubtless with the intention that it should be understood 
 as an evidence of the promptitude with which the British 
 government was disposed to meet the friendly advances of 
 our own. In delivering my credential letter to the Prince 
 at the private audience previous to the levee, I had told him 
 that I fulfilled the commands of my government in express- 
 ing the hope that it would be received as a token of the 
 earnest desire of the President not only for the faithful and 
 
 • Frederick John Robinson, afterwards Earl of Ripon (1782-1859). 
 "^ Some of his correspondence is used in Bagot,, George Canning and his Friends 
 (1909). 
 
324 THE WRITINGS OF [iSij 
 
 punctual observance of all our engagements contracted with 
 Great Britain, but for the adoption of every other measure 
 which might tend to consolidate the peace and friendship 
 and to promote the harmony between the two nations. 
 
 The Prince answered me by the most explicit assurances 
 of the friendly disposition of this government towards the 
 United States, and of his own determination punctually to 
 carry into execution all the engagements on the part of 
 Great Britain. 
 
 I was requested by Morier,^ one of the Under Secretaries 
 of State in the foreign department, to call at that office the 
 day after the levee. I complied with that request. He in- 
 quired whether I thought there would be any objection on 
 your part to the appointment of the same person as the 
 British commissioner on the fourth and fifth articles of the 
 treaty of Ghent. I said I did not anticipate any objection, 
 especially as we should be under no obligation to appoint 
 the same person upon the two commissions on our part. 
 He told me that Colonel Barclay,^ having already been em- 
 ployed on the commission under the treaty of 1794, would 
 be the commissioner on those two articles and would be 
 attended by the same person who was also on that occasion 
 employed as the surveyor. It was intended that they should 
 go out in the July packet. Another person would be ap- 
 pointed the commissioner on the sixth article. 
 
 I have etc. 
 
 ^ John Philip Morier (1776-1853). 
 
 ^ Thomas Barclay (1753-1830). Rives, Letters of Thomas Barclay. 
 
 1! 
 
i8i5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 325 
 
 TO WILLEM AND JAN WILLINK 
 
 London, ii July, 181 5. 
 Gentlemen: 
 
 I duly received your favor of 27th June, enclosing a copy 
 of your letter to Messrs. Gallatin and Bayard of 14 December 
 last. As it was impossible for me to accept the proposal of 
 selling 75 @ 76 per cent at Amsterdam, certificates of stocks 
 which were even then at 91 here, I did not think it advisable 
 immediately to answer your letter. Since then I have re- 
 ceived further instructions from the Secretary of the Treas- 
 ury, authorizing the sale at the market price in London of 
 a certain portion of the stock. But on the very day that I 
 received your letter the exchange which you quote at 9/. 10. 
 to the £ sterling had risen to 10, and it has since been at 
 10/. 10. At the same time the price of American stock in 
 this market has risen to 92 and 93, as by the latest accounts 
 from the United States they were rapidly rising there. The 
 '! Secretary of the Treasury has informed Messrs. Baring and 
 Co. that he has authorized you to draw upon them for the 
 sum necessary to discharge the interest payable in Holland 
 on the first of this month upon the Louisiana loan. And 
 Mr. Baring assures me that your bills for that effect shall 
 be duly paid. To reimburse them it may be necessary to 
 ask of you a power for transferring so much of the stock 
 standing in your names as may be sufiicientfor that purpose. 
 But as they may, perhaps, undertake the sale of the whole, 
 the instructions for which still remain in force, I shall In 
 that case ask your power for the transfer of the whole. I 
 j shall for this and other reasons postpone transmitting to the 
 ' Secretary of the Treasury the proposals contained in your 
 letter which I am now answering. It would certainly occa- 
 
326 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 sion some surprise to him that you should in the present 
 circumstances of the United States, not be able to procure 
 money for them upon more favorable terms, than you could 
 have obtained immediately before the conclusion of the 
 peace at Ghent. It is precisely at the moment of embarrass- 
 ment which cannot be derived from your extensive credit 
 and your confidence in the stability and resources of the 
 United States. 
 I am etc. 
 
 TO CHRISTOPHER HUGHES 
 
 London, 18 July, 1815. 
 My Dear Sir: 
 
 A few days after my arrival in this city I received your 
 obliging favor of the 7 May, which was forwarded to me by 
 Mr. White from Falmouth. I was very much gratified by 
 your friendly recollection, and assure you that I retain and 
 shall retain with lively pleasure the remembrance of the 
 cheerfulness and animation which you mingled in the cup 
 of our political bitterness and dullness at Ghent. I had 
 learned, with sympathetic feelings for you, the unexpected 
 detention which you experienced at Bordeaux and in the 
 waters of the Garonne, and am happy to find that you sup- 
 ported with philosophical composure the disappointment of 
 having been anticipated in the communication of the news 
 of peace to our beloved country. 
 
 The elements of the American legation at Ghent are now 
 rather singularly dispersed through the world. Mr. Bayard 
 and Colonel Milligan sailed in the Neptune (no longer Nep- 
 tune the foul) from Plymouth on the 18 of last month, and 
 will I trust ere this have performed the largest part of their 
 voyage to the United States. Mr. Crawford went with them, 
 
iSisl JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 327 
 
 but Mr. Bayard was laboring under so distressing an illness 
 that it is doubtful whether he will ever recover, or even sur- 
 vive the passage. Mr. Clay and Mr. Gallatin, with his son, 
 left this town last week for Liverpool, there to embark for 
 the United States. They have been, with a poor mite of 
 assistance from me, working here upon a commercial con- 
 I vention in which we have stood in great need of the '*y?y on 
 I the coach zvheeF^ — that Is, of the secretary to the commission. 
 If he had been here, we should have given him employment 
 to his heart's content, if not more. And after all we found 
 it possible to come to agreement only upon five articles, three 
 of which were surplusage — and only for four years. The 
 B[ritish] p[lenipotentIarie]s were our old friends, Mr. Goul- 
 burn and Mr. Adams, together with Mr. Robinson, the 
 Vice President of the Board of Trade, instead of Lord Gam- 
 bler; and, by the way, I ought to tell you that Mr. Goulburn 
 retains his old regard for the American secretary and always 
 inquires kindly after him. 
 
 Mr. Russell spent about four months in Paris after the 
 conclusion of the business at Ghent and then repaired to his 
 post at Stockholm. I have heard of him, but not from him, 
 since his arrival there. He left his son George at Paris. 
 
 Mr. Todd lost his passage In the Neptune, first from Havre 
 and afterwards from Plymouth. He goes home from Liver- 
 pool, I suppose with Messrs. Clay and Gallatin. They were 
 to sail last Friday or Saturday in the ship Lorenzo for New 
 York. 
 
 I received a few days since a letter from Mr. Shaler and 
 Commodore Decatur, dated United States ship Guerriere, 
 off Cadiz, 13 June, 181 5, announcing their appointment as 
 commissioners to negotiate a peace with the Dey of Algiers. 
 Two days afterwards I learnt by the Courier, that to com- 
 mence the negotiation they had taken Into Carthagena one 
 
328 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 Algerlne frigate, destroyed another, and were in close pursuit 
 of a third. What part Shaler performed in this specimen 
 of diplomatic skill I have not learned, but like you I am 
 perfectly satisfied that he did his duty very well. How the 
 Dey will be disposed to receive such overtures I am quite 
 curious to learn. At least he will not have occasion to ques- 
 tion the sufficiency of the full powers of the commissioners. 
 Mr. Canning once sported some very good jokes upon the 
 administration of this country for sending out to America 
 an Admiral for a plenipotentiary, but our government have 
 ordered these things better. As they have taken the Alger- 
 ines in hand in the only proper manner, I hope they have 
 secured to our country the honor of breaking up the whole 
 of that nest of pirates on the shores of Africa, which have 
 so long been the annoyance and disgrace of the maritime 
 powers of Europe. 
 
 TO WILLIAM EUSTIS ^ 
 
 London, 25 July, 181 5. 
 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 It was Mr. Bayard's opinion that the operation of the 
 peace would be to promote the triumph of the Federal party 
 in our country generally, and in particular at the next presi- 
 dential election. I had myself no distant foresight of its 
 effect upon our parties. Hitherto the appearances indicate 
 only that it has calmed their effervescence, without ap- 
 proximating their views or much affecting their relative 
 
 1 Minister to The Hague. He arrived in the Congress on July I2 at Flushing, 
 and on the isth at The Hague. 
 
i8is] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 329 
 
 strength. Perhaps this Is precisely the best effect that could 
 have been produced. When both parties shall have cooled 
 
 |{ down to a temperate condition, the proper time will come 
 for both to review their principles, and for the wise and 
 honest men of both to discard their prejudices and turn the 
 experience of the war to the benefit of their common country. 
 The greatest vice of our leading men on both sides is their 
 load of prejudices against each other. The war has not in 
 truth answered the expectations or the hopes of either. The 
 peace has not disgraced our country, but It has not secured 
 
 i\ the objects of the war. The events of the last three years 
 have been marked with the ordinary vicissitudes of war. 
 
 !l They have covered sometimes our nation with shame and 
 sometimes with glory. On the ocean our cause has been 
 brilliant almost without exception. But its highest honor is 
 but the promise of future greatness. On the land, but for 
 Plattsburg and New Orleans, what would be our military 
 fame.? Erie, Chippewa, and Bridgewater would not have 
 redeemed it. If we judge ourselves with salutary rigor, is it 
 yet redeemed.? As to our beloved native New England, I 
 
 '! blush to think of the part she has performed, for her shame 
 is still the disgrace of the nation — faction for patriotism, 
 a whining hypocrisy for political morals, dismemberment 
 for union, and prostitution to the enemy for state sover- 
 eignty. You tell me they are ashamed of It themselves. 
 I rejoice to hear it. As a true New England man and Amer- 
 ican I feel the infection of their shame, while I abhor the 
 acts by which they have brought it upon us. 
 I am etc. 
 
330 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 TO ALEXANDER HILL EVERETT 
 
 London, 27 July, 181 5. 
 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 Your favors by Mr. Dana, by the two Mr. Whites, and 
 by your brother, had been received by me since my arrival 
 here, and I had been apprehensive that your voyage would 
 still be postponed, so that yours of the 17 from the Hague 
 would have been an unexpected pleasure, but for the previous 
 arrival at Liverpool of the Panther, one of whose passengers 
 informed me that she had sailed from Boston the same day 
 with the Congress. 
 
 I congratulate you upon your introduction to the regular 
 diplomatic career.^ When Mr. Smith had concluded last 
 summer to return to the United States, I wrote to the Secre- 
 tary of State requesting that, if I was to return to Russia, 
 you might be appointed secretary to that legation. As 
 there was then no prospect that the negotiation at Ghent 
 would terminate in peace, and consequently none of a mis- 
 sion to this country, I merely added that if such a mission 
 had been the result of the negotiation, and confided to me, 
 as I had received notice was the President's intention, I 
 should still have requested that you might have been the 
 secretary to the legation. That my recommendation of you 
 was earnest I now the more readily avow, because I gave by 
 it a large pledge to the government of our country, which it 
 is for you to redeem, and I assured the Secretary of State 
 that in presenting you to the President's consideration, I 
 was governed more by motives of zeal for the public service 
 than of personal friendship for you. My sentiments are 
 still the same. For my own satisfaction and for the pleasure 
 of your society I wish that you had received the appoint- 
 
 * Secretary of legation at The Hague. 
 
i8is] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 331 
 
 ment as secretary to this legation. I shall write to the Secre- 
 tary of State and renew the request that you may be ap- 
 pointed to it. But for the public service and for your own 
 advantage, you are for the present at least, perhaps as well, 
 perhaps better, situated than you would be here. My own 
 residence here will very probably be short; every American 
 who has resided so long as five or six years in Europe ought 
 to go home to be new tempered. I recommend this to your 
 future practice, as during my whole life I have found the 
 benefit and necessity of it for my own. At an earlier and 
 more perilous age you have once passed unhurt through the 
 ordeal of European seductions and corruptions. I have the 
 confident hope that one victory will be the earnest of another. 
 But you will not deem it impertinent if I entreat you "to 
 keep your heart with all diligence." The fascinations of 
 Europe to Americans, situated as you are and may hereafter 
 be, present themselves in various and most dissimilar forms — 
 sensuality, dissipation, indolence, pride, and, last and most 
 despicable but not least, avarice. This tho' not so common as 
 the rest Is not less dangerous and not less to be avoided. It 
 appears in temptations to trading, speculation, or stock- 
 jobbing upon the basis of information to which your public 
 station only gives you access. Perhaps you may not be 
 exposed to this species of allurement, and if you should, I 
 am sure you need no warning voice to preserve you from it. 
 I have many very pleasing recollections of the country and 
 particularly of the spot where you reside. I inhabited The 
 Hague at several different, and always at interesting periods 
 of my life. You will find it necessary to be particularly at- 
 tentive to your health, as foreigners who reside some time 
 In Holland are often subject to attacks of intermittent fevers. 
 The Hague is however more favorably situated than Am- 
 sterdam. 
 
332 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 You will oblige me by inquiring if a family by the name 
 of Feerman Saint Serf now reside at The Hague, and if they 
 do, by calling on them with my compliments and kind re- 
 membrance. The lady is a daughter of a Mr. Dumas, who 
 during the war of our Revolution was agent for the United 
 States at The Hague, and after the war was for some time 
 charge d'affaires when I was last at The Hague from 1794 to 
 1797. She was married to this Mr. Veerman and had two 
 or three children. I passed through The Hague last summer 
 on my way to Ghent, but could not stop even to alight from 
 the carriage. I have not heard from this family for many 
 years, but it would give me great pleasure to be informed of 
 them and especially of their welfare. 
 
 Mr. Buchanan ^ does me the favor to take charge of this 
 letter. He is strongly recommended to me by several 
 highly respected friends, and I am persuaded you will find 
 him an agreeable associate. Let me hear often from you and 
 believe me etc. 
 
 TO LEVETT HARRIS 
 
 London, 28 July, 181 5. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 I have received a letter from Mr. William Cutting of New 
 York, as the executor of the will of the late Mr. Fulton, and 
 written at the particular request of his widow, expressing J 
 the hope that the privilege granted by the Emperor of 
 Russia to him for the construction of steamboats in the 
 Russian Empire may be confirmed for the benefit of his 
 family. They had received after the decease of Mr. Fulton 
 my letter to him of the 25 December last, written in conse- 
 
 ^ William Boyd Buchanan. 
 
1815] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 333 
 
 quence of one that I had received from you and stating the 
 danger that the privilege might be forfeited, if the model 
 and specification should not be forwarded in time to prevent 
 It. Mr. Cutting says that Mrs. Fulton is quite sure that her 
 husband must have sent out the necessary drawings and 
 specification; but that from the embarrassments then at- 
 tending the Intercourse between the two countries and the 
 circuitous route of communication, It was more than proba- 
 ble that those documents had miscarried. That Mr. Fulton 
 had, however, prepared duplicates which were doubtless In- 
 tended to be transmitted by the first opportunity, and which 
 Mr. Cutting promises would be forwarded by the next vessel 
 that should sail from New York to Russia after the date of 
 his letter, which was the 18 April. 
 
 I hope that they will have been received by the Minister 
 of the Interior before this letter reaches you, and that these 
 circumstances will acquit altogether Mr. Fulton of any neg- 
 lect on his part In the performance of anything required of 
 him by the Emperor's ukase. I also hope that the privilege 
 (which by the words of the ukase was a complete and positive 
 grant) will without difficulty be confirmed for the benefit 
 of his family. Mr. Fulton was a man who deserved so well 
 of our country and of mankind that I should feel a regret, 
 If this misfortune of his death should be aggravated to his 
 family by the loss of that reward which the munificent spirit 
 of the Emperor Alexander had secured to him. Mr. Cutting 
 says that on the confirmation of the ukase Immediate meas- 
 ures will be taken to send out an engineer and workmen to 
 construct a boat, and that he may perhaps go himself to 
 superintend the whole, until the system shall be properly 
 organized. I have written to Mr. Cutting urging him at all 
 events to go, and I am persuaded It will yet be In his power 
 to get the first boat in operation within the three years al- 
 
334 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 lowed to Mr. Fulton hy the Emperor's ukase. Should he 
 arrive at St. Petersburg I pray you to give him every assist- 
 ance in your power to promote his success, and particularly 
 to obtain the interest of Count Romanzoff in his favor. It 
 was through the Count's means that the privilege was ob- 
 tained, and he knows that it could not without injustice be 
 taken away. . . . 
 
 TO LORD CASTLEREAGH 
 
 9 August, 1815.^ 
 My Lord: 
 
 In two several conferences with your Lordship I have had 
 the honor of mentioning the refusal of His Majesty's naval 
 commanders, who at the restoration of peace between the 
 United States and Great Britain were stationed on the Amer- 
 ican coast, to restore the slaves taken by them from their 
 owners in the United States during the war and then in 
 their possession, notwithstanding the stipulation in the first 
 article of the treaty of Ghent that such slaves should not be 
 carried away. 
 
 Presuming that you are in possession of the correspond- 
 ence on this subject which has passed between the Secretary 
 of State of the United States and Mr. Baker, it will be un- 
 necessary for me to repeat the demonstration that the carry- 
 ing away of these slaves is incompatible with the terms of the 
 treaty. But as a reference to the documents of the negotia- 
 tion at Ghent may serve to elucidate the intentions of the 
 contracting parties, I am induced to present them to your 
 consideration, in the hope that the Minister of His Majesty 
 now about to depart for the United States may be authorized 
 
 ^ See Adams, Memoirs, August 8, 1814. 
 
i8is] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 335 
 
 to direct the restitution of the slaves conformably to the 
 treaty, or to provide for the payment of the value of those 
 carried away contrary to that stipulation which, in the 
 event of their not being restored, I am instructed by my 
 government to claim. The first projet of the treaty of Ghent 
 was oflFered by the American plenipotentiaries, and that part 
 of the first article relating to slaves was therein expressed 
 in the following manner: 
 
 All territory, places, and possessions, without exception, taken 
 by either party from the other during the war, or which may be 
 taken after the signing of this treaty, shall be restored without 
 delay, and without causing any destruction or carrying away any 
 artillery, or other public property, or any slaves or other private 
 property. 
 
 This projet was returned by the British plenipotentiaries 
 with the proposal of several alterations, and among the rest 
 in this part of the first article, which they proposed should 
 be so changed as to read thus : 
 
 All territory, places, and possessions, without exception, be- 
 longing to either party and taken by the other during the war, 
 or which may be taken after the signing of this treaty, shall be 
 restored without delay, and without causing any destruction, or 
 carrying away any of the artillery, or other public property, or 
 any slaves or other private property, originally captured in the 
 said forts or places, and which shall remain therein upon the 
 exchange of the ratification of this treaty. 
 
 It will be observed that in this proposal the words "origi- 
 nally captured in the said forts or places, and which shall 
 remain therein upon the exchange of the ratifications of this 
 treaty" operated as a modification of the article as originally 
 
336 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 proposed In the American projet. Instead of stipulating 
 that no property, pubHc or private, artillery or slaves, should 
 be carried away, they limited the prohibition of removal to 
 all such property as had been originally captured in the forts 
 and places, and should remain there at the exchange of the 
 ratifications. They included within the limitation private 
 as well as public property, and had the article been assented 
 to in this form by the American plenipotentiaries and ratified 
 by their government, it would have warranted the construc- 
 tion which the British commanders have given to the article 
 as it was ultimately agreed to, and which it cannot admit. 
 
 For, by reference to the protocol of conference held on the 
 I December, 18 14, there will be found among the alterations 
 to the amended projet proposed by the American plenipo- 
 tentiaries the following: 
 
 Transpose alteration consisting of the words originally captured 
 in the said forts or places, and which shall remain therein upon the 
 exchange of the ratifications of this treaty, after the words public 
 property. 
 
 Agreed to by the British plenipotentiaries. 
 
 It thus appears that the American plenipotentiaries ad- 
 mitted with regard to artillery and public property the 
 limitation which was proposed by the British amended 
 projet, but that they did not assent to it with regard to 
 slaves and private property; that on the contrary they asked 
 such a transposition of the words of limitation as would leave 
 them applicable only to artillery and public property, and 
 would except slaves and private property from their opera- 
 tion altogether. That the British plenipotentiaries and 
 government, by this proposed transposition of the words, 
 had full notice of the views of the other contracting party 
 in adhering to the generality of the prohibition to carry 
 
„8isl JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 337 
 
 I 
 
 away slaves and private property, while acquiescing in a 
 
 limitation with respect to artillery and public property. 
 With this notice the British government agreed to the trans- 
 position of the words, and accordingly that part of the article 
 as ratified by both governments now stands thus: 
 
 All territory, places and possessions whatsoever, taken by 
 either party from the other during the war, or which may be taken 
 after the signing of this treaty, excepting only the islands herein- 
 after mentioned, shall be restored without delay, and without 
 causing any destruction or carrying away any of the artillery or 
 other public property originally captured in the said forts or places, 
 and which shall remain therein upon the exchange of the ratifica- 
 tions of this treaty, or any slaves or other private property. 
 
 ! From this review of the stipulation as originally proposed 
 at the negotiation of Ghent, as subsequently modified by 
 the proposals of the respective plenipotentiaries, and as 
 finally agreed to by both the contracting parties, I trust it 
 will remain evident that in evacuating all places within the 
 i jurisdiction of the United States, and in departing from their 
 waters, the British commanders were bound not to carry 
 away any slaves or other private property of the citizens of 
 the United States which had been taken upon their shores. 
 Had the construction of the article itself been In any degree 
 equivocal, this statement of the manner In which it was 
 drawn up would have sufficed to solve every doubt of its 
 meaning. It would also show that the British plenipoten- 
 tiaries were not unaware of its purport as understood by 
 those of the United States. 
 
 I deem it also my duty, previous to the departure of 
 Mr. Bagot, to request the attention of His Majesty's govern- 
 ment to another point, upon which the execution of the same 
 article of the treaty of Ghent had suffered a delay on many 
 
338 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 accounts to be regretted. From the moment of the ratifica- 
 tion of the treaty it became an object of earnest solicitude 
 to the American government, to carry into execution with 
 the most entire good faith every engagement contracted on 
 the part of the United States by the treaty. Orders were 
 immediately given for the restoration of that part of Upper 
 Canada which was in the occupation of the American troops; 
 proper steps were taken for concluding treaties of peace with 
 the Indian tribes with whom the United States were then 
 at war, and other measures were adopted corresponding with 
 the pacific relations happily restored between the two coun- 
 tries. At the date of the latest dispatches which I have re- 
 ceived from the government of the United States, the fort 
 of Michillimackinac had not been evacuated by the British 
 troops. The consequences of the delay which had occurred 
 in the delivery of that place were of no small importance to 
 the United States. Independent of the loss of the trade with 
 the Indians within the limits of the United States for the 
 present year, the detention of that place had a tendency to 
 induce the Indians inhabiting the country on the Mississippi 
 and the Missouri to persevere in hostility against the United 
 States. This result was apprehended by the American 
 government, and early in the month of May communicated 
 to Mr. Baker with an offer to facilitate the removal of the 
 British garrison to Maiden. Although Mr. Baker did not 
 think himself authorized to accept this offer, I indulge the 
 persuasion that means have ere this been found to effect ij 
 that removal; though by public accounts in the American 1 
 gazettes I lament to see that the dangers anticipated fromi 
 the continued atrocious warfare of the savages have been 
 too painfully realized. Under these circumstances I mustf 
 earnestly renew the expression of the hope that orders have i 
 been, or will be immediately issued for the restoration of 
 
 I 
 
i8is] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 339 
 
 that post 'without further delay. I pray your lordship to 
 accept etc. 
 
 TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE 
 No. 9. [James Monroe] 
 
 London, 15 August, 181 5. 
 Sir: 
 
 • ••*••• 
 
 I have received a letter from Mr. Robert Montgomery of 
 AHcant, dated nth July, stating that on the 4th of that 
 month a treaty of peace was concluded between the United 
 States and the Dey and Regency of Algiers. Other accounts 
 have been received confirmative of this and of the conditions 
 of the treaty specified in Mr. Montgomery's letter. Their 
 general impression upon the Americans here has not been 
 equal to the hopes which the splendid victory of Commodore 
 Decatur upon his entrance into the Mediterranean had ex- 
 cited. The restoration of the Algerine ships of war and pris- 
 oners is thought to be far more than a compensation for the 
 American vessels and prisoners to be restored in return; and 
 although the entire liberation from all future tribute is 
 acknowledged to be highly honorable to the United States, 
 it is apprehended that it will render the continuance of the 
 peace more precarious even than it has been, when the Dey 
 had at least a motive for abiding by his engagements. Hav- 
 ing no official information of this event I am not prepared 
 to encounter the objections suggested against the measure; 
 but I can not forbear to express the hope that if the peace 
 should be ratified, it will be followed by some more effectual 
 security for the protection of the American commerce in 
 
340 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 the Mediterranean than the faith of a Dey of Algiers to 
 observe a treaty without a tribute. 
 I am etc. 
 
 TO FRANCIS FREELING ' 
 
 Little Ealing, 15 August, iSiS. 
 
 Sir: 
 
 I have the honor to inclose herewith a paper this day re- 
 ceived by me bearing your printed signature and covering 
 two letters from me which had been broken open, 
 
 I request you to return it to me, with information whether 
 it was by you, or by your authority, directed to me with the 
 addition of American Consul. 
 
 I am etc. 
 
 TO G. H. FREELING ^ 
 
 Little Ealing, 17 August, 181 5. 
 Sir: 
 
 1 have had the honor of receiving your letter of yesterday, 
 returning the paper which had been improperly directed to 
 me by the clerk in the "Returned Letter Office." I am 
 willing to accept the apology which you are pleased to offer 
 for him, of having been ignorant of my public station, and 
 from the three et ceteras, both in the direction and super- 
 scription of your letter to me, I also infer that you are also 
 uninformed of it. I am, therefore, under the necessity of 
 acquainting you that the character in which I have had the 
 honor of being received by His Royal Highness The Prince 
 Regent and announced in the Gazette ^ is that of "Envoy 
 
 ^ Secretary to the General Post Office. 
 
 2 Assistant Secretary to the General Post Office. 
 
i8is] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 341 
 
 Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary from the 
 United States of America." With a view to secure to my 
 correspondence, which might pass at the British post offices, 
 the protection and rights to which it is entitled by the usages 
 of civilised nations, I gave notice of my public character 
 personally at the general post office, and in a letter to Francis 
 Freeling, Esqr., the Secretary, dated on the 31st ultimo, 
 designated myself as Minister from the United States. But 
 having perceived, not only by the manner in which my let- 
 ters, broken open at the Post Office, were returned to me, 
 but on another occasion upon which I have spoken to 
 Lord Liverpool, that it was necessary to renew this notice 
 of my official station, I now do it, adding only the remark 
 that the ignorance of the clerk in the Returned Letter Office 
 was the more extraordinary, as it happened that in one of 
 the two letters of mine which he returned to me broken open, 
 my public character was stated at full length. 
 I am etc. 
 
 TO R. G. BEASLEY 
 
 Ealing, 20th August, 181 5. 
 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 Thomas Nelson, a black American seaman in distress, 
 to whom at my request you gave a protection, after repeated 
 and unavailing attempts to obtain a passage from London 
 to the United States, made an efi"ort to go to Liverpool in 
 the hopes of being there more successful. I inclose you a 
 letter from him, by which you will see he is in jail at St. 
 Albans on the suspicion that his papers are forged and that 
 they have been taken from him. If you can relieve him 
 from this situation, I pray you to do it. I have the fullest 
 conviction that this man is no impostor, and that he was 
 
342 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 improperly left by his captain at Havre. He Is one of many 
 Americans by whom my doors are Incessantly besieged, who 
 can neither obtain passages home nor the means of subsist- 
 ence by employment here. I have no doubt that the paying 
 off and reduction of the fleet in this country will bring mul- 
 titudes more of these unfortunate people upon us. I do not 
 mean of impostors (whom I have seldom found it difficult 
 upon examination to detect), but of real Americans more 
 sinned against than sinning. I can neither turn them from 
 my doors, nor afford them the relief which they so eminently 
 need. Numbers of them were prisoners of war and have been 
 sent here from the East and West Indies, Quebec, Halifax, 
 etc.; some impressed Into the British service, though pris- 
 oners, and now discharged as Invalids, as unserviceable, and 
 even as Americans; some of them have Invalid pensions of 
 six or seven pounds, which for want of more formal papers 
 they are unable to sell as they would wish even for two years 
 purchase, for the sake of getting home again to their country. 
 Are there American vessels enough at the port of London 
 by which they can legally be sent home.'' And If not Is there 
 no other means of relieving them.^ To return to poor Nelson, 
 I suppose a certificate to the Mayor of St. Albans that he has 
 a protection from you will obtain his release from prison. 
 As to asking relief for him, I believe it would be better to 
 send it. 
 I am etc.^ 
 
 ^ "The maritime war, which has rather been threatened than actually renewed, 
 presented a few other cases of impressment by British officers of American seamen, 
 besides that of which you so justly complain. At present the inconvenience ex- 
 perienced by this government is of having more sailors upon their hands than they 
 wish to employ, and many Americans obtain their discharge, who had been for 
 years before asking for it in vain. Numbers of them are without protections, or 
 any positive evidence upon which they could demand them, and in such cases I 
 have found it necessary to relax from the rigor of the rule which you have observed. 
 

 i8isl JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 343 
 
 TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE 
 
 No. 10. [James Monroe] 
 
 London, 22 August, 1815. 
 Sir: 
 
 The subjects upon which I was induced to request an inter- 
 view with the Earl of Liverpool were not confined to those 
 upon which I had been favored with your instructions. I 
 was desirous of ascertaining the intentions of the British gov- 
 ernment with regard to the period of time when the mutual 
 abolition of the discriminating duties would take place. I 
 had been informed by American merchants here that the 
 extra duty of two pence sterling per pound upon cotton im- 
 ported in American vessels, mentioned in the joint dispatch 
 to you of 3 July last, had been and continued to be levied, 
 although the act of Parliament by which it was raised as an 
 extra duty had begun to operate only from two days after the 
 signature of the convention. I took with me and left with 
 Lord Liverpool copies of the act of Congress of 3 March last, 
 concerning the repeal of the discriminating duties, and of the 
 fifth article of the commercial convention. It was my opin- 
 ion, and I told him I had so given it to the merchants who had 
 asked me when the convention would take effect, that when 
 ratified by both parties and the ratifications exchanged, its 
 
 I have had applications both from real Americans and from impostors under these 
 circumstances, and I have found no difficulty in discerning the genuine from the 
 spurious. Whenever I am satisfied by personal examination and inquiry that they 
 are my countrymen, I ask of Mr. Beasley without hesitation a protection for them. 
 The evils to which a true American sailor is exposed for the want of a mere official 
 document are too numerous to leave him destitute of the document when there is 
 bona fide no reasonable doubt of his being entitled to it." To Samuel Hazard, 
 10 August, 1815. Ms. 
 
'i\ 
 
 ±A THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 j^^ 
 
 operation would be from the date of the signature, and that 
 the government would be bound to refund any extra duties 
 collected in the interval. He said that was unusual, which 
 I admitted, observing that it was the unequivocal import of 
 the words in which the article was drawn up. They deviated 
 from the usual form of such articles, and the deviation was 
 made at the proposal of the British plenipotentiaries, our 
 projet having proposed that the convention should take ef- 
 fect as usual from the exchange of the ratifications. They 
 had chosen to say that though binding only when the ratifica- 
 tions should be exchanged, yet it should then be binding for 
 four years from the date of the signature. We had agreed to 
 this alteration, and when the convention should be once rati- 
 fied in the United States, any individual affected by it would 
 be entitled to the benefit of a construction of its purport 
 by the judicial authorities. He said it was the same here, and 
 asked me if I had spoken on the subject to Mr. Robinson, the 
 Vice President of the Board of Trade. I answered that I had, 
 some weeks since, but Mr. Robinson had not then formed 
 a decisive opinion upon the purport of the article. I added 
 that when the convention was signed, we had understood 
 from the British plenipotentiaries, and particularly from Mr. 
 Robinson, that this extra duty upon cotton imported in our 
 vessels would not be permitted to commence; that it would 
 have been immediately removed by an Order in Council, 
 which until the exchange of ratifications would stand instead 
 of the convention. At all events, however, it was material 
 to know what the construction of the article by this govern- 
 ment would be as the operation in either case must be recip- 
 rocal. If it was understood here that the revocation of the 
 discriminating duties would commence only from the ex- 
 change of the ratifications, the same principle must be ob- 
 served in the United States, with which he fully agreed. He 
 
i8isl JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 345 
 
 said they had taken an act of Parliament to enable the king 
 in Council to regulate the trade with America, as had been 
 done for some years after the peace of 1783. An Order of 
 Council was to have been made out in consequence of the 
 treaty. It had been for some time accidentally delayed, 
 but might perhaps be ready to be signed at the Council to 
 be held the next day. It was the disposition here to put all 
 the amicable and conciliatory arrangements Into operation 
 as soon as possible, and the discriminating duties might be 
 Immediately removed, in the confidence that the same meas- 
 ures would be adopted on the part of the United States. 
 I told him that Great Britain had already a pledge of that 
 reciprocity by the act of Congress of the last session, so that 
 the revocation might be accomplished at the pleasure of this 
 government, even independent of the stipulation in the 
 treaty. 
 
 Before we passed to another subject Lord Liverpool said 
 that he thought It proper to mention to me that a note would 
 be sent to Mr. Baker previous to the ratification of the con- 
 vention respecting the island of St. Helena. That by a 
 general agreement among the allies Bonaparte was to be 
 transferred to be kept under custody in that Island, and by 
 a general regulation the ships of all nations, excepting those 
 of their own East India Company, would be excluded from 
 it. The circumstance which had led to the necessity of this 
 measure had not been In contemplation when the conven- 
 tion was signed, and the measure itself would not be ex- 
 tended beyond the necessity by which it was occasioned. 
 That It was authorized by the precedent of the convention 
 which had been signed by Mr. King and himself in 1803, 
 and which the American government had proposed to modify 
 on the consideration that a subsequent treaty, containing 
 the cession of Louisiana to the United States, had altered 
 
346 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 the situation of the parties, although unknown both to 
 Mr. King and to him when they signed the convention. 
 And that as the Cape of Good Hope would still be left for 
 American vessels to touch at, he presumed the island of 
 St. Helena would not be necessary to them for that purpose. 
 I said I did not know that the stipulation with regard to the 
 island of St. Helena was in itself of very material importance, 
 but the American government might consider the principle 
 as Important. The stipulation was in express and positive 
 terms and the island of St. Helena was identically named. 
 The case referred to by him did not appear to me to apply 
 as a precedent for two reasons. One was that the Louisiana 
 convention had been signed before, and not as he thought 
 after that signed by him and Mr. King, though it was true 
 that neither he nor Mr. King knew that it has been signed. 
 The other was that Great Britian had declined ratifying that 
 convention upon the ground of the modification to it pro- 
 posed by the American government in consequence of the 
 change produced by the Louisiana convention. He said 
 that at all events Mr. Baker would be instructed to present 
 such a note, previous to the ratification by the American 
 government. He had thought best to give me notice of it. 
 
 Referring then to the contents of my letter of the 9th In- 
 stant to Lord Castlereagh which he had seen, I told him that 
 having expected Mr. Bagot was on the eve of his departure, 
 I had been anxious that he might go provided with Instruc- 
 tions which might give satisfaction to the government of the 
 United States with regard to the execution of two very im- 
 portant stipulations in the treaty of Ghent. He said that 
 as to the surrender of Michillimackinac there could be no sort 
 of difficulty. The orders for its evacuation had been long 
 since given. It was merely the want of barracks for their 
 troops that had occasioned a momentary delay, and he had 
 
i8is] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 347 
 
 no doubt the fort had been before this delivered up. There 
 never had been for a moment the intention on the part of 
 the British government to retain any place which they had 
 stipulated to restore. But with respect to the slaves they 
 certainly construed very differently from the American 
 government the stipulation relating to them. They thought 
 that applied only to the slaves in the forts and places, which 
 having been taken during the war were to be restored at 
 the peace. I said that independent of the construction of 
 the sentence which so strongly marked the distinction be- 
 tween the artillery and public property, and slaves and pri- 
 vate property, the process by which the article had been 
 [framed] demonstrated beyond all question that a distinc- 
 tion between them was intended and understood by both 
 parties. The first projet of the treaty had been presented 
 by us. This had been required and even Insisted upon by 
 the British plenipotentiaries. The article was therefore 
 drawn up by us, and our Intention certainly was to secure 
 the restoration both of the public and private property, in- 
 cluding slaves which had been in any manner captured on 
 shore during the war. The projet was returned to us with a 
 Hmitatlon upon the restoration of property, whether public 
 or private, to such as had been In the places when captured, 
 and should remain there at the time of the evacuation. We 
 assented to this so far as artillery and public property, which 
 by the usages of war is liable to be taken and removed, but 
 not with regard to private property and slaves, which we 
 thought should at all events be restored because they ought 
 never to be taken. We therefore proposed the transposition 
 of the words as stated In my letter to Lord Castlereagh. 
 The construction upon which the British commanders have 
 carried away the slaves would annul the whole effect of the 
 transposition of the words. Artillery and public property 
 
348 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 had of course been found, and could therefore be restored 
 almost or quite exclusively in the forts or places occupied by 
 troops. But there was not perhaps a slave to carry away 
 in all those which were occupied by the British when the 
 treaty was concluded, and to confine the stipulation relating 
 to slaves within the same limits as those agreed to with re- 
 gard to public property would reduce them to a dead letter. 
 He said that perhaps the British plenipotentiaries had agreed 
 to the transposition of the words there at Ghent without 
 referring to the government here, and that although the 
 intentions of the parties might be developed by reference 
 to the course of the negotiations, yet the ultimate construc- 
 tion must be upon the words of the treaty as they stood. 
 He would see Mr. Goulburn and inquire of him how they 
 understood this transposition; but certainly for himself, 
 and he could speak for the whole government here, he had 
 considered them as only promising not to carry slaves from 
 the places which were occupied by their forces and which 
 they were to evacuate. There were perhaps few or no slaves 
 in the places then occupied by them, but there was a proba- 
 bility at the time when the treaty was signed that New 
 Orleans and other parts of the Southern States might be in 
 their possession at the time of the exchange of the ratifica- 
 tions. If they had understood the words to imply that per- 
 sons who from whatever motive had taken refuge under the 
 protection of the British forces should be delivered up to 
 those who, to say the least, must feel unkindly towards them 
 and might treat them harshly, they should have objected 
 to it. Something also, he could not say what, would have 
 been proposed. I said I had referred to the progress of the 
 negotiation and the protocol of conferences only as confirm- 
 ing what I thought the evident purport of the words of the 
 treaty. To speak in perfect candor I would not undertake 
 
 I 
 
i8i5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 349 
 
 to say that the British plenipotentiaries had taken a view 
 of the subject different from that of their government. 
 But certainly we had drawn up the article without any antic- 
 ipation that New Orleans, or southern ports not then in their 
 possession, would at the ratification of the treaty be occupied 
 by them. Our intentions were to provide that no slaves 
 should be carried away. We had no thought of disguising 
 or concealing those intentions. Had the British plenipoten- 
 tiaries asked of us an explanation of our proposal to trans- 
 pose the words, we should instantly have given it. We evi- 
 dently had an object in making the proposal, and we thought 
 the words themselves fully disclosed it. Our object was the 
 restoration of all property, including slaves, which by the 
 usages of war among civilized nations ought not to have been 
 taken. All private property on shore was of that descrip- 
 tion. It was entitled by the laws of war to exemption from 
 capture. Slaves were private property. Lord Liverpool 
 said that he thought they could not be considered precisely 
 under the general denomination of private property. A 
 table or chair for instance might be taken and restored with- 
 out changing its condition; but a living and a human being 
 was entitled to other considerations. I replied that the 
 treaty had marked no such distinction. The words implicitly 
 recognized slaves as private property — in the article alluded 
 to, "slaves or other private property." Not that I meant to 
 deny the principle assumed by him. Most certainly a living 
 sentient being, and still more a human being, was to be re- 
 garded in a different light from the inanimate matter of 
 which other private property might consist, and if on the 
 ground of that difference the British plenipotentiaries had 
 objected to restore the one while consenting to restore the 
 other, we should readily have discussed the subject. We 
 might have accepted or objected to the proposal they would 
 
3SO 
 
 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 have made. But what could that proposal have been? 
 Upon what ground could Great Britain have refused to 
 restore them? Was it because they had been seduced away 
 from their masters by the promises of British officers? But 
 had they taken New Orleans, or any other Southern city, 
 would not all the slaves in it have had as much claim to the 
 benefit of such promises, as the fugitives from their masters 
 elsewhere? How then could the place, if it had been taken, 
 have been evacuated according to the treaty, without carry- 
 ing away any slaves, if the pledge of such promises was to 
 protect them from being restored to their owners? It was 
 true, proclamations inviting slaves to desert from their 
 masters had been issued by British officers. We considered 
 them as deviations from the usage of war. We believed that 
 the British government itself would, when the hostile pas- 
 sions arising from the state of war should subside, consider 
 them in the same light; that Great Britain would then 
 be willing to restore the property, or to indemnify the suf- 
 ferers by its loss. If she felt bound to make good the promises 
 of her officers to the slaves, she might still be willing to do 
 an act of justice by compensating the owners of the slaves 
 for the property which had been irregularly taken from them. 
 Without entering into a discussion which might have been 
 at once unprofitable and irritating, she might consider this 
 engagement only as a promise to pay to the owners of the 
 slaves the value of those of them which might be carried 
 away. Lord Liverpool manifested no dissatisfaction at these 
 remarks, nor did he attempt to justify the proclamation to 
 which I particularly alluded. I added that there was a 
 branch of the same subject upon which I had not written to 
 Lord Castlereagh, because involving considerations of a 
 very delicate nature. I had thought it might be treated 
 more confidentially by verbal conferences than by written 
 
i8is] JOHN OUINCY ADAMS 351 
 
 communications which would be liable to publication. 
 During the war it had been stated in a letter of instructions 
 from the American Secretary of State to the negotiators 
 of the Ghent treaty, that some of the slaves enticed from 
 their masters by promises of freedom from British officers 
 had afterwards been sold in the West Indies. This letter of 
 instructions had afterwards been published. "Yes," said 
 Lord Liverpool, and I believe some explanation of it has 
 been asked." I said there had; first by the British plenipo- 
 tentiaries at Ghent, and afterwards by Admiral Cochrane 
 of the American Secretary of State. He had answered this 
 last application by a letter to Mr. Baker, which His Lordship 
 had doubtless seen. But I had been authorized to say that 
 in making this charge in the midst of the war, the American 
 government had not expected, and was not desirous, that 
 it should lead to discussions to be protracted to a time and 
 in a state of peace. They believed that evidence to substan- 
 tiate in some degree the charge was obtainable, but would 
 prefer if the British government wished to obtain it, they 
 should seek it from other sources, many of which were more 
 accessible to them than to the government of the United 
 States. The sales, if made, had been in British possessions 
 and from British ships. These were of course entirely open 
 to the investigation of inquiries under British authority. 
 The proclamations had promised employment in the military 
 service of Great Britain (which could apply only to men), 
 or free settlement in the West Indies. But in fact numbers 
 of women and children had been received and carried away 
 as well as of men. The numbers of them, and in a very great 
 degree the identical individuals that had been taken, might 
 easily be ascertained in the United States, and I expected 
 to be enabled to furnish accurate lists of them. If not sold, 
 some provision must have been made for them at the charge 
 
352 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 of the British government itself. It could not be at a loss 
 to know those whom it had to maintain. And as the whole 
 subject had a tendency rather to irritation than to the con- 
 ciliatory spirit which it was the wish of the American govern- 
 ment to cultivate exclusively, they would prefer superseding 
 the search and exhibition of evidence through them, and 
 dropping any further communications as between the govern- 
 ments relating to it. I concluded, however, by observing 
 that with this explanation I was directed to say that if the 
 British government still desired evidence from that of the 
 United States, they would furnish such as they could collect. 
 He said that was certainly all that could be asked. The 
 British officers had universally and very strenuously denied 
 the charge, which, if true, deserved severe animadversion 
 and punishment. The British government had believed, 
 and still believed, the charge to have been without founda- 
 tion, and in the deficiency of evidence could come to no 
 other conclusion. . . . 
 
 There is little prospect, as it would seem, of our obtaining 
 any satisfaction with regard to the carrying away of the 
 slaves. Lord Liverpool did not indeed attempt to support 
 the construction upon which the naval commanders had 
 acted in removing those that were on board their ships, but 
 he Insisted that they had never intended to stipulate for 
 the restoration of those who had sought refuge under their 
 protection. I therefore thought it indispensable to recur to 
 the unjustifiable nature of the invitations by which the 
 slaves had been Induced to seek that refuge, and to infer 
 from It the obligation of Great Britain to restore them or to 
 indemnify their owners; to show that she was bound to 
 know the extent of the stipulation to which she had agreed, 
 and that she could not have proposed an exception founded 
 upon any promises of her officers to the slaves, when those 
 
 I 
 
isisl JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 353 
 
 very promises were violations of the laws of war. I also took 
 the opportunity to propose that with regard to the sale of 
 some of those people by British officers in the West Indies, 
 no further discussion might be had as between the govern- 
 ments. This proposal will, I am convinced, be accepted, if 
 the evidence mentioned in your dispatch as to be hereafter 
 transmitted should be conclusive to ascertain the fact. But 
 the charge has been repeatedly made a subject of Parlia- 
 mentary inquiry. It has touched a sinew in which the nation 
 is peculiarly sensitive at this time. You will observe that 
 Lord Liverpool strongly expressed the disbelief of the fact 
 of this government, and that disbelief will continue until the 
 existence of evidence possessed by us to prove it shall be 
 known. I think it will not then be called for. 
 I am etc. 
 
 TO BENJAMIN WATERHOUSE 
 
 Boston House, Ealing, 8 Miles from 
 
 Hyde Park corner, 
 27 August, 181 5. 
 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 In the month of February last, about six weeks after the 
 signature of the treaty of peace at Ghent, I received at Paris 
 a letter from you, dated 13 October, 18 14, inclosing a slip 
 from the Boston Patriot of 12 October, and by its purport 
 stated to have been forwarded by the Dutch sloop of war 
 which had taken out to America the minister of that country. 
 And very lately I have again enjoyed the pleasure of receiv- 
 ing from you a letter, dated 2 June last, transmitted to me 
 from The Hague by Dr. Eustis. The parcel of newspapers 
 to which in the last of these favors you refer as having been 
 
354 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 sent by the former never came to my hands; whether inter- 
 cepted by the charitable caution of withholding from me 
 those evil communications which might corrupt my good 
 manners, as you surmise, or whether accidentally lost upon 
 their passage, may now be mere harmless matter of conjec- 
 ture. How it happened, too, that a letter sent by the cor- 
 vette which arrived in Holland in November should have 
 failed entirely at that time to reach me at Ghent, and have 
 been from that time until February in travelling from the 
 Texel to Paris, I never knew, and probably never shall know. 
 Certain it is, that when the corvette arrived direct from 
 Boston after a short passage, I was greatly disappointed 
 after waiting a week or ten days to remain without a line by 
 her from any one of my friends or correspondents. Equally 
 certain is it that your letter, had it then been delivered to 
 me, would have been a cordial to my own spirits and to 
 those of all my then colleagues. When I did receive it, I 
 need not say that it was what your letters can never fail to 
 be to me, highly acceptable; but the peace was made, the J 
 just and encouraging view of the state of our affairs in rela- 
 tion to the war was still pleasing, but could no longer serve J 
 the valuable purpose of stimulating us to the same firm and Ij 
 honorable adherence to the rights of our country in the;] 
 cabinet with which they had been maintained in the field i| 
 and upon the deep. Among the vices of the party which stilll 
 passes among us under the denomination, now insignificant, 
 of federalists, I have always considered the littleness of their i| 
 means and the shortness of their foresight as forming thei 
 most striking contrast to their pretensions of superior and! 
 exclusive talents. To suppose that the men who werei 
 charged with the duty of negotiating peace with Great! 
 Britain would take the Centinel or Evening Post for counsel-l 
 lors in the discharge of their trust, or that they would sub-l 
 
i8isl JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 355 
 
 scribe to terms disgraceful to their country, if newspapers of 
 a different political complexion should be prevented from 
 reaching them, was to assume a disproportion too great be- 
 tween the object and the scale by which it was measured. 
 And when, after the first sine qua non of the British plenipo- 
 tentiaries was rejected at Ghent, the wiseacres of the Boston 
 school loaded the columns of their precious newspapers with 
 reproach upon the American negotiators for rejecting those 
 fair and generous terms, and with prophecies that we should 
 be finally compelled to subscribe to them, I do not ask where 
 the sense of honor and the feeling of patriotism was seated 
 In the hearts of those who could work up an argument that 
 such terms could have been submitted to without heavy 
 sacrifices of national interest and national honor; but I ask 
 where were their glasses, when they could not look far enough 
 before them to see the turn, when the cause of their party 
 might require them to criminate the government for agree- 
 ing to a peace without any of those degrading conditions. 
 
 What a falling off, from an urgent exhortation to an in- 
 famous peace to a bitter invective upon an honorable one. 
 Such changes are not Indeed too great for your Westphalian 
 [ ] of party; but they only lead them into the mire. 
 
 Governor Strong, I perceive in one of his late speeches, 
 with his usual force of logic has concluded that because we 
 did not succeed in the last year in compelling Great Britain 
 to renounce the practice of impressment from our merchant 
 vessels on the high seas, therefore we shall have no pretence 
 for ever attempting to compel her to renounce it hereafter. 
 Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. 
 
 The British government have now more sailors upon their 
 hands than they know how to employ. They talk of sending 
 all the foreigners home to their own countries. And bodies 
 of British seamen starving in the port of London have been 
 
3s6 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 in procession to the Admiralty and to the Lord Mayor, to 
 demand that the foreigners should be excluded from the 
 privilege of shipping on board of English vessels. There Is 
 no danger of impressments for the present, and before the 
 appearance of a new naval war In Europe I hope the British 
 government will become sensible of the expediency of aban- 
 doning, if not of renouncing the practice of impressment from 
 our vessels altogether. That It must sooner or later be 
 abandoned I am fully convinced. I hope that Governor 
 Strong will live to see the time, and as I am not his enemy, 
 I wish him and all his Bulwarkltes ^ no worse fortune than 
 the enjoyment of their reflections, when they shall see the 
 object obtained and look back upon their part during the 
 struggles for obtaining it. 
 
 They, whom you describe as looking across the Atlantic 
 to know what they must think of the recent events In Europe, 
 have ere this received their instructions and made up their 
 mind accordingly. As Bonaparte Is disposed of at St. Helena, 
 they must now think that the dismemberment and ruin of 
 France are indispensable for the security of the world against 
 universal monarchy. They must think that the divine right 
 of the Bourbons requires In confirmation of its legitimacy 
 the permanent presence and establishment of half a million 
 of Russian, Austrian, Prussian, Bavarian, British and Span- 
 ish bayonets. And they must think that to consummate 
 the holy triumph of lawful monarchy, religion, and social 
 order, rivers of Jacobin blood must be poured forth from the 
 scaffold. All this is the orthodox doctrine consecrated by 
 the victory of La Belle Alliance. I do not think there is an 
 immediate prospect of tranquillity In Europe. What the 
 allies will do with France Is yet very uncertain. Their 
 
 ^ The extreme federalist papers had referred to Great Britain as the " bulwark 
 of our holy religion." 
 
i8is] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 357 
 
 alternatives are all of a nature which will require the rod of 
 iron (the sharp pointed rod) to carry them into effect — 
 twenty-five millions of people to be governed by the armed 
 rabble of all Europe. I must for once imitate in part the 
 faction. I must wait to know what to think of it. 
 I am etc. 
 
 TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE 
 No. II. [James Monroe] 
 
 London, 29th August, 181 5. 
 
 Sir: 
 
 The inclosed papers marked Nos. i and 2 are copies of an 
 official circular note which I received from Lord Bathurst 
 the day before yesterday, and of my answer to it which was 
 sent to him yesterday. 
 
 The Order in Council concerning the discriminating duties 
 was signed on the 17th, the day after my interview with 
 Lord Liverpool, though published only in the Gazette of the 
 26th. It is conformable to the arrangements settled by the 
 Convention, and to be in force only from the 17th instant 
 until six weeks after the meeting of Parliament. It leaves 
 the question upon the extra duties levied between the 3rd 
 July and the 17th August as it was. 
 
 The papers marked 3, 4, and 5 are copies of a correspond- 
 ence relative to the impressment at Antwerp of an American 
 seaman by the captain of a British armed brig. I received 
 early in July a letter from Mr. Hazard with information of 
 the fact, and requested Mr. Beasley to apply immediately 
 to the Admiralty here for the release of the man. I transmit 
 these papers chiefly for the sake of Captain Nixon's letter. 
 
358 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 I have hesitated some time whether I ought not to make an 
 immediate demand that he should be punished for the con- 
 duct stated in his own report. Had the continuance of the 
 war left a prospect that any more impressments would take 
 place, I certainly should not have felt myself justified in 
 overlooking this transaction. But our points of collision 
 with this country are so continually presenting themselves, 
 and my instructions so strongly urge upon me the observance 
 of a conciliatory course, that I seek rather to escape from 
 occasions for remonstrance than to find them. For the 
 present not only is all impressment at an end, but the in- 
 convenience experienced is of having multitudes of sailors 
 for whom there is no employment. Instances now occur of 
 Americans discharged as such who had been year after year 
 endeavoring in vain to obtain it before. Whole bodies of 
 British seamen have been in processions to the Admiralty 
 and to the Lord Mayor, to complain that they are starving 
 for want of employment, and to demand that foreigners 
 may be excluded from the British sea and merchant service. 
 The whole fleet is paying off, and it Is said that the number 
 of seamen to be retained in active service in the navy Is to 
 be reduced to twelve thousand. One Infallible consequence 
 of this will be to crowd Into our merchant service multitudes 
 of these British seamen, and if the laws of Congress passed 
 during the late war for excluding foreign seamen from our 
 vessels after the peace are to be executed, I am persuaded It 
 will require extraordinary vigilance and further enforcing 
 laws to carry It into effect. 
 
 The great numbers of sailors so suddenly dismissed from 
 the public service here have already brought many of ours 
 to Mr. Beasley, and even to me with applications for relief. 
 Among them are prisoners of war sent here from the East 
 and West Indies, who continue to arrive with the fleets and 
 
i8is] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 359 
 
 in many single vessels — foreigners who had been taken serv- 
 ing in our armies sent here from Canada and Nova Scotia, 
 and liberated here or sent back to Germany and Switzer- 
 land, their native countries. They find their way back here 
 with the purpose of returning to the United States, and 
 often without the means of paying for their passage; men 
 discharged from impressment as unserviceable, with or with- 
 out pensions, who come not only for passages but for pro- 
 tections. A great portion of my time Is occupied in listen- 
 ing to the applications of these men, whom I cannot turn 
 from my doors, because their cases are almost all of peculiar 
 hardship, and whom I can not always refer to the agent for 
 seamen, because they do not come precisely within the de- 
 scriptions for which the laws have provided. 
 
 Since beginning this letter I have had the honor of re- 
 I ceiving yours of the 2 1st ultimo, with a new copy of the 
 instructions of 13th March and several other inclosures re- 
 lating to objects of high importance, to which I shall pay 
 immediate and due attention. By my two last letters you 
 will perceive that I have recently made application In writ- 
 ing to Lord Castlereagh, and in a personal Interview to 
 Lord Liverpool, respecting the delay to restore the post of 
 MIchllllmacklnac, and the removal of slaves that had been 
 taken, notwithstanding the stipulation in the first article 
 of the treaty of Ghent, that none should be carried away. 
 With regard to the fort, nothing could be stronger and more 
 explicit than the assurances of Lord Liverpool, that the 
 orders for the restoration had long since been given and 
 there was no Intention on the part of this government to 
 retain any portion of the territory stipulated to be restored. 
 I must add, that in the whole of that conference Lord Liver- 
 pool's manner and deportment were not only temperate and 
 calm, but even amicable and conciliatory. But you will 
 
36o THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 observe in the newspapers which I have inclosed that the 
 cabinet have determined, not only to maintain, but to in- 
 crease, the British naval armament upon the lakes of Canada. 
 I do not apprehend that an immediate rupture with the 
 United States is intended. France as yet gives ample occupa- 
 tion both to the military and diplomatic departments. You 
 must be prepared for the time when the fate of France will 
 be settled. 
 I am etc. 
 
 TO JOHN ADAMS 
 
 Boston House, Ealing, 31 August, 1815. 
 My Dear Sir: 
 
 • ■••••• 
 
 Many of these communications and of the papers inclosed 
 with them relate to the subject of the fisheries, upon which 
 I have had as yet no discussion with the government of this 
 country, though it may probably be one of those upon which 
 it will be difficult for the two countries to come to an under- 
 standing. You are acquainted with what has taken place 
 upon our coast. Some evidence of the light in which it is 
 viewed by the British government was disclosed by several 
 incidents towards the close of the last session of Parliament. 
 I am now called upon to present our view of it for the con- 
 sideration of this cabinet. The result may probably be 
 known in the United States soon after the commencement 
 of the next session of Congress. I shall only say to you that 
 if the fisheries are to be maintained. New England which has 
 the deepest interest in them will be called upon not only to 
 feel, but to manifest the determination to do her share in 
 maintaining them. If she is as ready to resign them to the 
 bulwark of our holy religion as she was to resign her own 
 
i8is] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 361 
 
 children to the worse than Helot-servitude of the press- 
 gang, you may rely upon it they are gone. The Union will 
 not (it is at least my belief that they will not) again be kicked 
 into a war for New England interests, with New England 
 hanging as a dead weight upon all their exertions, or un- 
 blushingly siding with the enemy in the contest. You have 
 impressed upon me, with the energy peculiar to yourself, 
 and with the wisdom in my situation so essential to me, the 
 duty of supporting our rights on this important question. 
 "It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps." May 
 mine be guided in the right path! but let me say to you, I 
 am only the watchman at the gate. Will you or will you 
 not resign the fisheries.'' And I ask this question not of 
 you, my father, for you have answered me already; but of 
 you. New England.? And I tell you without reserve, that 
 whether you will or not, this question will be brought home 
 to you. It is not by folding up your arms and lamenting 
 that there was no article about it in the treaty of Ghent, that 
 you will escape from that question. If you mean to main- 
 tain the right, no article in the peace of Ghent was or will 
 be necessary to preserve it. If you mean to give it up, no 
 article there would have preserved it. If I am not mistaken, 
 in the first war for our independence there were resolutions 
 passed by the legislature of Massachusetts, insisting that 
 peace should not be made by any sacrifice of the right to the 
 fisheries. If the same spirit had animated the legislature of 
 Massachusetts in the second war for our independence, that 
 is, the late war, no question about the fisheries would ever 
 have arisen. But when the bulwark found New England 
 binding her children hand and foot and yielding them up 
 to the press-gang, surrendering her territory without resist- 
 ance or effort to recover it, and plotting Hartford Conven- 
 tions to break off from the Union, she naturally concluded 
 
362 THE WRITINGS OF [iSij 
 
 that a mere fishery could not be hard to snatch from those 
 who valued neither the personal security of their people, 
 nor their territorial sovereignty, nor their national union; 
 but in the midst of a formidable and desolating war were 
 conspiring against them all. And now let me add, If the 
 legislature of Massachusetts will once more be animated by 
 the spirit to which I have referred; If they will pass resolu- 
 tions that the fisheries must not be sacrificed, and shall be 
 maintained; and If they and their constituents will act up 
 to the spirit of such resolutions, be the consequences what 
 they may; then, sir, I will not pledge myself that we shall 
 escape a third war for our Independence. But I do pledge 
 myself, and would stake my own life and the lives of my 
 children upon It, that at the close of that war no part of our 
 fishing right will be contested. So let New England, and 
 especially Massachusetts, look to It; the maintenance or the : 
 loss of this privilege depends entirely upon herself. 
 
 I have received from you, or from my mother, or from . 
 some other friend, for I cannot always tell from whom they , 
 come, two or three political, and two or three religious party 
 pamphlets. I perceive that the Trinitarians and Unitarians 
 in Boston are sparring together. The bias of my mind is 
 towards the doctrine of the Trinitarians and Calvinists; 
 but I do not approve their intolerance. Most of the Boston 
 Unitarians are my particular friends; but I never thought 
 much of the eloquence or of the theology of Priestley. His 
 Socrates and Jesus compared ^ is a wretched performance. 
 Socrates and Jesus! a farthing candle and the Sun! I pray 
 you to read Masillon's sermon upon the divinity of Christ, ,| 
 and then the whole New Testament; after which be a Socin- 
 ian If you can. 
 
 Religion occasionally mingles with the affairs of Europe. 
 
 1 Printed in Philadelphia, 1803. 
 
i8is] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 363 
 
 You know that the Pope has restored the order of the Jesuits, 
 and that Ferdinand the Beloved has restored the Inquisi- 
 tion. But you do not know, perhaps, that since the second 
 restoration of Louis the Desired, his nephew, the Duke 
 d'Angouleme, has declared that it will never be well with 
 France until they are all of the same religion. In conse- 
 quence of which many hundreds of Protestants have been 
 butchered in the south of France by the sword and dagger; 
 others have been burned to ashes with their habitations; 
 others driven to seek refuge in the mountains of the Ce- 
 vennes. A new St. Bartholomew has been loudly and openly 
 called for; the number of victims in the city of Nismes alone 
 exceeds six hundred. The magnanimous allies, including 
 the bulwark of our holy religion, witness all this with com- 
 posure and even with complacency. All the Protestants of 
 France are set down for Jacobins. 
 
 There was a foolish book printed in Philadelphia four or 
 five years ago, called Inchiquin's Letters.'^ Last summer 
 some loyal pensioner of the Quarterly Review took it up, and 
 made it the canvas for a scurrilous and false invective 
 upon America and the whole American people. It suited 
 the prejudices and passions of this people, who delight to 
 see those vilified whom they cordially hate. I have seen 
 two large American pamphlets in reply to the quarterly re- 
 viewer, one from New York by Mr. Paulding,^ another from 
 New England by some long winded junto-parson.^ Both of 
 them, I know not why, assume it for granted that the quar- 
 terly reviewer was the Poet Laureate Southey, and they 
 mingle with their defence of their own country a large por- 
 tion of personal invective upon him. Southey, who began 
 
 1 Printed at New York, 1810. The author was Charles Jared Ingersoll. 
 * James Kirke Paulding. The pamphlet appeared in 1815. 
 » Timothy Dwight, Remarks on a Review, etc., 1815. 
 
364 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 I 
 
 
 the world with songs of glory to Joan of Arc, Brissot, Roland 
 and Clavlere, is ending with royal cantos of contemned love 
 for the magnanimous allies and twofold conquerors of France. 
 But he was not the writer of the obnoxious review of Inchi- J 
 quin, and has published his denial in the Courier. And hav- 
 ing with his hundred marks, or pounds, and his butt of sack 
 by the year, become of course a very courtly gentleman, his ^ 
 delicacy is quite shocked at the rudeness of Mr. Paulding's 
 pushes. The Yankee parson pleads only for British mercy 
 upon the pure federal-republicans of New England. All the 
 rest of the country he freely gives up to reprobation; and I 
 even for them he rests their claim of exemption from the 
 ribaldry of the reviewer only upon their admiration of 
 British transcendent virtue. That pamphlet and the Review { 
 are about upon a level with each other; but I have regretted I 
 that Mr. Paulding should have wasted his time and talent 
 upon such a despicable adversary as the lampooner of the ; 
 Quarterly Review.^ 
 
 I have said few words about the present condition of J 
 France. I have no doubt she is destined to go through the 
 process which Poland has suffered. The first partition 1 
 stripped her of all her conquests and acquisitions since 1792. 
 The second, now consummating, will tear from her those of 
 Louis 14 and Louis 15, with the whole of her barrier. The 
 Bourbons will be set up Hke Zedekiah of Judah by Nebu- 
 chadnezzar, or the Poniatowskis of Catherine. In some 
 unlucky moment the puppets will forget their strings and 
 attempt to go alone. Then will come the third and final j 
 partition and France, like Poland, will vanish from the map 
 of Europe. What can avert this catastrophe.? Nothing less 
 than the revival of a national energy now palsied, perhaps ex- 
 tinct. I must leave them to the mercy of Heaven. I am etc. 
 
 ^ Sir James Barrow was the author of the review. 
 
 « 
 
iSisl JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 3^5 
 
 TO WILLIAM EUSTIS 
 
 Boston House, Ealing, 31 August, 1815. 
 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 Your favors of the 25th Instant were left at my office in 
 London by Mr. Langdon, whom I had hoped to have the 
 pleasure of seeing here, where I have taken my summer and 
 perhaps winter residence. It is seven miles out of town, and 
 had the name by which I date before I took it. Mr. Lang- 
 don is so much pressed for time that he cannot at present 
 come out. If he comes back here I hope to be more fortunate. 
 He does me the favor to take this letter. 
 
 The newspapers give us accounts from France almost every 
 day, and some of our countrymen are coming from that 
 country almost every week. As the allied sovereigns came 
 to an agreement together in the distribution at Vienna, I 
 see no reason for doubting that they will agree equally well 
 upon the distributions of the present day. Now probably, 
 as then, the principal difficulty will be to make up the Russian 
 portion. But as to France the case is plain enough, though 
 there has been some mincing in stating it. France is a con- 
 quest and as a conquest will be treated. I am sorely dis- 
 appointed at the gratuitous compliment to the Dey of 
 Algiers. Will it always be our destiny to end with shame 
 what we begin with glory? Never was there such an oppor- 
 tunity for putting down those pirates as we have had. The 
 i work was half done, and instead of completing it, we restore 
 i to the reptile the very sting we had extracted from him. 
 ' And what will the peace be worth when he has got back his 
 ships and men.? A snare to the unwary! ^ 
 
 iQn September 21 he received a letter from Commodore Decatur stating the 
 terms of the treaty: the cessation of tribute, compensation for American property 
 captured during the war, and the liberation of American captives. 
 
366 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 Mr. Changuion has been here and is gone home. I had 
 not the pleasure of seeing him, but he speaks well of our 
 country and of the reception and treatment which he met 
 with there. I see no occasion for us to be more solicitous 
 for a new commercial treaty with the Netherlands than their 
 government. The old treaty, if recognized by both govern- 
 ments, will do no harm; I know not that it will do much 
 good. I am surprised to hear that they have no commerce, 
 though it is evident the policy of their great ally will be to 
 allow them as little of that as possible. The present price 
 at London of all our six per cent stocks, the interest of which 
 is payable in the United States, is 90. The Hague never was, 
 and never will be, a place of commerce; and even at Amster- 
 dam you will find great difficulty in disposing of any Amer- 
 ican securities. The price there always depends upon that 
 of the London market combined with the course of exchange. 
 The exchange between this country and Holland is about 
 five per cent below par, though in exchange of papers for 
 specie before the battle of Waterloo it was 20 per cent below 
 par. 
 
 I have received dispatches from our government of 
 21 July. The horizon between the two hemispheres is yet 
 dark, and what is worse, darkening. The British naval 
 commanders, in defiance of the treaty of Ghent, have 
 carried away from the United States all the slaves they had 
 taken. There was no certainty that Michillimackinac had 
 been restored. The agents and traders were instigating the 
 Indians in the north, and a British officer posted in Florida 
 was doing the same thing with the Creeks. Our fishing 
 vessels had been turned away and warned to twenty leagues 
 of the coast. The British packet had been seized at New 
 York for an attempt to smuggle goods. At the same time 
 the Cabinet here have determined to increase their naval 
 
i8is] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 367 
 
 armaments on the lakes of Canada; and the ministerial 
 gazettes are marked with strong symptoms of hostility. 
 The language held here is temperate and full of conciliatory 
 professions. But when the affairs of France shall be settled 
 to their satisfaction (which I think will be soon), I expect 
 a change of tone. It is said they have met with some new 
 difficulties in India, where there is a call for additional 
 troops from Europe. This, too, I presume will come to 
 nothing. The fleet, however, is reducing to a peace estab- 
 lishment. Mr. Everett was good enough to send me a copy 
 of the new constitution for the Netherlands. Paper con- 
 stitutions are something in the United States, but they are 
 something like the Baltimore schooners, which they say 
 European sailors can not manage to navigate. Mr. Peder- 
 son has just embarked at Liverpool for Philadelphia. He 
 goes out as Minister from His Danish Majesty to the United 
 States. 
 I am etc. 
 
 TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE 
 No. 12. [James Monroe] 
 
 London, 5 September, 18 15. 
 
 Sir: 
 
 In compliance with your instructions of the 21 July I have 
 this day addressed Lord Castlereagh, claiming payment 
 from the British government for the slaves carried away 
 from Cumberland Island and the adjoining waters, after 
 the ratification of the treaty of peace, and in contravention 
 to one of the express stipulations of that treaty. 
 
 My preceding dispatches Nos. 9 and 10 will have informed 
 
368 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 you of the steps I had taken by an official letter to Lord 
 Castlereagh, and by a personal interview with the Earl of 
 Liverpool, in relation to this subject, previous to the receipt 
 of your last instructions. The letter to Lord Castlereagh 
 has hitherto remained unanswered, and Lord Liverpool made 
 no attempt to answer either the reasoning of your letter on 
 the subject to Mr. Baker, or the statement of the proof 
 with regard to the meaning of the article, resulting from the 
 manner In which It had been drawn up and agreed to.^ The 
 substance of what he said was, that in agreeing to the 
 article as It stands they had not been aware that it would 
 bind them to restore the slaves whom their officers had en- 
 ticed away by promises of freedom. The case of those 
 slaves carried away from Cumberland seems not even to 
 admit of the distinction to which Mr. Baker and Lord Liver- 
 pool resorted. Yet the prospect of obtaining either restora- 
 tion or indemnity appears to me not more favorable In this 
 case than in any others of the same class. If there were any 
 probability that this government would admit the principle 
 of making Indemnity, It would become necessary for me to 
 remark that the list of slaves transmitted to me, and of 
 which I have sent to Lord Castlereagh a copy, Is not an 
 authenticated document. It is Itself merely a copy of a 
 paper under the simple signature of two persons, one of them 
 an officer In the service of the United States, and the other 
 apparently a private individual. It can scarcely be ex- 
 pected that the British government, or indeed any other, 
 would grant a large sum of indemnities upon evidence of this 
 description. Neither could I feel myself prepared to bargain 
 for the value of these slaves according to a general conjec- 
 tural estimate of their value. I have made the offer under 
 the full conviction that it will not be accepted. But if in- 
 
 ^ See Adams, Memoirs, August i6, 1815. 
 
i8is] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 369 
 
 demnity should ever be consented to by this government 
 to be made, the claims are of a nature to be settled only by a 
 board of commissioners, authorized to scrutinize in judicial 
 forms the evidence in support of them. I have also thought 
 it would give a further sanction to the claim to advance it, 
 while offering still to this government the alternative of 
 restoring the slaves themselves. With regard to the other 
 subjects noticed in your instructions, I propose in the course 
 of a few days to make a further written communication to 
 Lord Castlereagh or Lord Bathurst. I am induced by vari- 
 ous considerations to delay it for a short time. One of them 
 is a hope that the account of the delivery of the post of 
 Michilllmackinac may be received and remove the necessity 
 of further remonstrances on one of our causes of complaint. 
 Another, that the documents tending to show the improper 
 interference of British agents with the Indians of the Mis- 
 sissippi, and those respecting the extraordinary conduct of 
 Colonel NIcolls which you transmitted to Mr. Baker, have 
 
 I not been sent to me with your dispatch. I have only a copy 
 of your letter to Mr. Baker, without the paper referred to 
 in It as marked A and B. I am, therefore, not possessed of 
 the facts upon which the representation must be made. 
 They undoubtedly have received or will receive them from 
 Mr. Baker, and also the reports from their own officers. 
 With the duplicate of your instructions which I presume will 
 soon come to hand, I flatter myself there will be copies of 
 the documents omitted in the dispatch that I have received. 
 I cannot persuade myself that there has been, or Is, a 
 formal determination to withhold the post of Michilllmacki- 
 nac, or that an immediate renewal of war with the United 
 States is contemplated by the British Cabinet. An opinion, 
 however, that the peace will not be of long duration is very 
 generally prevalent both here and upon the European conti- 
 
370 
 
 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 nent. The nation in general is dissatisfied with the issue of 
 the late war, and at the same time elated to the highest 
 pitch of exultation at the situation which they have attained 
 in this hemisphere. Their great and only dreaded rival is 
 chained and prostrate at their feet. The continent of Europe 
 is spellbound by their policy and so completely bought by 
 their subsidies as, however occasionally restive, to have 
 ultimately no will but theirs. Their intention is to dismem- 
 ber France, as the only effectual means of securing themselves 
 by perpetuating her impotence. They have hitherto ex- 
 perienced a feeble opposition to this project on the part of 
 Austria, and a resistance rather more firm on the part of 
 Russia. It is highly probable that they will ultimately pre- 
 vail and obtain the consent of both. The situation of the 
 allies in France is said to be critical, and their conduct can 
 scarcely be explained on any other ground than the design 
 to goad the people of the country to some disjointed effort 
 of insurrection, for a pretext to carve them out and distribute 
 them like Poland among their neighbors. Such according 
 to all present appearance is destined to be the fate of France. 
 Upon the degree of facility with which it may be accom- 
 plished we may consider the hostile disposition of this cabi- 
 net towards the United States to depend. While they have 
 full occupation in Europe we shall have frequent and un- 
 equivocal manifestations of ill will, but no resort to the 
 extremities of war. The reduction of the navy to the peace 
 establishment is one of the indications that they do not 
 propose an immediate revewal of hostilities with America. 
 They retain thirteen line of battleships — six of fifty guns — 
 forty-three frigates and corvettes to the rate of twenty guns, 
 and thirty-nine smaller sloops of war. 
 
 Among the considerations which ought not to be neglected 
 in estimating the prospects of our future relations with 
 
i8is] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 371 
 
 Great Britain are the dispositions entertained by the other 
 European powers and by the party in opposition to the 
 ministry here. The continental sovereigns, while continually 
 bending to the policy of Great Britain, are yet willing to see 
 her involved in a quarrel with America. You are doubtless 
 aware of the advantage which Russia took of that circum- 
 stance at Vienna the last autumn, and of the effect which it 
 had in producing the peace of Ghent. And Mr. Harris has 
 informed you how unwelcome that peace was to the Russian 
 Cabinet. The temper of France at the same time bore the 
 same character, though not so strongly marked. During 
 the last session of Parliament it was a member of the opposi- 
 tion, Sir John Newport, who discovered the most earnest 
 zeal for the exclusion of the American people from the Amer- 
 ican fisheries. The Importance of that subject has been 
 elucidated by many Incidents which preceded and attended 
 the negotiation at Ghent, as well as by what has since oc- 
 curred in Parliament. I shall prepare a letter founded upon 
 your Instructions of 21 July relating to this interest; but it 
 is Impossible for me to express In terms too strong or explicit 
 my conviction that nothing can maintain the right of the 
 people of the United States in the American fisheries, but 
 the determined and Inflexible resolution of themselves and 
 of their government to maintain them at every hazard.^ 
 I am etc. 
 
 ' A line in cypher followed, for which a key was not found. 
 
372 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 TO JOSEPH HALL 
 
 Boston House, Ealing, near London, 
 
 9 September, 18 15. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 Our old friend Dr. Eustis upon his arrival at the Hague 
 forwarded to me your favor of 8th June last, which I re- 
 ceived with great satisfaction. You have estimated too 
 favorably the services of the American negotiators of the 
 treaty of Ghent: and if the party to which you refer had not 
 ruined its own credit by snapping like gulls at the British 
 sine qua non: could they have seen, to use a vulgar ex- 
 pression, far enough before their noses to perceive that they 
 would soon have to thrust their stings, not against the war 
 but against the peace, they would have been adversaries far 
 more formidable than they have proved themselves. After 
 abusing us for not accepting the sine qua non, they to be sure 
 had left themselves nothing to say when the peace came, 
 and accordingly their arguments against the peace have 
 proved nothing but their own inconsistency. It is some- 
 thing too despicable for ridicule itself to pretend, like Gov- 
 ernor Strong, that because we have failed in one struggle to 
 shake off forever the galling yoke of the press-gang, we are 
 therefore precluded from ever struggling to shake it off ' 
 again. But true, and lamentably true, it is that in the late 
 war our struggle to shake it off did fail. True it is that the 
 peace of Ghent was in its nature and character a truce rather ' 
 than a peace. Neither party gave up anything; all the points 1 
 of collision between them which had subsisted before the : 
 war were left open. New ones opened by the war itself were ! 
 left to close again after the peace. Nothing was adjusted, 
 nothing was settled — nothing in substance but an indefinite 1 
 
i8is] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 373 
 
 suspension of hostilities was agreed to. For my own part, 
 far from claiming any credit for the conclusion of the peace, 
 my own deliberate opinion was, and is, that the American 
 plenipotentiaries needed all candor and all the indulgence 
 of their country for having put their signatures to such a 
 treaty. That the very peculiar circumstances of the times, 
 the commanding attitude which Great Britain had acquired 
 in Europe, the removal of the principal cause of war by the 
 general European pacification, the disordered and almost 
 desperate situation of our finances, and, above all, our in- 
 testine divisions imminently threatening the complication 
 of a civil with the foreign war, with a formal and avowed 
 confederacy of five states to dissolve the union; that all this 
 was in candor to be taken into consideration when the con- 
 duct was to be estimated of the American negotiators in 
 signing the treaty. I believed that with all these things 
 duly weighed, they would stand acquitted in the face of 
 their country and of the world. And when all the particu- 
 lars of the negotiation should be known I believed they 
 would deserve the credit of having faithfully done their duty. 
 When the wise men of the east were loading the Boston news- 
 papers with dissertations to prove that the sine qua non was 
 a fair and honorable and acceptable proposition, and with 
 Insults upon the ex-professor for rejecting it with disdain, 
 they little thought that they were laboring with the most 
 painful and ignominious Industry to give to the ex-professor 
 and his associates more credit than they deserved. It was 
 lucky for us that the wise men in their simplicity so con- 
 spicuously divulged what they were willing to take for a fair 
 and honorable peace. The misery of the wise men Is that 
 there Is yet too much colonial blood flowing in their veins. 
 The late Chief Justice,^ the progenitor of the Boston rebel, 
 
 ^ Theophilus Parsons. 
 
374 
 
 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 and even our magnanimous governor, you know were late 
 and lukewarm converts in the first and great war for our 
 national independence. They were willing enough to fall 
 into "pursue the triumph and partake the gale;" but if such 
 men had been the favorites and leaders of our country at the 
 trying period of our Revolution, the studies of our children 
 at the university might have terminated in loyal epithala- 
 miums upon the marriage of the Princess Charlotte of Wales. 
 When the American plenipotentiaries at Ghent rejected the 
 sine qua non, there was not one of them who thought himself 
 entitled to any credit for it as for an act of individual firm- 
 ness; all knew that we could not accept it. We all knew 
 that if we should accept it, we should only cover ourselves 
 with infamy, and that the treaty would be rejected by our 
 own government. The path was too plain to be mistaken. 
 Not one of us hesitated an instant, nor would it have been 
 possible for any other men representing the United States 
 in the same situation to have done otherwise. The Boston 
 rebel in our situation would have done as we did. And as 
 to any advantage in argument which we may have had over 
 the British plenipotentiaries in that negotiation, we could 
 in truth as little pretend to merit in that as for spurning at ' 
 the sine qua non. They were men of sound understanding, 
 but they were little more than a medium of communication 
 between us and the British Privy Council. Now that body, 
 like all the other governments of Europe, is accustomed to 
 reason so little and so much to force, that a victory over them 
 of mere logic is as easy as it is insignificant. The weakness 
 of the intellectual weapons with which American public 
 ministers have to contend is almost as mortifying as the 
 utter inefficacy of the most irrefragable arguments advanced 
 by them. The statesmen of Europe seldom take the trouble 
 to use reasoning, and when they do the success of their cause 
 
i8is] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 375 
 
 may be generally considered as desperate. If the notes of 
 the British plenipotentiaries at Ghent were scarcely worthy 
 of refutation, it was because reason had been sacrificed for 
 a supposed expediency at the laying of the basis of the nego- 
 tiation. That basis was laid not upon reason or argument, 
 but upon the expeditions to Plattsburg and New Orleans. 
 It was not to Lord Gambler, H. Goulburn and Dr. Adams 
 that they looked for success, but to Sir George Prevost, 
 and Sir James Yeo, and Ross, and Cockburn, to Cochrane 
 and Pakenham. 
 
 The result of the late war has been to raise the American 
 character in the estimation of Europe. But let us not be 
 elated by it; let us look back to it, not with an eye of vain 
 and idle exultation at the successes with which it was 
 checked, but with a regard anxiously provident of the future. 
 Let us inquire how much we suffered by want of adequate 
 preparation for war before it was undertaken; how much 
 for the want of a more efficient naval force; how much by 
 the miserable composition of our army; how much by an 
 unreasonable reliance upon militia soldiers and militia of- 
 ficers; how much by an undigested and unsuitable system 
 of finances; and, above all, how much by disaffection, by 
 disunion, by an inveterate and unprincipled spirit of fac- 
 tion. Let us not be afraid or ashamed to look at our dis- 
 asters — at sea we had our full share of misfortunes, but I 
 think not a single instance of disgrace. Our triumphs there 
 were the more precious, because they were all hardly and 
 dearly bought. But on the land, if we might boast of some 
 glorious, and be grateful for some fortunate achievements, 
 for how many defects should we be called to confess, and 
 for how many disgraces should we blush.? It is true that 
 our enemies were teaching us the practical art of which they 
 themselves had learnt from the French. They found our 
 
376 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 countrymen apt scholars, and In two or more campaigns I 
 have no doubt we should have swept them off from the con- 
 tinent of North America. But at the period when the war 
 closed our improvement had manifested itself only In defen- 
 sive warfare; and without detracting from the merit of our 
 officers or men, we must attribute much of our success at 
 Plattsburg to the victory on the lake, and something of that 
 at New Orleans to good fortune — to the errors of the enemy, 
 and to the casualty of their general's being killed. If the 
 war had done us no other good than to disclose the talents 
 and energy of such men as Jackson, Brown, Scott, Macomb 
 and Gaines, It would still have been great. It was winnow- 
 ing the grain from the chaff; but should we ever again be 
 involved in war I hope the appointments will be made with 
 the solemn consideration that for the field of blood important 
 military command is not to be committed to superannuated, 
 shallow. Intemperate and worthless characters with im- 
 punity. A more cheering if not more confident hope is that ; 
 we shall yet enjoy many years of peace. But the general ( 
 peace about to be restored In Europe may increase the diffi- 
 culty of preserving ours. The state of Europe Is indeed yet, 
 and for some time will remain unsettled. France is to ex- •; 
 perience the fate of Poland, and thus terminates the revolu- • 
 tion which began with liberty, equality, and fraternity, and i 
 which for a long time scared the nations of Europe and the 
 children of America with the bugbear of universal monarchy. 
 The disciples of the Socrates, of whom Fisher Ames was li 
 the Plato, may go to bed and sleep In quiet. Their children 
 will not be taken for the St. Domingo conscription. Leti 
 them not believe, however, that the revolutionary flame isi 
 extinct. Europe still consists only of victors and van- 
 quished, between whom no permanent state of social repose 1 
 can exist. May we persevere in the system of keeping aloof 1 
 
i8is] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 377 
 
 from all their broils, and in that of consolidating and per- 
 petuating our own Union. I am, etc. 
 
 TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE 
 
 No. 14. [James Monroe] 
 
 London, 19 September, 1815. 
 
 Sir: 
 
 The transactions to which your instructions of 21 Jul/ 
 have reference were of a character to excite in the highest 
 degree the attention of the government of the United States. 
 So many simultaneous acts of British officers at various 
 stations and upon both elements, indicating a marked spirit 
 of hostility, were calculated to inspire serious doubts with 
 regard to the pacific, not to say the amicable, dispositions 
 of the British government; and the latter part of your dis- 
 patch made It incumbent on me, under certain contingencies, 
 to take measures of which nothing that had occurred here 
 had Induced me even to think as precautions which the course 
 of events might render expedient. The commercial con- 
 vention had shown how excessively difficult it was for British 
 and American plenipotentiaries to agree upon any one point 
 in which the mutual interests of the two countries were in- 
 volved. It had shown how very few points there were upon 
 which any agreement could be made, and It was evident 
 from everything, excepting the personal courtesies of the 
 Prince and his Cabinet, that the animosities of the condition 
 from which the two nations had lately emerged had very 
 little subsided. I had, however, before the receipt of your 
 dispatch not a suspicion that an immediate renewal of 
 hostilities was contemplated, and even now, although I per- 
 
378 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 ceive no reasons for flattering myself that any satisfaction 
 will be given us upon any one of our causes of complaint, 
 yet I do not apprehend that any act of open and avowed 
 hostility will be sanctioned by the British government at the 
 present moment. It must, however, be added that the most, 
 perhaps the only, unequivocal pledge of pacific intentions 
 is the reduction of the fleet, not only to a peace establish- 
 ment but to an unusually small one. Your dispatch and the 
 several procedures to which It related awakened an anxiety 
 that nothing should be omitted which could be of any pos- 
 sible utility to our Interests In this quarter, and above all 
 that no hazards should be incurred upon the naval station 
 in this hemisphere which might be warded by a timely 
 notice of danger. Having formally renewed the claim for 
 the restitution of the slaves carried away contrary to the 
 engagements of the treaty of peace, or for payment of their 
 value as the alternative, there were other objects which I 
 deemed it necessary to present again to the consideration of 
 this government. In the first instance it seemed advisable 
 to open them by verbal communications, and I requested 
 of Lord Bathurst an interview for which he appointed the 
 14th Instant, when I called at his oflice in Downing street. 
 I said that having lately received dispatches from you re- 
 specting several objects of some Importance to the relations 
 between the two countries, my first object in asking to see 
 him had been to Inquire, whether he had received from 
 Mr. Baker a communication of the correspondence between 
 you and him relative to the surrender of MIchlllimackinac, 
 to the proceedings of Col. NIcholls In the southern part of 
 the United States, and to the warning given by the captain 
 of the British armed vessel Jaseur to certain American 
 fishing vessels, to withdraw from the fishing grounds to the 
 distance of sixty miles from the coast. He answered that 
 
 
i8isl JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 379 
 
 he had received all these papers from Mr. Baker about four 
 days ago; that an answer with regard to the warning of the 
 fishing vessels had immediately been sent; but on the other 
 subjects there had not been time to examine the papers and 
 prepare the answers. I asked him if he could without incon- 
 venience state the substance of the answer that had been 
 sent; he said, certainly. It had been that, as on the one hand 
 Great Britain could not permit the vessels of the United 
 States to fish within the creeks and close upon the shores of 
 the British territories, so on the other hand it was by no 
 means her intention to interrupt them in fishing anywhere 
 in the open sea, or without the territorial jurisdiction — a 
 marine league from the shore. And therefore that the warn- 
 ing given at the place stated in the case referred to was al- 
 together unauthorized. I replied that the particular act of 
 the British commander in this instance being disavowed, I 
 trusted that the British government, before adopting any 
 final determination upon this subject, would estimate in 
 candor and in that spirit of amity which my own govern- 
 ment was anxiously desirous of maintaining in our relations 
 with this country, the considerations which I was instructed 
 to present in support of the right of the people of the United 
 States to fish on the whole coast of North America, which 
 they have uniformly enjoyed from the first settlement of the 
 country. That it was my intention to address in the course 
 of a few days a letter to him on the subject. He said that 
 they would give due attention to the letter that I should send 
 him, but that Great Britain had explicitly manifested her 
 intention concerning it. That this subject, as I doubtless 
 knew, had excited a great deal of feeling in this country, 
 perhaps much more than its importance deserved; but their 
 own fishermen considered it as an excessive hardship to be 
 supplanted by American fishermen, even upon the very 
 
38o THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 shores of the British dominions. I said that those whose 
 sensibilities had been thus excited had probably not con- 
 sidered the question of right in the point of view in which it 
 had been regarded hy us; that they were the sensibilities of 
 a partial and individual interest stimulated by the passions 
 of competition, and considering the right of the Americans 
 as if it had been a privilege granted to them by the British 
 government. If this interest was to have weight in deter- 
 mining the policy of the cabinet, there was another interest 
 liable to be affected in the opposite manner which would be 
 entitled equally to consideration — the manufacturing. 
 
 The question of right had not been discussed at the nego- 
 tiation of Ghent. The British plenipotentiaries had given 
 a notice that the British government did not intend here- 
 after to grant to the people of the United States the right to 
 fish, and to cure and dry fish, within the exclusive British 
 jurisdictions in America without an equivalent, as it had 
 been granted by the treaty of peace in 1783. The American 
 plenipotentiaries had given notice in return that the Amer- 
 ican government considered all the rights and liberties in 
 and to the fisheries on the whole coast of North America 
 as sufficiently secured by the possession of them, which had 
 always been enjoyed previous to the revolution, and by the 
 recognition of them in the treaty of peace in 1783. That 
 they did not think any new stipulation necessary for a 
 further confirmation of the right, no part of which did they 
 consider as having been forfeited by the war. It was obvious 
 that the treaty of peace of 1783 was not one of those ordinary 
 treaties which by the usages of nations were held to be an- 
 nulled by a subsequent war between the same parties. It 
 was not simply a treaty of peace, it was a treaty of partition 
 between two parts of one nation, agreeing thenceforth to 
 be separated into two distinct sovereignties. The condi- 
 
i8isl JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 381 
 
 tions upon which this was done constituted essentially the 
 independence of the United States, and the preservation of 
 all fishing rights which they had constantly enjoyed over the 
 
 II whole coast of North America was among the most im- 
 portant of them. This was no concession, no grant on the 
 part of Great Britain, which could be annulled by a war. 
 There had been in the same treaty of 1783 a right recognized 
 in British subjects to navigate the Mississippi. This right 
 the British plenipotentiaries at Ghent had considered as 
 still a just claim on the part of Great Britain, notwithstand- 
 ing the war that had intervened. 
 
 The American plenipotentiaries, to remove all future dis- 
 cussion upon both points, had offered to agree to an article 
 expressly confirming both the rights. In declining this, an 
 offer had been made on the part of Great Britain of an 
 article stipulating to negotiate in future for the renewal of 
 both the rights for equivalents, which was declined by the 
 American plenipotentiaries, on the express ground that its 
 effect would have been an implied admission that the rights 
 had been annulled. There was therefore no article concern- 
 ing them in the treaty, and the question as to the right was 
 not discussed. I now stated the ground upon which the 
 government of the United States considered the right as 
 subsisting and unimpaired. The treaty of 1783 was in its 
 essential nature not liable to be annulled by a subsequent 
 war. It acknowledged the United States as a sovereign and 
 
 I independent power. It would be an absurdity inconsistent 
 with the acknowledgment itself to suppose it liable to be 
 forfeited by a war. The whole treaty of Ghent did constantly 
 refer to it as existing and in full force, nor was an intimation 
 given that any further confirmation of it was supposed to be 
 necessary. It would be for the British government ulti- 
 mately to determine how far this reasoning was to be ad- 
 
382 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 mitted as correct. There were also considerations of policy 
 and expediency to which I hoped they would give suitable 
 attention before they should come to a final decision upon 
 this point. I thought it my duty to suggest them, that they 
 might not be overlooked. The subject was viewed by my 
 countrymen as highly important, and I was anxious to omit t! 
 no effort which might possibly have an influence in promot- ' 
 ing friendly sentiments between the two nations, or in: 
 guarding against the excitement of others. These fisheries I 
 afforded the means of subsistence to multitudes of people - 
 who were destitute of any other. They also afforded the i 
 means of remittance to Great Britain in payment for articles 
 of her manufactures exported to America. It was well under- 
 stood to be the policy of Great Britain that no unnecessary 
 stimulus should be given to the manufactures in the United 1 
 States which would diminish the importation of those from 1 
 Great Britain. But by depriving the fishermen of the United 
 States of this source of subsistence, the result must be to 
 throw them back upon the country, and drive them to the 
 resort of manufacturing for themselves, while on the other 1 
 hand it would cut off the means of making remittances in 
 payment for the manufactures of Great Britain. I must 
 add that the people in America, whose interests would be 
 most immediately and severely affected by this exclusion, 
 were the inhabitants of that country which had of late years 
 manifested the most friendly dispositions towards this 
 country. This might perhaps be less proper for me to sug- ' 
 gest, than for a British Cabinet to consider. To me the 
 interests of all my countrymen in every part of the United 
 States were the same. To the government of the United ' 
 States they were the same. We could know no distinction 
 between them. But upon a point where, as an American, 
 I was contending for what we conceived to be a strict right, 
 
 i 
 
i8is] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 383 
 
 I thought best, speaking to him, to urge every considera- 
 tion which might influence a party having other views in 
 that respect to avoid coming to a colHsion upon it. I would 
 even urge considerations of humanity. I would say that 
 fisheries, the nature of which was to multiply the means of 
 subsistence to mankind, were usually considered by civilized 
 nations as under a sort of special sanction. It was a common 
 practice to leave them uninterrupted even in time of war. 
 He knew for instance that the Dutch had been for centuries 
 in the practice of fishing upon the coasts of this island, and 
 that they were not interrupted in this occupation even in 
 ordinary times of war. It was to be inferred from this that 
 to interdict a fishery which had been enjoyed for ages, far 
 from being an usual act in the peaceable relations between 
 nations, was an indication of animosity, transcending even 
 the ordinary course of hostility in war. He said that no such 
 disposition was entertained by the British government. 
 That to show the liberality which they had determined to 
 exercise in this case, he would assure me that the instruc- 
 tions which he had given to the officers on that station had 
 been, not even to interrupt the American fishermen who 
 might have proceeded to those coasts within the British 
 jurisdiction for the present year; to allow them to complete 
 their fares, but to give them notice that this privilege could 
 no longer be allowed by Great Britain, and that they must 
 not return the next year. It was not so much the fishing, 
 as the drying and curing on the shores, that had been fol- 
 lowed by bad consequences. It happened that our fisher- 
 men by their proximity could get to the fishing stations 
 sooner in the season than the British, who were obliged to 
 go from Europe, and who upon arriving there found all the 
 best fishing places, and drying and curing places preoccu- 
 pied. This had often given rise to disputes and quarrels 
 
384 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 between them, which in some instances had proceeded to 
 blows. It had disturbed the peace among the inhabitants 
 on the shores, and for several years before the war the com- 
 plaints to this government had been so great and so frequent 
 that it had been impossible not to pay regard to them. I 
 said that I had not heard of any such complaints before; 
 but as to the disputes arising from the competition of the 
 fishermen a remedy could surely with ease be found for 
 them by suitable regulations of the government; and with 
 regard to the peace of the inhabitants, there could be little 
 difficulty in securing it, as the liberty enjoyed by the Amer- 
 ican fishermen was limited to unsettled and uninhabited 
 places, unless they could in the others obtain the consent 
 and agreement of the inhabitants. 
 
 I then adverted to the other topics — Michillimackinac, 
 Bois Blanc, and Colonel Nicholls. I asked him if he had any 1 
 account of the surrender of the post. He said he had no: 
 doubt whatever but that it had long since been delivered up. 
 But he had no late dispatches from the Canadian govern- 
 ment. Some delay had occurred by the change of the Gov- 
 ernor General, by Sir George Prevost's leaving Quebec to: 
 come to Europe, and consequently by General Drummond'si 
 coming from Upper Canada to Quebec. As to the indisposi- ■ 
 tion manifested by the Indians to accept the peace offered; 
 by the United States, he regretted it very much. It hadl 
 been the sincere wish and Intention of the British govern- 
 ment that the peace with the Indians should immediately! 
 follow that agreed to by this country. The British officers i 
 there had been formally instructed to make known to themi 
 the peace which had been concluded, and to advise them to 
 take the benefit of it. If there had been conduct of a dif- 
 ferent tendency on the part of British officers or subjects,! 
 it was unauthorized and contrary to the instructions which IJ 
 
i8isl JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 385 
 
 I 
 had been given. I said that the American government had 
 
 been peculiarly concerned at the proceedings of Col. Nicholls, 
 
 because they appeared to be marked with unequivocal and 
 
 extraordinary marks of hostility. "Why," said Lord Bath- 
 
 urst, "to tell you the truth Colonel Nicholls is, I believe, a 
 
 ; man of activity and spirit, but a very wild fellow. He did 
 make and send over to me a treaty, offensive and defensive, 
 with some Indians, and he is now come over here and has 
 brought over some of those Indians. I sent for answer that 
 he had no authority whatever to make a treaty, offensive 
 and defensive, with Indians, and that this government 
 
 i would make no such treaty. I have sent him word that I 
 
 ; could not see him upon any such project. The Indians are 
 here in great distress indeed, but we shall only furnish them 
 
 I the means of returning home and advise them to make their 
 terms with the United States as well as they can." Per- 
 ceiving that I had particularly noticed his declaration that 
 
 , he had declined seeing Colonel Nicholls, he said that he should 
 perhaps see him upon the general subject of his transactions, 
 but that he had declined seeing him in regard to his treaty 
 with the Indians. I then observed that you had also sent 
 
 ; me a copy of your letter to Mr. Baker concerning the island 
 of Bois Blanc. He said it seemed merely a question of fact, 
 whether the island had been in the possession of the British 
 before the commencement of the late war or not. He did 
 not know how that was, but he thought it could not be 
 
 , difficult to ascertain, and it was altogether of very little im- 
 portance.^ I asked him if he could tell me when Mr. Bagot 
 would probably embark for the United States. He answered 
 that it depended altogether upon the particular circum- 
 stances of his family. He expected himself to be able to 
 
 • embark only in October. I was no doubt aware of the cause 
 
 . 1 To this point the dispatch is given in the Memoirs, September 14, 1815. 
 
386 THE WRITINGS OF [iSij 
 
 of the delay of his departure. I replied that I asked the 
 question now, because by a late letter from Mr. Baker to 
 you it appeared that his powers in relation to the execution 
 of the treaty of peace were less extensive than the govern- 
 ment of the United States had understood them to be, which 
 circumstance had made it more solicitous for the departure 
 of Mr. Bagot. He assured me that there should be no delay 
 which could possibly be avoided. In this conversation 
 Lord Bathurst's manner, like that of Lord Liverpool in the 
 conference which I had about a month before with him, was 
 altogether good humored and conciliatory. The conduct of 
 all the officers and persons complained of was explicitly dis- 
 avowed; and I understood at first the observation of Lord 
 Bathurst that he had declined seeing Colonel Nicholls as an , 
 intimation that it was intended to exhibit towards that 
 officer unequivocal marks of displeasure. But the subse- 
 quent explanation left me to conclude that, although the 
 disapprobation of his proceedings was strongly expressed 
 to me, the utmost extent of it that would be shown to him 
 would be the refusal to ratify his treaty, offensive and defen- 
 sive, with the Indians. The answer, that was so promptly 
 sent to the complaint relative to the warning of the fishing 
 vessels by the captain of the Jaseur, will probably be com- 
 municated to you before you will receive this letter. You 
 will see whether it is so precise as to the limits within which 
 they are determined to adhere to the exclusion of our fishing :i 
 vessels as Lord Bathurst's verbal statement of it to me, 
 namely, to the extent of one marine league from their shores. 
 Indeed it is to the curing and drying upon the shore that 
 they appear to have the strongest objection. But that, 
 perhaps, is, because they know the immediate curing and 
 drying of the fish as soon as they are taken are essential to 
 the value, if not to the very prosecution of the fishery. I 
 
 I 
 
i8i5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 387 
 
 have no expectation that the arguments used by me, either 
 in support of our right, or as to the policy of Great Britain 
 upon this question, will have any weight here. Though 
 satisfied of their validity myself, I am persuaded it will be 
 upon the determination of the American government and 
 people to maintain the right that the continuance of its 
 enjoyment will alone depend. Two days after this conference 
 with Lord Bathurst I had occasion to see Mr. Morier, the 
 under secretary of state in the department of Lord Castle- 
 reagh, and repeated the question to him relative to the de- 
 parture of Mr. Bagot, to which I was induced by the event 
 of Mrs. Bagot's confinement, which happened on the 12th 
 instant. Mr. Morier was still unable to say when they 
 would embark, from which there is some reason to suppose 
 that their departure will be still procrastinated. I asked 
 Mr. Morier if he had received my letter to Lord Castlereagh 
 with the list of the negroes carried away by Admiral Cock- 
 burn. He said he had, but made no further observation 
 concerning it. I asked him whether they were likely soon 
 to settle their affairs in France. He said that they had made 
 considerable progress towards it; that among so many 
 parties there had naturally arisen some diiTerent shades of 
 opinion with regard to what was best to be done; but it was 
 probable that they would all be smoothed down. It does 
 not appear that the Emperor of Russia's objections to the 
 dismemberment of France have been wholly removed, and 
 England appears not to have entered into all the views of 
 Prussia In this respect. In the Prussian army, and especially 
 among its principal generals, there has been formed an as- 
 sociation which undertakes to control even the policy of 
 their sovereign. They denominate themselves the Friends of 
 •virtue, and this virtue is understood to consist of every 
 measure that can contribute to the debasement, humilia- 
 
388 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 tion, and spoliation of France. They are connected with a 
 herd of speculative and political fanatics dispersed all over 
 Germany, and their project has been to distribute between 
 Austria, Prussia, and the kingdom of the Netherlands, all 
 the northern provinces of France. They have constantly 
 been encouraged and instigated in this system by all the 
 ministerial prints of this country, while the Cabinet, either 
 to conciliate the Emperor of Russia, or to prepare itself 
 ultimately for the part of an umpire to distribute the spoils, 
 has held up the appearance of opposition to them. The 
 King of France has been kept in a state of entire uncertainty 
 what his allies intend to do with his country, but they have 
 lent him the operation of their armies to secure the election 
 of a legislative assembly of representatives entirely devoted 
 to the royal cause. They are to assemble on the 25th in- 
 stant, and from the characters of the persons elected the 
 tendency of their measures, it is anticipated, will be to the 
 excess of royalism and the restoration of the ancient abso- 
 lute government. This is suitable to the views of the allies, 
 because it will rivet the dependence of the French govern- 
 ment upon them, and confirm the necessity of maintaining 
 it by the support of foreign armies. The French army has 
 been disbanded and a new one formed, at the head of which 
 generals almost exclusively selected from the old emigrants 
 have been placed. On the whole the only shades of opinion 
 in which there appears to be any difference among the allies 
 appear to be, how France is to be most effectually kept in a 
 state of impotence. And there is no reason to doubt that 
 whatever they may finally agree upon will sufficiently insure 
 that result. She can never rise again but through some new 
 and real source of discord between her conquerors. I am etc. 
 
1815] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 389 
 
 TO JOHN ADAMS 
 
 Boston House, Ealing, 20 September, 181 5. 
 
 My Dear Sir: 
 
 Since I have got settled here in the country, eight miles 
 distant from Hyde Park corner, I can find or make leisure 
 about once a week to write a letter, short or long, to you, 
 to my mother, or to my brother, and to inclose with it to you 
 a weekly newspaper. They will not reach you with equal 
 regularity, for winds and waves will always be capricious. 
 And thus after having received in three months after my 
 arrival here sixteen letters from you, and ten from my 
 mother, I have now been nearly a full month without re- 
 ceiving one either from her or you. There are particularly 
 none since my last letter to you, which was dated the 31st 
 of August. Much of that was on the subject of the fisheries, 
 one of many upon which I am destined to perform here the 
 vox in eremo — to complain, to expostulate, to remonstrate 
 without effect, and hitherto without answer. I read over 
 time after time all your letters on this subject, and all their 
 inclosures. The letter of my victorious rival,^ as you are 
 pleased to call him, is full of the most important information, 
 and what I most sincerely regret to find in it is an argument 
 on the side of our adversaries, certainly as strong and I be- 
 lieve more ingenious than any they will advance of them- 
 selves. The newspaper essay signed Richelieu was more 
 congenial to my own sentiments, and I think it perfectly 
 conclusive with regard to the right. You have repeatedly 
 enjoined it upon me never to surrender a tittle of the right. 
 After having been once brought to the test in that respect 
 by the deliberate resolution which I had formed to refuse 
 
 1 James Lloyd. The letter is printed in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings, XLV. 380. 
 
390 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 my signature to the peace at Ghent, if an article proposed 
 by the British plenipotentiaries, and which involved an 
 admission that the right was annulled, should be persisted 
 in, I do not apprehend that I shall be so lost to the sense of 
 what I owe my country as to subscribe to any such conces- 
 sion hereafter. I hope there is no danger that anything will 
 be abandoned by me. But you are aware that the case now 
 stands thus: that while we assert the right, Great Britain 
 denies it; and that she has already given her practical ex- 
 position of her principle by instructions to her naval officers, 
 under which our fishing vessels have been warned to with- 
 draw to sixty miles distance from the coast; and you know 
 that by this measure our countrymen have been entirely 
 deprived of the whole coast fishery for the present year. 
 Now this sweep of sixty miles is an experiment. The act of 
 the captain who gave the warning has been disavowed, and 
 I am assured not only that it was unauthorized, but that 
 the instructions given were not even to interrupt our fisher- 
 men at all, the present year, but to give them notice that 
 they must not expect the same indulgence the next year. 
 The sixty miles are disclaimed in the most explicit terms, 
 and I have been verbally told that the intended exclusion 
 is to be only to the extent of the territorial jurisdiction — 
 one marine league from the shore. Thus you see it is not on 
 the point of impressment alone that our Mother Britain 
 knows how to make a pigmy theory swell into a giant prac- 
 tice. And after our fishermen have, by virtue of instruc- 
 tions not to interrupt them at all, been driven to the distance 
 of sixty miles from the coast, that is, from the fishery alto- 
 gether, we are left for another year to see how they will be 
 treated under instructions not to permit them to approach 
 within one marine league of the coast. 
 
 I have in a conference with one of the British Ministers 
 
i8is] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 39i 
 
 of State represented to him the principles and, as far as I 
 was able, the arguments upon which the people and govern- 
 ment of the United States claim and assert their rights and 
 liberties to and in fisheries, as they have always been en- 
 joyed, and as they were recognized by the treaties of 1782 
 and 1783. I shall very shortly repeat in substance the same 
 in writing. In the conversation I adduced several other 
 considerations, subsidiary to the claim of right, with the 
 view to convince this government that its own interest would 
 best be promoted by leaving us In the uninterrupted enjoy- 
 ment of these rights and liberties. I was listened to with 
 sufficient attention, but evidently without the smallest 
 effect. My report of the conversation has been prepared 
 for the government and will, I trust, be received before the 
 meeting of Congress. 
 
 Mr. Lloyd's argument on our side (for he follows Cicero's 
 precept of arguing both sides), that the treaty stipulation 
 in our favor of 1783 was not forfeited by the late war, and 
 could not be forfeited but by an express renunciation on our 
 part, is admirable as far as it goes; but he seems to consider 
 that its validity may depend upon the degree of formality, 
 more or less, with which the British plenipotentiaries gave 
 notice at Ghent that our fishing liberties within the British 
 jurisdiction would not in future be allowed without an equiv- 
 alent. There was no want oi formality, decision, or determina- 
 tion in the notice. It was given in the first conference on 
 the 8th of August, immediately after their statement of the 
 points upon which they were authorized to negotiate, and 
 the demands of their government. It was recorded in the 
 protocol of conference of that day, which was published in 
 the United States and which Mr. Lloyd had certainly seen. 
 It was in these words: "that the British government did 
 not intend to grant to the United States gratuitously the 
 
392 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 privileges formerly granted by treaty to them, of fishing 
 within the limits of the British sovereignty and of using the 
 shores of the British territories for purposes connected with 
 the fisheries." 
 
 The answer first given by the American plenipotentiaries 
 to this declaration was, that they were not instructed to 
 treat at all upon the subject of the fisheries; but they ex- 
 pressed their willingness to discuss all the points which had 
 been suggested by the British plenipotentiaries, including this. 
 
 When afterwards the first projet of the treaty was sent 
 to the British plenipotentiaries by us, it was accompanied 
 by a note, in which was the following paragraph: 
 
 In answer to the declaration made by the British plenipoten- 
 tiaries respecting the fisheries the undersigned referring to what 
 passed in the conference of the 9th August can only state that 
 they are not authorized to bring into discussion any of the rights 
 or liberties which the United States have heretofore enjoyed in 
 relation thereto. From their nature and from the peculiar char- 
 acter of the Treaty of 1783 by which they were recognized no 
 further stipulation has been deemed necessary by the government 
 of the United States to entitle them to the full enjoyment of all 
 of them. 
 
 When the British plenipotentiaries came to demand a new 
 stipulation for the right to navigate the Mississippi, we 
 objected to them that by our view of the treaty of 1783 it 
 was unnecessary, and by theirs they were asking a very 
 important privilege for their subjects within our jurisdic- 
 tion, and without an equivalent. Then it was that we pro- 
 posed to remove all future dispute by an article confirming 
 both the rights, and they in return oflFered an article stipu- 
 lating to negotiate after the peace for a renewal of both the 
 rights, for equivalents. The object of this was, not insidi- 
 ously^ as Mr. Lloyd inferred from my letter of 26th Decern- 
 
i8i5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 393 
 
 ber last to you, that I supposed it, but avowedly, to obtain 
 from us an admission that the rights were both annulled by 
 the war. Indeed we were for the space of ten days in ex- 
 pectation that this article would have been made a sine qua 
 non for that very purpose of making us renounce the claim 
 which we had so explicitly asserted. And then it was that I 
 had resolved to withhold my signature from the treaty, if 
 the article should be accepted by my colleagues. The 
 article was finally withdrawn by the British plenipoten- 
 tiaries, with a new reference to their original declaration of 
 the 8th of August. It was therefore fully and unequivocally 
 understood by them that we considered all our fishing liber- 
 ties within their jurisdiction as in full force, and by us that 
 they considered them as at an end. They have now sup- 
 ported their view of the question by force of arms, and then 
 disavowed the particular act of force, recurring at the same 
 time again to their principle. Mr. Lloyd's letter to you 
 plainly shows, that with regard to the principle, much may 
 he said on both sides; but while one side is backed with force, 
 what becomes of the other if it is maintained only by words.'' 
 Let me say again, my dear Sir, that Massachusetts must look 
 to it. The Massachusetts legislature must pass resolutions, 
 declaratory of the right and pledging their constituents to 
 maintain it, and calling upon the government of the Union 
 to maintain it. If they do not; if they will listen to the 
 warning of sixty miles from the coast without making their 
 voice be heard about it, or if in the paltry spirit of faction 
 they will sacrifice the rights of their country for the sake of 
 making their loss a subject of reproach against the govern- 
 ment of the Union, my belief is that you will have a warning 
 not only of sixty miles, but from the Banks themselves. 
 Ohsta principiis. 
 I am etc. 
 
394 
 
 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE 
 No. 16. [James Monroe] 
 
 London, 30 September, 18 1 5. 
 
 Sir: 
 
 The quarterly account which I now have the honor to 
 inclose contains two charges among the contingencies which 
 may require some explanation. One of £4 Sterling per week 
 to Mr. Grubb,^ for services as my secretary, and the other 
 of one guinea per week for office rent. The papers which 
 you will receive written by Mr. Grubb will I trust suffice to 
 show the necessity that I was under of employing some 
 person to give me that assistance, particularly when it is 
 observed that, in addition to all the papers resulting from 
 the correspondence of the ordinary legation, repeated copies 
 have been required of those proceedings from the negotia- 
 tion of the commercial convention. An office was equally 
 necessary from the multitudes of American citizens and 
 foreigners going to the United States who, in consequence 
 of the regulations respecting aliens, are continually applying 
 to me for passports. Some of these restrictions are now re- 
 moved, but the demand for passports continues as frequent 
 as before. 
 
 Mr. Grubb is a citizen of Virginia and, I believe, person- 
 ally known to you. As my employment of him will be | 
 transient, and only until the arrival of a secretary to the 1 
 legation, I have promised to recommend him for a more 
 permanent situation on the arrival of the consul and agent 
 for seamen. His assiduity, integrity, and facility in business 
 are such that I wish it were In my power to recommend him ; 
 
 1 James Grubb. 
 
[8is] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 395 
 
 to better and more profitable service. ... At the request 
 of Mr. Sumter, I now transmit to you duplicates of a letter 
 from him to Mr. Crawford, together with a note from Mr. 
 Canning to the Regency at Lisbon, and Lord Strangford's 
 valedictory note at Rio Janeiro. The Count de Funchal, 
 the Portuguese Ambassador^ has at last taken leave at this 
 court, and the Chevalier de Freire a minister of the second 
 order, remains as the only representative here of the Por- 
 tuguese Prince Regent. The Ambassador and the Envoy 
 have long been here at once, the one accredited by the 
 Regency at Lisbon, and the other by the Regent at Rio. 
 Mr. Sumter has very fully disclosed the real views of the 
 British government and their longings for the recoloniza- 
 tion of the Spanish and Portuguese possessions in America. 
 It is here said that they have obtained a cession of the 
 Floridas from Spain, and have stipulated in return to pro- 
 hibit British subjects from furnishing any supplies to the 
 independents of South America. They must, however, 
 have known that they could not prevent their merchants 
 from furnishing such supplies. But the British Cabinet 
 now presents the rare spectacle of a free government, labor- 
 ing to rebuild the shattered fabric of social order upon the 
 mouldering ruins of colonial feudal, Jesuitical, and papal 
 institutions. 
 
 The Austrian charge d'affaires has addressed a note to 
 me requesting that the government of the United States 
 would take measures to arrest a man by the name of Auguste 
 Annoni, charged with having robbed Count Wallenstein of 
 money and papers. I shall send you copies of this note and 
 of the description of the man's person inclosed In it. I can 
 hardly suppose the Austrian government will expect an 
 answer to the application. 
 
 I am etc. 
 
396 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 TO THOMAS REILLY 
 
 Boston House, Ealing, 2 October, 18 15. 
 Sir: 
 
 In the month of June, 181 2, the crew of the Monticello, 
 Captain Salt, were discharged from that ship, which had 
 been seized and confiscated by the Russian government for 
 having entered the port of Cronstadt under false papers, 
 pretended American. 
 
 The crew were partly Americans who had shipped in her 
 under the assurance and belief that she was really American 
 and partly of other nations. They wrote to me, and several 
 of them applied to me personally, claiming my intervention 
 to obtain the payment of their wages. I was authorized to 
 interfere only on behalf of those who were Americans. The 
 business was transacted by Mr. Sparrow, the American con- 
 sular agent at Cronstadt, under the orders of Mr. Harris, 
 the consul of the United States. I was informed by them 
 and by letters from Charles Drew, one of the American sea- 
 men of the ship, that a settlement was made with the crew 
 by payment of a part of the wages due them to discharge the 
 expenses which had been incurred for their subsistence dur- 
 ing a detention of nearly a year there after the vessel was 
 seized, and while Captain Salt refused to discharge them; 
 and by Captain Salt giving them drafts or orders upon his 
 owners for the rest. This arrangement was acquiesced in 
 to avoid the measure of imprisoning Captain Salt, whose 
 health was bad and who stated that he had no other means 
 of making payment. The wages were due for two voyages. 
 The first from London to Lisbon and Cork, and the second 
 to St. Petersburg. The names of those sailors who applied 
 to me were Charles Drew, Thomas Powell, James Robert- 
 
i8is] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 397 
 
 son, Thomas Wilkson, Adam Forsyth and John EngHsh. 
 Besides whom I find among my papers the names of Alexis 
 Maupertuis, J. Minder, J. Morris and J. Francis. Wilkson 
 may be the same named in your letter Wilkinson, but I 
 think neither Repets nor Griffin applied to me. If they be- 
 longed to the ship, their claim for wages until June, 1812, 
 when they were discharged, was just. 
 I am etc. 
 
 TO MITCHEL KING 
 
 Ealing, 4th October, 181 5. 
 Sir: 
 
 One of my objects in calling at your lodgings was to in- 
 quire, whether you had received a definitive answer upon 
 the application for copies of the papers desired for the use 
 of the Literary and Philosophical Society of South Carolina, 
 and to renew the offer of my services when it may be here- 
 after in my power to render, either for the attainment of that 
 object, or for the projected publication of Dr. Ramsay's 
 posthumous work. You are acquainted with the reasons 
 which induced me to think that the chance of obtaining the 
 papers would be more favorable without than with my in- 
 tervention, and I have taken the liberty of referring Mr. El- 
 liott ^ to you for an explanation upon that subject. At the 
 
 1 Stephen Elliott, of Charleston, S. C. "The public offices from which the Society 
 arc desirous of obtaining copies of ancient documents are those with which I am 
 occasionally required by my public duties to transact business. Any application 
 at those offices for copies of official papers, even of ancient dates, in which I should 
 participate might be liable to suspicion that the papers might be wanted not for his- 
 torical purposes alone. I doubt whether such papers would be granted at all. 
 But I was confident that an application through me would be less likely to succeed 
 than through private channels; and independent of the refusal which I was per- 
 
: 
 
 398 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 S 
 
 same time I shall not lose sight of the wishes of the Society, 
 and if while I remain here any opportunity shall occur in 
 which I can promote their accomplishment, I shall be happy 
 to take advantage of it. And if Dr. Ramsay's executors 
 should take further measures for obtaining the copyright 
 here of his work, and I can in any manner be of service to 
 him in the design, it will give me the highest satisfaction. 
 I am etc. 
 
 TO WILLIAM PLUMER 
 
 Ealing near London, 5 October, 181 5. 
 My Dear Sir: 
 
 Your favor of the 26 July last has been very recently re- 
 ceived by me with so much pleasure that I indulge more 
 fresh the hope of hearing frequently from you in future, 
 while I remain in this country. The changes which have 
 taken place both in Europe and America In the course of the 
 last year have indeed been great and extraordinary, but the 
 mine of extraordinary events seems now to be exhausted. 
 The wars of the French Revolution would seem to be just 
 closed. France, after having been twenty years the terror 
 and the oppressor of Europe, has now become the victim of 
 oppression in her turn. As she has treated others, she is now 
 treated herself. In this, whatever may be our opinion of 
 the means or of the instruments on either side, we can at 
 least perceive the distributive justice of providence. There 
 is, indeed, yet one nation upon which the punishment of 
 heaven has not fallen in the same proportion as upon the 
 rest, and that is precisely the nation in the opinion of many 
 
 suaded it would meet, it was not impossible that the request itself might excite a 
 jealousy which would operate unfavorably upon the public interests with which I 
 am charged." To Elliott, October 4, 1815. Ms. 
 
[iSis] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 399 
 
 more heavily chargeable with the guilt of all the wretched- 
 ness and misery under which the world has been groaning 
 than all the rest. But the whole field is not yet before us. 
 The glory and prosperity which that nation has acquired in 
 war will be brought perhaps to a severer test. The danger 
 is, and it is a danger by no means immaterial to us, that she 
 may soon discover that she cannot exist in peace without 
 ruin; that war is indispensable to maintain her universal 
 monopoly, and that universal monopoly is no less indis- 
 pensable to support her under the load of her debt. 
 
 It is not easy to foresee what will be the next turn in 
 the course of European policy. The fear of France can 
 henceforth no longer operate as a center of union to all the 
 rest of Europe. There is no common interest which can 
 still combine them in the league by which they have been 
 these two years associated. Differences of interest, as well 
 as of opinion, have already arisen among them, and will in 
 all probability before long widen to a total separation. 
 Whether they will long remain at peace among themselves 
 it is for time to discover. 
 
 It can also scarcely be foreseen how far the affairs of 
 Europe will in future influence the policy of our own country. 
 I From the period when the British government undertook to 
 restore what was called the rule of the war of 1756, until the 
 ratification of the treaty of Ghent, our political parties have 
 found objects of contention in the state of our foreign rela- 
 tions. The system pursued by the government of the United 
 States, though supported by the sentiments of the great 
 majority of the people, has been opposed by a small but 
 powerful party throughout the Union, and by a much larger 
 one in New England, constituting occasionally the majority 
 in the state legislatures, and combining with a shallow and 
 short-sighted project for dissolving the Union, to which 
 
400 
 
 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 many unfortunate events have given a portentous impor- 
 tance. This project, I am apprehensive, will survive the 
 agitations occasioned by the war; but I hope it will ever 
 terminate with as little credit and success as it did in the 
 Hartford Convention. I earnestly wish and fondly hope 
 that we may be indulged with some years of peace, and that 
 during this interval we shall seek and devise remedies for 
 the evils which we have experienced in the late war. Shall 
 we for example be radically and forever cured of the reliance 
 upon embargoes, non-intercourse, and restrictions, as weapons 
 either defensive or offensive against Great Britain.^ I would 
 fain hope that we shall, though I am not without my fears 
 that the event has left that question unsettled. Shall we 
 perceive that our only effectual defence is a naval force? 
 This appears to me to have been so clearly demonstrated 
 that I scarcely know how It can be hereafter questioned. 
 And yet, who will assure me that at the end of seven years 
 another war will not break out upon us, and find us as un- 
 prepared as the last.'' Shall we organize a system of finance 
 which will not bring us in two years into the jaws of bank- 
 ruptcy.'' What our resources would have been had the war 
 continued during the present year, I can scarcely imagine. 
 In two years of war we had been perfectly brought to our 
 wits end, and that with the example of this country before 
 us, which for twenty years successively has raised almost 
 without an effort whatever sums she wanted, and among all 
 the evils of war has never for a moment suffered the want 
 of a shilling or of fifty millions to carry it on. When I ex- 
 pressed the hope that we may be favored with several years 
 of peace, it was because I think it may be expected from the 
 general aspect of affairs. But the surest pledge that we can 
 have of peace will be to be prepared for war. The peace of 
 Ghent did not settle any of the contests for which the war 
 
i8is] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 401 
 
 had been waged, because the peace In Europe had removed 
 the causes of the contest. Nothing was yielded on either 
 side; it was a drawn game. But the war had opened other 
 sources of contention which the peace has not closed. The 
 general peace now taking place, if it continues any length of 
 time, will open others. The British spirit of commercial 
 monopoly will be as ardent and rapacious in time of peace 
 as it has been in the time of war. Now is the moment when 
 the rivalry of commerce and navigation will display itself 
 to the utmost extent. They have already formally assumed 
 the principle of excluding us totally from all their West 
 India possessions, and even from their provinces in North 
 America. They have also excluded us altogether from the 
 coast fisheries for the present year, and they have instigated 
 the Indians, northern and southern, to war against us. We 
 I have brought the Algerines to terms of peace at the mouth 
 of our cannon; but if we expect to enjoy unmolested any 
 portion of the valuable trade of the Mediterranean, we must 
 not rely upon the permanency of a peace without the guar- 
 anty of a tribute, or without an armed force upon that sea, 
 always ready to protect the right and avenge the wrong. 
 The late war has embittered the animosities of the two 
 nations against each other. It had many of the characters 
 of a civil war. It seemed to be a war not only of nations but 
 of individuals. It consisted not merely of battles won and 
 lost, but every incident on one side or the other wounded 
 the pride and mortified the feelings of the nation. Our naval 
 victories sting the British nation to the quick, while the in- 
 effable disgrace of our military discomfitures in Canada, 
 and the shameful disaster at Washington, still grate upon 
 every national fibre that we possess. With all those com- 
 bustible materials we shall be favored in full measure by 
 heaven, if we succeed in preserving peace for a series of years; 
 
402 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 and I should consider it as a case altogether desperate, if I 
 did not flatter myself that we shall be convinced of the ex- 
 pediency of maintaining an adequate naval force to baffle 
 every pretence of blockading the whole American coast. I 
 learn with great satisfaction the progress which you have 
 made in your historical work, and the extensiveness of the 
 plan upon which you intend to pursue it. Several other 
 publications on the same subject are intended in different 
 parts of the United States, and I understand the late Dr. 
 Ramsay of Charleston, South Carolina, had completed a 
 history of America, which will be shortly published in two 
 octavo volumes by his executors. 
 
 I have seen one number of Mr. Tudor's North American 
 Review^ and Mr. Spafford ^ of Albany has sent me the first 
 and second numbers of the American Magazine conducted 
 by him. There are new literary and philosophical societies 
 forming in various parts of our country, and there is every 
 possible demonstration of the increased and increasing in- 
 terest in the pursuits of literature and science taken by the 
 people of the United States. The war I am persuaded has 
 not a little contributed to give this new impulse, and it is 
 one of the benefits which we have derived from it. I lament 
 that since my arrival in this country, my occupations have 
 so absorbed my time as to leave me none for improving the 
 advantages which in that respect it affords. 
 
 The situation in Europe is at this time one of almost per- 
 fect tranquillity. Since the transportation of Napoleon to 
 the island of St. Helena, one would suppose that all the 
 sources of discord were drained. The tranquillity of France 
 is preserved by the bayonets of near one million of foreigners, 
 and her fate has for the present been probably decided by 
 the conclave of Emperors and Kings, who have been sitting 
 
 ^ Horatio Gates Spafford. 
 
i8is] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 403 
 
 these three months at Paris to pronounce upon It. The sec- 
 ond dismemberment of France has been accompHshed. The 
 Emperors and Kings are returning home, but two or three 
 hundred thousand foreign troops are to remain in France, 
 to keep Louis the Desired steady upon his throne. An In- 
 surrection is said to have broken out against Ferdinand the 
 Beloved in Spain, but probably by the help of the Inquisi- 
 tion it will soon be suppressed and social order restored. 
 There Is also a proclamation of martial law in Ireland, to put 
 down some refractory peasants who object to paying tithes 
 to the Bulwark of our Holy Religion. But these things are 
 scarcely sufficient to fill the pages of the newspapers. Per- 
 haps something more Interesting may soon occur. In the 
 meantime I remain etc. 
 
 TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE 
 
 No. 17. [James Monroe] 
 
 London, 7th October, 181 5. 
 Sir: 
 
 The Envoy of Wiirtemberg ^ at this court has addressed 
 to me a letter, requesting Information concerning a person 
 named Guber,^ a native of that country, stated to have set- 
 tled and died in the state of Virginia. I have the honor to 
 Inclose copies of these papers, together with those mentioned 
 in my last from the Austrian charge d'aflFalres, and of my 
 answers to both these applications. I likewise transmit a 
 copy of the letter that I have written to Lord Bathurst con- 
 cerning the slaves taken from Mr. Downman. 
 
 ^ Count Beroldingen. 
 ' G. F. Guber. 
 
404 
 
 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 Mr. Elias Van der Horst, heretofore Consul of the United 
 States at Bristol, has written to inform me that in considera- 
 tion of his advanced age and the infirm state of health he 
 has determined to decline a reappointment to that ofhce. 
 Mr. Robert W. Fox, formerly Consul at Falmouth, informs 
 me that he has been appointed as consul at that port and 
 its dependencies, and that agreeably to directions from the 
 United States he has appointed his nephew, Thomas Were 
 Fox, to be consular agent at Plymouth. 
 
 I have heard nothing yet from Mr. Bagot concerning the 
 period of his departure, but it is stated that the Niger frigate 
 has been ordered to be fitted up to take him and his family 
 to the United States. Perhaps his final instructions may 
 not be made up until after the return of Lord Castlereagh 
 from Paris. This cannot be much longer delayed, as the 
 treaty which settles for the present the fate of France has 
 been completed, and the allied sovereigns have all left Paris. 
 That this treaty is equally burdensome and humiliating to 
 France is universally understood. The meeting of the legis- 
 lative assemblies has been protracted from the 25 of last 
 month to this day. It appears that a new embassy from 
 this country to China is in contemplation. You have doubt- 
 less been made fully acquainted with the displeasure given 
 to the Chinese government by the outrageous proceedings 
 of some of the British ships of war against American vessels 
 within that jurisdiction. 
 
 The newspapers state that very recent instructions have 
 been sent to Lord Exmouth, to remain in the Mediterranean 
 until entire tranquillity shall be established in that quarter, 
 and then to return leaving the command with Admiral Pen- 
 rose. A packet from Malta just arrived left Admiral Pen- 
 rose in the Queen, and also the American squadron about 
 the middle of September at Messina. I have heretofore in- 
 
isisi JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 405 
 
 timated to you certain indications of the turn which the 
 political opinions of the party in opposition to the ministry 
 are taking in regard to the relations between this country 
 and America. In the numbers of the Morning Chronicle 
 which I send with this letter there is an elaborate discussion 
 of the commercial convention lately concluded, with an 
 attempt to prove that it is in every part disadvantageous to 
 Great Britain and favorable to the United States. It not 
 only censures the two articles which are in the treaty, but 
 arguing upon an erroneous statement that it contains another 
 article excluding the British from all trade with the Indians 
 within the jurisdiction of the United States, it comments 
 with much severity upon that. I am persuaded that the 
 same sentiments on the subject of this convention will be 
 maintained by the opposition party at the next session of 
 Parliament. Their motives cannot be mistaken. For not- 
 withstanding their own policy towards America has generally 
 been more liberal than that of the present ministers, they 
 would upon party principle be glad to see the ministers em- 
 broiled in a new quarrel with America, and at the same time 
 they wish to recommend themselves to that feeling of antip- 
 athy against the Americans which prevails throughout this 
 nation, and which their dissatisfaction, both with the con- 
 duct and the termination of the late war, has greatly ag- 
 gravated. Their exclusion from the Indian trade, though 
 not formally stipulated in the convention, must be admitted 
 by the ministry, because they advanced no pretension to it 
 but by an article for authorizing it, which they could not 
 obtain. The opposition, like the writer in the Morning 
 Chronicle, will expatiate upon the immense importance of 
 the fur trade, and I suppose the ministers will defend them- 
 selves by opposing to it our exclusion from the coast fisheries. 
 There is on the other hand in the Morning Chronicle of 
 
4o6 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 21 September an article respecting the Floridas, certainly 
 not from the same pen as the commentaries upon the con- 
 vention, but proceeding nevertheless from the same party. 
 No notice of either of them has been taken by the ministerial 
 daily journals, excepting a short article in the Courier of last 
 evening; nor of the exposition of which I inclose you a copy 
 of the seventh edition, printed in London. You are well 
 aware that silence is one of the expedients of all the party 
 newspapers in this country, and that there may be a strong 
 sensation operating upon the public without any symptom 
 of it appearing in them. 
 I am etc. 
 
 TO EARL BATHURST 
 
 25 Charles Street, Westminster, 
 
 7 October, 18 15. 
 My Lord: 
 
 The documents of which I have the honor of inclosing to 
 your Lordship copies have been transmitted to me from the 
 government of the United States, with instructions to apply 
 to that of His Majesty for the restitution of the slaves re- 
 ferred to in them, or for indemnity to their proprietor, 
 Raleigh W. Downman, for the loss of them. ,, 
 
 In the cases which I have heretofore presented to the con- 
 sideration of His Majesty's government, and concerning 
 which I am yet waiting for the honor of an answer, I have 
 deemed it sufficient to state in support of the documents 
 furnished the simple fact of taking and carrying away of the 
 slaves, and the appeal to the plain and explicit stipulation 
 in the treaty of Ghent which has been thereby violated. 
 But in addition to these grounds of claim it cannot escape 
 
i8is] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 407 
 
 your Lordship's discernment that in the present case there 
 are circumstances which entitle it to peculiar regard, inde- 
 pendent of the engagement in the treaty — these slaves having 
 been taken and carried away by a British officer, while him- 
 self under the special and solemn protection of a flag of 
 truce. The transaction therefore was in the nature of a 
 breach of parole, marked not only with the exceptional 
 characters of depredation upon private property, but with 
 the disregard of that sacred pledge of peace which is tacitly 
 universally understood to be given by the assumption of a 
 flag of truce. To prescribe the restitution of property thus 
 captured, no express stipulation could be necessary. Yet 
 the stipulation of the treaty applies likewise to the present 
 claim in all its force. I am induced to hope it will meet with 
 the immediate attention of His Majesty's government. 
 I am etc. 
 
 TO JOHN ADAMS 
 
 Boston House, Ealing, 9 October, 18 15. 
 My Dear Sir: 
 
 Your favors of 27, 28, and 30 August, were all received 
 together. They as well as your preceding letters express so 
 much uneasiness for me, and on my account, that I wish it 
 were in my power to tranquillize your feelings. Aware as I 
 am of the heavy responsibility of my present situation, and 
 diffident as I ought to be of my own fitness for it, I have 
 certainly seen times and gone through emergencies, more 
 painful and more distressing than any of those which now 
 embarrass and perplex me. Now, indeed, incedo per ignes sup- 
 positos cineri doloso. I am well aware that the most formi- 
 dable dangers are those that I cannot see. But my vigilance 
 is not asleep, neither has that portion of industry to which 
 
4o8 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 I have been long habituated deserted me. That there is 
 nothing to be obtained here, I am fully convinced. That 
 they now strongly grudge what they have conceded, is like- 
 wise evident. The commercial convention as you remark 
 was a "temporary expedient to keep the world along;" and 
 I fear the sentence is too prophetical, that "this tranquillity 
 will be of short duration." I must be content to say, like 
 Hezekiah, "Is it not good, if peace be in my days".'" Our 
 country now enjoys the blessing of peace, and although the 
 period may be not far distant when she will again be called 
 to defend her rights by force of arms, there is yet reason to 
 hope that she will enter upon the field under more favorable 
 auspices than she was compelled to do in the late war. So 
 far as human foresight can anticipate, there is no danger of 
 a new war from the causes which produced the last. With a 
 navy reduced to the peace establishment, and with a hun- 
 dred thousand sailors upon her hands more than she can 
 employ, Britain is not likely to have any occasion very soon 
 for the services of a press-gang for a European war. As 
 little will she need Orders in Council and paper blockades 
 to destroy neutral commerce. But the Canadian boundary, 
 the fur trade, the fisheries, the commercial intercourse with 
 the East and West Indies, the Floridas, and a general com- 
 mercial competition all over the world, are already produc- 
 ing collisions, which in the temper of the two nations towards 
 each other, it is not to be expected will leave them long at 
 peace. But as the interests for which it will be necessary 
 for us to contend will be almost exclusively those of the 
 northern and eastern sections of the Union, I hope and trust 
 that the government of the United States will take special 
 care, not to get involved in a new war, without being certain 
 of the support and cooperation of those for whom it must 
 be waged. Upon the question concerning the right to the 
 
i8i5l JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 409 
 
 coast fisheries, the two governments are already at issue. 
 You know that our fishermen have been excluded the present 
 season, and the British government has formally notified to 
 ours their determination to exclude us from them in future. 
 I have, under instructions from the Secretary of State, ad- 
 dressed a letter on the subject to Lord Bathurst, asserting 
 our right and supporting it to the utmost of my power. As 
 yet I have received no answer to it; but from the conversa- 
 tion which I previously had with Lord Bathurst I know that 
 the determination here upon that point is irrevocable. 
 Nothing therefore will remain for us, but to maintain the 
 right as it is contested — by force; but I have purposely 
 written the letter in such a manner as to leave the American 
 government and nation the choice of the time when they 
 may deem it expedient to apply force to the support of their 
 right. The commercial convention contains only two articles 
 of any importance; one mutually abolishing what were 
 called the discriminating duties; and the other stipulating 
 the admission of American commercial vessels at the four 
 principal British settlements in the East Indies. The dura- 
 tion of the convention is to be only four years from the time 
 of the signature; but at this very moment an attempt is 
 making to excite a clamor against the ministers for having 
 assented even to those two articles. You will not be sur- 
 prised that this attempt proceeds from the opposition, and 
 that the Adorning Chronicle is the vehicle by which it is 
 made. The loss by the British of the privilege of trading 
 with the Indians within our jurisdiction, and the loss of the 
 fur trade which they foresee as the consequence that must 
 result from it, is another source of heartburning and of 
 discontent which will breed much ill blood here. It has 
 already been the cause of the Indian war which we are now 
 obliged to sustain, and which I hope our government will 
 
4IO THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 see the necessity of terminating in the most effectual 
 manner. 
 
 On the subject of our intercourse with the West Indies 
 the British plenipotentiaries, with whom we negotiated the 
 commercial convention, would not even listen to us. From | 
 the first moment they declined all discussion about it. The 
 system of universal exclusion was already established, and 
 not one particle from it would they swerve. They extended 
 it likewise in all its rigor to their provinces in North America, 
 and refused to allow us even the privilege of carrying in 
 boats down to the St. Lawrence and to Montreal our own 
 produce, for exportation thence in their ships to Europe. 
 One consequence of this rigor you will find in the newspaper 
 inclosed. The council and assembly of the island of Antigua 
 are deliberating upon the distressed state of the colony, and 
 their joint committee report that it is all owing to this total 
 exclusion of American vessels from the island. Other colonies 
 will undoubtedly suffer in like manner from the same cause. 
 But the sufferings of the colonies are the gain of the West 
 India merchants, whose influence with the government 
 will always overpower that of the planters, and the more 
 certainly, because combining with the jealousies and fears 
 and prejudices always operating against the United States. 
 
 Nothing can however be more clear in my mind than our 
 interest and policy to avoid as long as possible a new war 
 with England. How long it will be possible I know not; for , 
 the problem is now to be decided whether this country can 
 exist in peace, and if, as is very possible, their government 
 should find that it cannot, the danger is that they will plunge 
 the nation headlong into a war with us, because it is against 
 us only that they will be able to stimulate the national pas- 
 sions to the tone of war. It is a singular symptom that the | 
 state of peace has brought a very oppressive burden upon ll 
 
i8is] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 411 
 
 the farmers and landholders of the country. The price of 
 wheat, and consequently of bread, has fallen within these 
 two years more than one-third. The value of land has 
 fallen at least in the same proportion. Rents are coming 
 down in the same manner, but the taxes are not reduced. 
 The farmers, however, become more and more unable to 
 pay them, and unless something should occur to restore the 
 prices to the level of the former years, the landed and the 
 funded interests of the kingdom will be brought into such 
 a state of opposition against each other, as to threaten the 
 tranquillity of the nation. 
 
 On the side of France they have henceforth forward 
 nothing to fear. The elements of civil society in that country 
 are dissolved. For the price of two or three provinces, and 
 of all her important fortresses, the Bourbons are to be saddled 
 upon the remnant of that wretched people, and to be main- 
 tained by an army of two or three hundred thousand foreign 
 soldiers, fed upon their vitals. Partial insurrections must 
 inevitably be the consequence of this state of things; but 
 the internal war of interests and passions will render any 
 general and united effort impossible. Every struggle for 
 deliverance will be smothered in blood, and be made the 
 pretext for new spoliations and partitions. France is irre- 
 trievably lost, unless she can produce another Joan of Arc. 
 You will have more reason than ever to say that the wars 
 of the Reformation still continue, when you learn the late 
 massacres of the Protestants, under the auspices of the 
 Duke and Duchess of Angouleme. You will have many of 
 the miserable fugitives from that persecution in America, 
 and may they find there a country where St. Bartholomew 
 butcheries are not in honor and in fashion. 
 
 Let me hope that in our country religious controversy will 
 not extend beyond the consumption of paper. I think the 
 
412 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 first time I ever saw Dr. Morse was in a pulpit at an ordina- 
 tion, addressing a prayer to the triune God. It seems he is 
 steady to the faith. As he and the Boston rebel are both 
 members of the corporation, I wish they would agree to hold 
 a forensic dissertation on a commencement day, upon the 
 question which of the two, Athanasius or Socinus, was the 
 greater man. I wrote you some time ago how my belief 
 inclined upon this question. But I have no desire to make 
 converts, because I believe that a sincere Socinian may be 
 saved, and that a very honest and intelligent man may be a 
 Socinian. There is something of this dispute rumbling also 
 here; but the Unitarians are losing ground. They will 
 never, probably, become the prevailing sect of Christians, 
 for the plain reason that when you are going down a steep 
 hill, the nearer you are to the bottom the harder it is to stop. 
 
 I will send you Tucker's Light of Nature by the first op- 
 portunity, but they ask nine guineas for the six volumes of 
 Brucker. If you wish to have it at that price, be kind enough 
 to let me know. I have hesitation, because I was not certain 
 that you meant to order it. 
 
 I am etc. 
 
 TO JONATHAN RUSSELL 
 
 Boston House, Ealing near London, 
 
 10 October, 18 15. 
 My Dear Sir: 
 
 I ought to begin by apologizing to you for the length of 
 time that I have suffered to elapse since our parting at the 
 door of the Gobelins, where we had seen them so busy weav- 
 ing the glories of Napoleon, without writing to you. But our 
 visit to the Catacombs cost me a cold and cough which was 
 for some weeks In a fair way of making me a candidate for 
 
i8i5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 413 
 
 permanent admission to them; and the interruptions of the 
 communications between France and Germany from the 
 time of your departure until my own made it impossible to 
 transmit a letter to you. 
 li I waited at Paris until the loth May for orders from home, 
 and then received a letter from the Secretary of State di- 
 recting me to come to London, with information that I 
 should find a commission here. I left Paris on the i6th and, 
 meeting some days detention at Havre, only reached London 
 the 25th of May. Here I found my two eldest sons who had 
 just arrived from the United States, and with them an ac- 
 cumulated correspondence from America of nearly a whole 
 year. I also found Messrs. Clay and Gallatin somewhat 
 advanced in the negotiation of a treaty of commerce with 
 this government. They were doubtful whether it would 
 eventually come to anything, and were proposing from day 
 to day to leave London and embark in the NepHme which 
 was at Plymouth, with Mr. Bayard on board, too ill to be 
 landed, and whither Mr. Crawford was already gone when 
 I arrived in England. The Neptune finally sailed on the 
 i8th June, leaving Messrs. Clay and Gallatin behind, and 
 Todd also, who got the information of her departure as he 
 was stepping into the coach to go and join her at Plymouth. 
 He had lost his passage in her from Havre to Plymouth in the 
 same manner. As to the commercial treaty the Ministers 
 here seemed to proceed reluctantly, and to have consented 
 to a negotiation only to avoid the discourteous alternative 
 of a flat refusal. In the preliminary conferences held before 
 my arrival they had manifested a strong disinclination to 
 treat upon any of the political articles, such as impressment 
 and blockade; they had closed the door against all discussion 
 about trade to their possessions in the West Indies, but they 
 were willing to stipulate for a mutual abolition of discriminat- 
 
414 THE WRITINGS OF [iSij 
 
 ing duties, and they had been more liberal in their professions 
 relative to the East India trade than we found them when we 
 came to sign and seal — at least so they had been understood 
 by Mr. Clay and Mr. Gallatin. For they had agreed to admit I 
 us to the trade to their possessions in India direct and indirect 
 without any equivalent. They had, however, said loosely i 
 something about expecting some reciprocal accommodation 
 from the United States in another part of the treaty — "for i 
 instance in the fur trade.^' But they had named that only 
 as an example, without apparently caring much about it, j 
 and they had immediately been told, that if by that they i 
 meant the trade with the Indians within our jurisdiction, we : 
 were expressly instructed against that, and that the instruc- 
 tions were given not upon commercial but political consid- ■; 
 erations. The British plenipotentiaries appointed were the :i 
 Vice President of the Board of Trade, with Mr. Goulburn i! 
 and Dr. Adams. When we entered formally upon the busi- i 
 ness with them, we found them less complying than their : 
 previous conversation had led my colleagues to expect. All I' 
 the political articles were at once discarded, for it was fore- : 
 seen that if an ultimate agreement upon any of them could i: 
 have been accomplished, it was impossible without a length 
 and latitude of discussion which the time of Messrs. Clay and i 
 Gallatin would not allow. With respect to the abolition of i; 
 discriminating duties we had little difficulty. But upon that i 
 point no treaty was necessary. The principle had been of- i 
 fered on our part by an act of Congress passed at the last ' 
 session. An act of Parliament would have made it the law 
 of both countries as effectually as a treaty. We offered an 
 article respecting our intercourse with the British colonies ( 
 on the continent of North America, but we found we could 
 not agree upon that point; for they wanted a free and un- 
 limited intercourse by land with our territories, and would i 
 
i8i5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 415 
 
 not allow us in return to carry our own produce In our own 
 boats even to Montreal. Thus we split upon that point. It 
 was a miracle that we did not split upon the East India ar- 
 ticle. For they insisted most pertinaciously upon their 
 equivalent, or rather upon an equivalent; for they abandoned 
 completely and formally all pretension to a right of trading 
 with the Indians within our jurisdiction. On our part we 
 resisted all claim to an equivalent for a trade which, we said, 
 carried its own equivalent with it. I was for my own part 
 perfectly willing to leave it as it stood, being fully convinced 
 that they would not prohibit a trade so beneficial and, in- 
 deed, so necessary to themselves. They at first refused to 
 agree to the article without the equivalent. We then pro- 
 posed an article putting us merely on the footing of the most 
 favored nation. But this they refused, because they said 
 they did allow the nations having possessions in India them- 
 selves to trade with theirs. We at last put the bargain into 
 ■their own hands, offering to sign the convention upon the 
 single article about discriminating duties, or to take it with 
 ■the East India trade for four years. Even in accepting this 
 they shortened the term of four years, by making them run 
 from the time of the signature instead of that of the rati- 
 ifications. Now the only thing of any value that we obtained 
 iby this convention, as I thought, was a formality. I had 
 received a rap on the knuckles from home about the Ghent 
 ■ treaty, for that the American plenipotentiaries had signed 
 their names under those of the British, and for that the King 
 of Great Britain was named before the United States in all 
 the copies of the treaty. So we determined it should not be 
 so again. The alternative was therefore strictly maintained 
 in naming the parties. In our copy the United States were 
 constantly named first, as his Britannic Majesty was in 
 their copy. The signatures were in parallel lines, and those 
 
4i6 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 of each party at the left hand in his own copy. There was 
 some little manoeuvring on the other side to avoid all this, 
 but the usage among all the European powers in all their 
 treaties was too universal and too notorious to be contested; 
 and when we stated the necessity of conforming to it, the 
 British plenipotentiaries acquiesced without more objection 
 than barely to show that they yielded even that with re- 
 luctance. Two or three commonplace articles about con- 
 suls, and universal peace, and the like, were added and the 
 convention in five articles for four years was signed on the 
 3rd July. But as if it was decreed that the British were never 
 to make a bargain with us but with a formal and avowed 
 determination to break it, Lord Bathurst has sent me an 
 official circular notification that the allies have determined 
 that ^''General Napoleon Bonaparte'^ shall be kept in custody 
 at the island of St. Helena, and that all foreign vessels are to 
 be excluded from the island while he shall be so kept. In 
 the convention St. Helena had been named as a place where 
 our vessels should be allowed to touch for refreshment. 
 These details respecting the convention are already so tedious 
 that I will not trouble you with my own separate discussions 
 here since it was completed. The negroes, the Indians, and 
 the fisheries are all breeding subjects, and what they may 
 finally breed I shall leave for your conjecture. I sent you 
 nearly a month since a letter from Commodore Decatur, , 
 which I concluded was a copy of his circular of 1 1 July. My ' 
 first impression of the peace with Algiers was unfavorable. 
 I was something of Sir John Falstaff's mind, "I did not like • 
 that paying back.'' The gallant Commodore says nothing; 
 of it in his circular, and he has in a great measure reconciled I 
 me to his treaty. Last evening I received a letter from Mr. . 
 Jackson ^ at Paris, inclosing a copy of one dated 31 August I 
 
 1 Henry Jackson, American charge d'affaires. 
 
. J JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 417 
 
 from Mr. Jones, our Consul at Tripoli, to Mr. Cathalan at 
 Marseilles. Bainbridge was then in the Mediterranean in 
 the Independence, with upwards of 20 sail under his com- 
 mand, and they have carried it with as high a hand with 
 Tunis and Tripoli as with Algiers. Half the squadron is to 
 remain in the Mediterranean to preserve the good faith of 
 the Barbary powers, which without some such guaranty the 
 total abolition of tribute and presents might be apt to 
 stagger. 
 
 They are settling the affairs of France much to the satis- 
 faction of the people here. They say that Louis le Desire 
 has taken a Russian ministry, but notwithstanding the pro- 
 tection of Alexander, they have dismembered the kingdom of 
 his protege. Alexander proclaimed principles, but he finished 
 by listening to expedients. The poor Musee Napoleon. It 
 was a pitiful robbery in the French to take these baubles, and 
 now it is pitiful robbery in the magnanimous allies to take 
 them in their turn. I speak it with due submission to all 
 the heroic robbers of all parties. It is all a bagatelle, though 
 I dare say the French had rather part with Alsace than with 
 the Apollo, and will disgorge Lorraine more readily than the 
 Laocoon. 
 
 I have barely space left to request you to present my kind 
 remembrance to Mr. Lawrence ^ and to believe me ever your 
 friend, etc.^ 
 
 ^ John L. Lawrence, secretary of legation at Stockholm. 
 
 * Russell's reply is in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings, XLIV. 327. 
 
41 8 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 , 
 
 TO JOHN ADAMS » 
 
 Boston House, Ealing, 24 November, 181 5. 
 My Dear Sir: 
 
 Colonel Aspinwall,^ who arrived here a few days since 
 and delivered to me your two kind favors of October 13th, 
 informs me that he had the pleasure of seeing you at that 
 time, and that you were then suffering with an inflamma- 
 tion of the eyes. Nearly at the same time my own eyes, 
 which have long been very weak, were afflicted with so 
 violent an inflammation as to threaten little less than a total 
 extinction of the sight. It has now partially subsided, but 
 has left them still so weak that I am in a great degree yet 
 unable either to read or write without assistance. I am 
 therefore obliged to employ the eyes and hands of my best 
 friend to answer your letter. 
 
 Mr. John C. Gray and Mr. Reynolds, who were fellow 
 passengers with Colonel Aspinwall in the Galen, have also 
 delivered the letters which you entrusted to them. Since 
 our removal to this distance from the city, and more par- 
 ticularly since I have been so much confined by my indisposi- 
 tion, I have been still more unable to see and to pay proper 
 attention to my countrymen who bring letters of introduc- 
 tion to me from my friends than before. 
 
 As to the economical system of our government, which 
 proves so strong a bar to the hospitality of their ministers 
 abroad, I have never been disposed to complain of it when 
 I have known the terms upon which they chose to be served, 
 and have had the option of accepting or declining them; 
 but from the time when I was ordered to repair from Russia 
 
 ^ The letter is in the writing of Mrs. Adams. 
 
 2 Thomas Aspinwall (1786-1876), United States Consul at London, 1815-1853. 
 
i8is] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 419 
 
 to Gothenburg upon the pacific negotiation until this day, 
 I have not enjoyed even that privilege. I am left In uncer- 
 tainty whether the extraordinary and very heavy expenses 
 forced upon me by the necessary duties of that service will 
 be allowed me, and even whether an outfit upon this present 
 mission will be denied me. Under these circumstances I 
 have been compelled to ask a decision which may relieve 
 me from the embarrassment brought upon me by this ex- 
 traordinary course of proceeding. I am waiting for an 
 answer to my repeated solicitations upon this subject, and 
 unless the allowances are made to which I consider myself 
 in rigorous justice entitled, I hope at an early period to be 
 replaced in this mission, and to return to my native country 
 the ensuing spring. 
 
 Your account of the review of the first division of Mas- 
 sachusetts militia has given me pleasure. I wish for the 
 credit of my beloved country that the Massachusetts militia 
 bad shown itself to more advantage at the time, when there 
 ivas something more to be gone through than the operations 
 Df a review. The navy proved Itself the friend in need; but 
 the militia, with a commander-in-chief who looked across 
 :he Atlantic for the bulwark of our holy religion, hardly 
 nade good its title to wear an American uniform. 
 
 I will write you again as soon as I shall have the use of 
 ny eyes. The boys are all at school, and George studies 
 jreek to your heart's content. 
 
 Yours etc. 
 
420 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 TO SILVANUS BOURNE 
 
 London, 28 November, 181 5. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 I have recently received your favor of the 1 0th Instant. 
 The annual expense of educating a youth at Harvard Uni- 
 versity cannot, I think, be estimated at less than three hun- 
 dred dollars, and with proper economy will not much exceed 
 that sum. The character of the establishment is at this ; 
 time very high, and the number of the students greater than 
 it has ever been before. The foundations of several new ' 
 professorships have been recently added to the previous \ 
 institutions, and several important benefactions have con- • 
 tributed to enlarge the sphere of usefulness of that seminary. . 
 
 I am not certain that I perfectly understand the object : 
 of your request for a list of the authors in various branches 5_ 
 of literature to which I might think it would be advisable.' 
 to your son to give his attention, whether you were desirous 3 
 of having a list of the books which are studied at the college, , 
 or of those which may be used as subsidiary to the exercises i 
 of the class. The students at Harvard are now so closely 
 plied with exercises that those of them who enter heartily 
 into the pursuit are sufficiently occupied with the books thatt 
 are put into their hands, and have not much leisure left forr 
 further other voluntary and excursive studies. The choice^' 
 of authors whom I should recommend to the perusal of ai 
 young man would depend very much upon his own turn of 
 mind, upon his taste and inclination. If he be of a studious 
 turn I should say, with the adviser of such a young gentle- 
 man in Shakespeare, "study what you most affect." If 
 his taste were my own, I would refer him to the advice of 
 Horace : 
 
i8is] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 421 
 
 Vos exemplaria Graeca 
 Nocturna versate manu, versate diurna.^ 
 
 The classics, Greek and Roman, would absorb so great a 
 portion of his leisure that for the remainder he might freely 
 follow his own inclination in the selection of the writers in 
 the modern languages whom he might choose to place in 
 company with them. For the studies of mathematics, 
 natural and experimental philosophy, metaphysics and 
 polite literature, the best books are the school books. A 
 student in the law school should, indeed, have a broad foun- 
 dation laid in the principles of moral philosophy. Watts' 
 Logic and Locke's Treatise on the Human Understanding are 
 class books at Harvard University. After they have been 
 properly mastered I should advise the perusal of all the 
 writings of Plato and of the philosophical treatises of Cicero. 
 His rhetorical writings and all his orations are no less essen- 
 tial to form that combination of reasoning, of persuasion, 
 and of elegant composition, which alone can constitute an 
 accomplished lawyer. I say nothing of the black-letter sages 
 which must fill their places in the head as well as upon the 
 shelves of the practical counsellor and attorney, characters 
 which in our country are usually combined in the same per- 
 son. The common and the statute law present of themselves 
 a library to the examination and meditation of the student 
 
 ■ capable of appalling the student heart and of extinguishing 
 the most ardent thirst for science. These, however, are not 
 to be encountered until after the collegiate career is con- 
 cluded, and are neither necessary nor useful, except to per- 
 sons destined to the law as a practical profession. The prin- 
 
 \ cipal writers on the subject of general and national law are 
 \ \ Grotius, PuflFendorfF, Cumberland, Barbeyrac, and Montes- 
 
 ' De Arte Poetica. 
 
i 
 
 422 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 ill 
 
 quieu, Burlamaqui, Vattel, Ward, and Martens. The sub- 
 ject Is more comprehensively and more scientifically treated 
 by Wolf than by any of them, but his work has never been 
 translated from the Latin in which it was written, and al- 
 though perhaps the most valuable of them all to be con- 
 sulted for the clear and systematic deduction of principles, 
 yet from the abstruse and almost mathematical form which 
 he has adopted, it has been consigned to almost total ob- 
 livion; while his plagiary, Vattel, has become in a manner a 
 manual for statesmen and diplomatists. The collections of 
 treaties, ancient and modern, are so numerous and so volu- 
 minous that I scarcely know how to distinguish any of them 
 by a special recommendation. The modern collections can 
 alone be of much use for a man of business in any practical 
 line of life. There is one in French by Martens, and two 
 English ones, which go by the names of Jenklnson and 
 Chalmers. They contain only a few treaties to which Great 
 Britain was a party, but they are remarkable by a discourse 
 upon the conduct of Great Britain towards neutral powers, 
 written by the Lord Liverpool, and endeavoring to justify 
 some of the numerous Injustices in which the varying policy 
 of the British government has involved this nation in Its 
 relations with the rest of the world. A more particular 
 answer to your inquiries might run this letter into a book- 
 seller's catalogue; but there Is one book which I would rec- 
 ommend to your son, and which may serve as a substitute 
 for any further detail from me; It Is Tablettes Chronologiques 
 of Lenglet-Dufresnoy ^ in two volumes. It contains among 
 other things a list of the books necessary for the study of 
 history and in the preliminary discourse, a very precise cal- 
 culation of the number of days necessary to be devoted to 
 the perusal of them. 
 
 1 Nicolas Lenglet du Fresnoy. 
 
isiil JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 423 
 
 The collection of books recommended hy him relates 
 only to history, and if your son in reading it over should be 
 alarmed at the multitude of authors which it brings to 
 view, and in utter consternation in reflecting that these in- 
 numerable volumes form but a small part of the writers of a 
 single branch of polite literature, he may perhaps derive 
 from it the useful and consolatory lesson of circumscribing 
 his desires and limiting his ambition even in the pursuit of 
 science. I am etc. 
 
 TO WILLIAM EUSTIS 
 
 London, 29 November, 181 5. 
 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 I duly received your obliging favor of the 8th September 
 by Mr. Langdon, a reply to which was at first delayed by 
 the information of your expedition to Bruxelles to attend 
 the inauguration, and afterwards by an inflammation in my 
 eyes which seriously threatened me with the loss of one of 
 them, and from which I am not yet entirely recovered. 
 Nothing, however, of material importance has occurred in 
 the interval. A number of very ridiculous reports are from 
 time to time circulated here to keep up the impression of a 
 speedy renewal of hostilities between the United States and 
 this country; but although the disposition on both sides is 
 nothing else than friendly, and by no means so pacific as I 
 could wish; and although occurrences of an Irritating nature 
 have taken place and others may be yet expected, I willingly 
 persuade myself that the prospects of peace between the 
 two countries are more favorable than they were when I 
 wrote you last. Colonel NIcholls' treaty, offensive and defen- 
 sive, with the Creek Indians has been explicitly, though only 
 
424 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 verbally, disavowed. Captain Lock's warning to our coast 
 fishermen not to approach within sixty miles of the shores 
 of the British possessions has also been disavowed, but the 
 determination to deprive us of the coast fishery is asserted 
 in a manner so peremptory that I think no other resource 
 will be left for maintaining our right to it than that to which 
 you say that New England will resort, and is of herself com- 
 petent. It has been stated not to have been the intention to 
 disturb our fishermen the present year, and excepting in the 
 case of the warning in which the ofiicer so far transcended 
 his authority, as I am assured, they have, I believe, not been 
 interrupted; but we are to beware of the next summer, and 
 hereafter, if we intend to hold our right as valid, we must be 
 prepared to maintain it by force. Early In the course of the 
 summer the British government determined to maintain 
 and to increase their naval armaments on the Canadian 
 lakes. This very significant measure appears to have been 
 understood by our government, who have properly taken 
 the hint and determined upon corresponding armaments on 
 our side. I have no official notice from this quarter that 
 any umbrage has been taken at this course of proceeding, 
 but the ministerial papers have expressed great dissatisfac- 
 tion with it, and are highly incensed that the Americans 
 should presume to have armed merely because the British 
 had begun to arm before them; since it must be self-evident 
 that the British armaments could be destined to no other 
 purposes than those of defence. I hope nevertheless that 
 we shall be permitted to enjoy a few years of tranquillity, 
 as the state of our finances most particularly requires. The 
 extent of the disorder in which they were unhappily in- 
 volved is but too fully disclosed by the length of time which 
 has already elapsed since the peace, without affording them 
 the relief which it was expected they would derive from that 
 
i8is] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 425 
 
 event. I dare say you have had from the managers of our 
 money concerns at Amsterdam more than one serious ad- 
 monition of the heavy pressure upon them there. It is only 
 within these few days that I have been gratified with the 
 information that remittances are making from the Treasury 
 sufficient to cover all the arrears, and to provide for the 
 demands which will accrue at the commencement of the 
 year for the interest of the Louisiana loan, both here and in 
 Holland. The Secretary of the Treasury expresses the fullest 
 confidence that no further arrears will arise, and no further 
 embarrassments be experienced to provide in ample time 
 for the future payments; but I am concerned to see that our 
 six per cent stocks have been very recently sold here for 
 eighty-four per cent, and I have observed in a Boston news- 
 paper of the 13 October, that Treasury bills had been sold 
 there the day before at public auction for eighty-seven and 
 five-eighths. One great cause of the diflftculties of the govern- 
 ment has been the very improper protracted suspension of 
 specie payments by all the southern banks, an evil of which 
 I am afraid the termination is not yet at hand. Colonel As- 
 pinwall arrived here a few days ago with a commission of 
 consul for the port of London, which will be much more 
 likely to ruin than to make his fortune. I cannot but hope 
 the government will make some other provision for him. 
 I am etc. 
 
426 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 TO WILLIAM SHALER ' 
 
 London, 29 November, 18 15. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 I have had the pleasure of receiving your favors of 28 July 
 and of 26 September last, the latter of which mentions that 
 you had twice written me before from Algiers. One of those 
 letters, therefore, has not reached me. I feel myself greatly 
 obliged to you for the valuable information in those which 
 I have received, which would both have been earlier answered 
 had I known through what channel a letter could be safely 
 conveyed to you. Your letters have given me a confidence 
 in the permanency of our peace with Algiers, of which the 
 very honorable terms of the treaty which you had concluded 
 had left me somewhat distrustful. I was apprehensive that 
 a treaty expressly founded on the principle of exemption 
 from tribute in every shape would require some sanction 
 more powerful than the mere signature or promise of a 
 Barbary chieftain. The presents stipulated in our former 
 treaty served at least as a guaranty for its continuance, 
 laid in the interest of the other party; and after the formal 
 exclusion of this motive for good faith, it seemed important 
 that some other sanction should be discovered as substitute 
 for it, and this, I thought, could be found only in our energy 
 or in their weakness. From the very particular statement 
 you have given of the force with which in the event of a re- 
 newed contest we should have to cope, I strongly flatter 
 myself that the interest of fear will operate as a sanction 
 still more durable for the faithful observance of your treaty, 
 than the interest of cupidity proved to be for that of the 
 compact negotiated by Colonel Humphreys and Mr. Bar- 
 
 ^ United States Consul at Algiers. 
 
i8i5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 427 
 
 low. At all events I hope and trust that the great and 
 memorable example given by our transactions in the Mediter- 
 ranean during the present year will serve as the fundamental 
 law for all our relations with the Barbary powers hereafter. 
 I have been informed by a letter from Mr. McCall that 
 Commodores Bainbridge and Decatur, with the squadron 
 under their respective commands, have returned to the 
 United States, and that only two frigates and two sloops of 
 war commanded by Captain Shaw, have been left in the 
 Mediterranean. There is reason to apprehend that the dis- 
 patch vessel by which you sent the treaty with Algiers to 
 America has been lost. It is stated in the last accounts 
 which we have from the United States, at the latter end of 
 October, that she had passed the Straits of Gibraltar on the 
 12 July and had not since then been heard of. Whatever 
 rumors you may have heard of or seen in European papers, 
 and whatever the conversation of the consuls at Algiers may 
 be about speculations of the European powers relative to the 
 Barbary states, you may be confidently assured that if any- 
 thing is ever done resulting from such speculations, it will 
 be in consequence of what the United States have done of 
 the system now first adopted by them, of refusing all further 
 payment of tribute. Should we persevere in this policy and 
 inflexibly maintain it as we ought, I do not despair of wit- 
 nessing as virtuous an indignation against the oppressions 
 and cruelty of the Barbary pirates, and as earnest and evi- 
 dent a zeal for their abolition in this land of liberty, human- 
 ity, and generosity, as we now see operating against the 
 slave trade, and I do not doubt that the same spirit will then 
 be equally eager in urging all other nations to join in the 
 extirpation of this shameful tyranny, and equally ready to 
 arrogate all the merit of exploding it. In this case, as in that 
 of the slave trade, the remarkable feature which will char- 
 
428 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 acterize British exertion will be disinterestedness, and if it 
 be discovered that the American commerce can be freely 
 carried on in the Mediterranean without being subject to the 
 tax of tribute to the pirates, a sudden spasm of philanthropy 
 will immediately seize the British bosom for imparting the 
 same benefits to itself, and perhaps even to the traders of 
 other nations. Let us then hold the Bashaws and the 
 Divans, the Beys and the Deys, stubbornly to the execution 
 of their treaties, and let us hear no more of tribute in any 
 shape. But it is sufficient for us to exempt ourselves from 
 these humiliations, and to leave the commerce of Europe to 
 the protection and policy of its own governments. The final 
 treaties of peace between the allies and France were signed 
 on the 20th instant. Europe is once more in profound and 
 universal peace. How long this state of things is destined to 
 continue is not easily to be foreseen. It is a tranquillity 
 reposing altogether upon the establishment in substance of 
 martial law throughout France, and the armies of all Europe 
 are the conservators of the peace. 
 I am, etc. 
 
 TO JOHN THORNTON KIRKLAND 
 
 Ealing near London, 30 November, 181 5. 
 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 Mr. W. C. Bond,^ sometime in the month of September, 
 delivered to me your obliging favor of the 23 of June, im- 
 mediately after which I accompanied him to Greenwich 
 with the purpose of introducing him to the Astronomer 
 Royal, Mr. Pond.^ It happened, however, unfortunately 
 
 1 William Cranch Bond (1789-1859), astronomer. 
 
 2 John Pond (1767-1836). 
 
i8i5l JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 429 
 
 that this gentleman when we called at the observatory was 
 not at home. I was obliged to return myself the same even- 
 ing to my own house, and Mr. Bond remained at Greenwich 
 with the intention of calling on the Astronomer Royal the 
 same evening, or the next morning, to deliver to him your 
 letter and that of Professor Farrar.^ I have not since that 
 time had the pleasure of seeing or of hearing from Mr. Bond, 
 but I have no doubt but he obtained from Mr. Pond all the 
 information concerning the object of his visit which he could 
 desire. I should have been happy to have given him every 
 other assistance in my power, not only because he came 
 furnished with your recommendation, but because I felt high 
 gratification at the purpose which you have now undertaken 
 of erecting an observatory at Cambridge. If in this, or any 
 other object connected with the venerable institution over 
 which you preside, I can during my residence in this country 
 render you any service whatever, I flatter myself that you 
 will not only freely require it, but that I shall receive every 
 command from you to that effect as a favor. It gave me 
 pleasure to learn that the small parcel of books which I 
 transmitted from St. Petersburg in the year 18 10 and pre- 
 sented for the use of the University were duly received. 
 Count John Potocki's dissertation on chronology is little 
 more than an index to a large and important work which 
 he has not yet published. It contains some new and in- 
 teresting observations, but I am afraid that his professed 
 object of reducing ancient chronology within principles 
 which may include it in the class of the exact sciences must 
 be considered as a desperate undertaking. 
 
 I very cordially unite with you In the hope that the peace 
 which has been restored between the land of our nativity and 
 
 1 John Farrar (1779-1853), Hollis professor of mathematics and natural philoso- 
 phy in Harvard University. 
 
430 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 the land of our forefathers may be equally beneficial and 
 lasting. 
 
 After an unexpected and violent convulsion, all Europe is 
 once more restored to peace. It is, however, hardly to be 
 expected that this will for any length of time be universal. 
 The controversy between ancient establishments and modern 
 opinions, between prejudice and innovation, is far from being 
 settled. At the present moment the struggle of Europe is to 
 return to the politics and the religion of the 15th century. 
 The divine right of kings is reestablished in France under 
 the name of legitimacy and under the guaranty of all the 
 monarchies, and all the armies of Europe; and one of Its 
 first and most natural effects has been the renewal of a St. 
 Bartholomew massacre of Protestants under the auspices of 
 His Most Christian Majesty's authority. The temporal 
 dominion of the Pope, the tender mercies of the Inquisition, 
 and the meek simplicity of the Jesuits, have been restored 
 for the benefit of social order and are flourishing in all their 
 pristine glory. They are protected by the combinations of 
 sovereigns which has at length triumphed over the revolu- 
 tionary principle, and by upwards of a million of soldiers, 
 whose bayonets have dictated the political settlement of 
 European affairs which is now denominated the general 
 peace. But the revolutionary principle, though vanquished. 
 Is not subdued; all the arrangements of the present time are 
 to be supported by a military force alone. In the laws now 
 given to France all the principles of civil liberty and of na- 
 tional Independence are equally trampled under foot. If in 
 these transactions the allies have meted out to France only 
 the same measure which she had dealt to them. If they have 
 only taken an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, they 
 may, perhaps, have some color for pleading the law of re- 
 taliation; but In glutting their vengeance for the wrongs 
 
'iSisl JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 431 
 
 which they have received, can it be doubted that they are 
 laying up stores of wrath for the day of wrath in revenge for 
 those which they are inflicting? In truth the foundation 
 upon which the present peace of Europe is professedly laid 
 is in its nature weak and treacherous. I cannot persuade 
 myself that it will be durable; but whatever may be its fate, 
 I cherish the hope that our own country will not be involved 
 in the vicissitudes of its fortunes. I learn with the highest 
 satisfaction the flourishing condition of our Alma Mater, 
 and remain with great respect and attachment, dear Sir, etc. 
 
 TO ABIGAIL ADAMS 
 
 Ealing near London, 5 December, 181 5. 
 My Dear Mother: 
 
 The only letters that I have had the pleasure of receiving 
 from you since I wrote you last are those of the 6th and 12th 
 of October, both of which came by the Galen. The latest 
 preceding one was dated on the 30th of August, so that I 
 am still waiting for your September letters. Although I 
 have not yet entirely recovered the use of my eyes, and must 
 still write you by the hand of my wife, I have nevertheless 
 perused Mr. Channing's remarks on Dr. Worcester's second 
 letter to him.^ There is at least this advantage attending 
 upon the evils of controversy, that it sharpens the weapons 
 of the combatants and improves their skill. The third 
 pamphlet of Mr. Channing appears to me much superior to 
 anything that I have read of his before, and although I think 
 that both his logic and his learning upon the subject in dis- 
 cussion are yet susceptible of great improvement, yet I am 
 inclined to believe that the continuance of the contest would 
 
 1 Printed in Boston, 1815. 
 
432 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 . 
 
 be the most effectual means of raising him as far above his : 
 present publications as this surpasses his letter to Mr. \ 
 Thacher.^ The charge brought forward in the review of : 
 American Unitarianism against the clergymen styling them- j 
 selves liberal in Boston and its vicinity, was not simply of ' ■> 
 not deviating from the doctrines of the Trinity, but of with- ; 
 holding and in some degree dissembling their real opinions _ 
 upon the subject. Against this charge Mr. Channing was i 
 in his first publication indignant perhaps to excess. That : 
 there was some foundation for it is not only proved by the ; 
 indisputable testimony produced in the Paiioplist, but has^je 
 long been well known personally to me. Mr. Channing very 't 
 forcibly and somewhat angrily disclaims the Unitarianism j 
 of Mr. Belsham and Dr. Priestley. This I have no doubt •: 
 be could very honestly do for himself, but certain it is that [ 
 this very Unitarianism had infected others more than they ' 
 were ever willing to avow, and more than I believe compati- • 
 ble with any system of real Christianity. 
 
 That the Athanasian Trinity is clearly contained in the; 
 Scriptures I have not been able to convince my own mind I 
 beyond a question; but if I must choose between that and I 
 the belief that Christ was a mere man, to be compared with 1 
 Socrates, and must mutilate the New Testament to suit the : 
 critical scruples of Dr. Priestley in order to maintain this ; 
 creed, I have no hesitation in making my choice. I find in 
 the New Testament Jesus Christ accosted in his own pres- 
 ence by one of His disciples as God without disclaiming the : 
 appellation. I see him explicitly declared by at least two 
 other of the Apostles to be God, expressly and repeatedly 
 announced, not only as having existed before the worlds, ■ 
 but as the Creator of the worlds without beginning of days ;; 
 
 1 Letter to S. C. Thacher, on the Aspersions in a laU Number of the Panoplist, on ' 
 the Ministers of Boston. 1815. 
 
i8i5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 
 
 433 
 
 or end of years. I see him named in the great prophecy of 
 Isaiah concerning him the mighty God! and I cannot be en- 
 tirely satisfied to be told that one of the expressions is merely 
 a figure, that another may be an interpolation, and a third 
 is not perhaps correctly translated; nor yet, as I am told 
 by Mr. Channing, that solitary texts collected here and 
 there may be found in the Bible to support any doctrine 
 whatsoever. The texts are too numerous, they are from 
 parts of the Scriptures too diversified, they are sometimes 
 connected by too strong a chain of argument, and the infer- 
 ences from them are to my mind too direct and irresistible, 
 to admit of the explanations which the Unitarians sometimes 
 attempt to give them, or of the evasions by which at others 
 they endeavor to escape from them. It is true the Scriptures 
 do not use the term persons where they countenance the 
 doctrine of the Trinity, and perhaps it may be difficult, 
 perhaps impossible, to give a definition of the term person 
 which shall solve the mystery, or save to human reason the 
 apparent inconsistency of an identity in three and one. But 
 can the Unitarian give a more intelligible definition of the 
 term one as applied to the Deity.'' Is his God infinite.'' Is 
 he omnipresent.'' Is he eternal .f* And if so what precise idea 
 can he form of unity, without bounds or dimensions."* For 
 my part the term one necessarily implies to me the limits or 
 bounds within which that one is included, and beyond which 
 it is not. How then can number be applicable to the idea 
 of God any more than time or space ."• It is therefore as diffi- 
 cult for me to conceive that God should be one, as that he 
 should be three, or three in one. How it can be, I know not; 
 but in either hypothesis the idea of God is to me equally 
 incomprehensible. The question, therefore, is not whether 
 the doctrines of the Trinity be incomprehensible, but whether 
 it be contained in the Scriptures. You say that you are an 
 
434 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 Unitarian according to the creed of Dr. Clarke, and Mr. 
 Channing intimates the same of himself, and of our Hberal 
 Christians in general; now, although I have read the Bible 
 I have not read Dr. Clarke, and therefore will take the sub- 
 stance of his creed as stated by Mr. Channing. He says that 
 "Doctor Clarke believed that the Father alone is the Su- 
 preme God, and that Jesus Christ is not the supreme God, 
 but derived his being and all power and honor from the 
 Father, even from an act of the Father's power and will. 
 He maintains that as the Scriptures have not taught us the 
 manner in which the son derived his existence from the 
 Father, it is presumptuous to affirm that the son was created, 
 or that there was a time when he did not exist. " Now this 
 creed contains as complete an inconsistency as trinity in 
 unity. How could Jesus Christ derive his being from the 
 Father without being created? And if he existed before all 
 time, how could he derive his being at all.'' According to this 
 creed Jesus Christ might exist before he had his being, and 
 Dr. Clarke escapes from the Trinity, only to plunge himself 
 into a contradiction in terms equally unintelligible. 
 
 I hope that if this controversy is to be continued, the dis- 
 cussion will turn more upon the doctrine and run less into 
 personalities. Mr. Channing's great fear seems to be, that 
 the craft is in danger, that the reputation of the liberal 
 clergymen will be impaired, and even that they may perhaps 
 be driven from their pulpits. There is on the Trinitarian 
 side of this contest rather too much acrimony, but in the 
 proposition of a separation of communions between the 
 adherents of the two creeds, I do not perceive the danger to 
 our religious liberties which Mr. Channing and the laymen 1 
 so vehemently dread, nor the advancement of the views of I 
 the church philosophic, which my father intimates in his , 
 letter to Dr. Morse. I am rather inclined to expect that our 
 
isis] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 
 
 435 
 
 liberal clergymen, as they choose to style themselves, will 
 find it necessary to be more explicit in the full avowal of 
 their opinions, and for that purpose to be better prepared 
 to give a reason for the faith that is in them. That above all, 
 they will universally shake off the Unitarianism of Socinus 
 and Priestley, and settle their belief concerning the person 
 and character of Jesus Christ on a firmer and more solid 
 basis than the clod of human mortality. 
 
 I trust that neither you nor my father will think that I 
 am presuming to offer you anything new in support of 
 Athanasianism. My own opinions on this subject have re- 
 sulted solely from the impression of the Scriptures upon my 
 own mind: the very little of controversy that I have read 
 relating to it has rather tended to confirm than weaken that 
 impression. In the management of this controversy I have 
 not had occasion to admire the Christian temper of the op- 
 ponents on either side; if the Trinitarians have always abused 
 of their strength, their adversaries have always been too 
 ready to resort to the artifices of weakness. You will see 
 in the memoirs of the life of Dr. Price ^ that that worthy 
 man was offended with the affectation with which Dr. Priest- 
 ley and his sectaries arrogated to themselves exclusively the 
 appellation of Unitarians. There is certainly something dis- 
 ingenuous in it, inasmuch as it implies that the Trinitarians 
 are not Unitarians, and insinuates that they believe in a 
 plurality of gods. There is something of a similar spirit in 
 the epithet of liberal clergymen which our anti-Trinitarians 
 appear disposed to appropriate to themselves. The same 
 misuse of the term orthodoxy must perhaps be charged upon 
 their antagonists. 
 
 Why is it not possible that Dr. Morse, and Dr. Worcester, 
 VIr. Channing, and Dr. Kirkland, the laymen, and Dr. Free- 
 
 * By William Morgan. 
 
436 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 man, should hold a conversation together, in which the 
 nature of the Deity and of the person and character of 
 Jesus Christ should be discussed, with as much calmness 
 and good humor as the Stoic, the Academic, and the Epi- 
 curean converse upon the nature of the gods in Cicero? 
 
 But enough of theological disputes. Our political dis- 
 sensions, if they are as angry and violent in words as were 
 those of Cicero's time, they are thank Heaven not so san- 
 guinary. It gives me great pleasure to observe that the 
 spirit of party, which during the war had become so virulent 
 and dangerous, has already in so great a degree subsided. 
 In the general character of the elections throughout the 
 country since the peace, there appears to have been little 
 material change; but as the objects of contention which 1 
 threatened the very existence of the union have passed I 
 away, I flatter myself that the spirit of party, however it may' 
 continue to feel the necessity of lashing itself into fury, will 1 
 at least have no attainable objects that can be materially; 
 detrimental to our country. ... 
 
 TO ALEXANDER HILL EVERETT 
 
 London, 6 December, 18 15. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 I have been much edified by the philosophical and benevo- 
 lent reflections which your visit to Bruxelles and the in 
 auguration, or coronation, combined with the field of Water- 
 loo excited in your mind. They appear to me to be fan 
 preferable to the poetical inspiration which Mr, Walterlji 
 Scott found, or at least went to seek, upon the aforesaid field. 
 I have heard and read something before about a week at. 
 
 U 
 
 y 
 
i8is] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 437 
 
 Bruxelles, and a famous tree where the hero who was then 
 bankrupting a nation's gratitude is said to have remained, 
 though not to have reposed, during a part of the first day's 
 action. The ancient sage philosopher in Hudibras could 
 prove, you know, that the world was made of fighting and of 
 love, and I cannot imagine any means so eflfectual for pro- 
 moting your project of perpetual peace as an enactment of 
 an universal law, that the shelter of the tree of Waterloo 
 shall henceforth be exclusively reserved for the Belle Alliance 
 which was sheltered by the tree of Nivelle. 
 
 There was nearly a century ago a poor French abbe named 
 St. Pierre who published in three volumes a project for per- 
 petual peace between the powers of Europe, which he sent 
 to Cardinal Fleury, whose dear delight was peace. The 
 Cardinal's answer to him was, "Vous avez oublie, Monsieur, 
 pour article preliminaire de commencer par envoyer une 
 troupe de missionaires pour disposer le coeur et I'esprit des 
 princes." This little difficulty suggested by the Cardinal 
 still subsists, and if in the pursuit of your plan you should 
 avoid committing the Abbe's error and send your troop of 
 missionaries, there would still be the chance whether they 
 might be all gifted with the power of persuasion sufficient 
 to insure their success; besides the possibility that the mis- 
 sionaries themselves might require a second band of pacific 
 apostles to keep them faithful to their duty. But not to 
 trifle upon so serious a subject: peace on earth and good will 
 to men was proclaimed nearly two thousand years since by 
 one with whose authority no human power is to be compared. 
 It was not only proclaimed, but the means of maintaining 
 it were fully and most explicitly furnished to mankind. 
 This authority is acknowledged and its precepts are recog- 
 nized as obligatory by all those who exhibited the practical 
 comment upon it in the field of Waterloo. It is most em- 
 
438 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 phatically acknowledged by the most Christian personages 
 who are yet commenting on it in the dungeons of the Spanish 
 Inquisition and in the butcheries of Nismes. 
 
 With these results of the Holy War for the preservation of 
 social order and religion yet glaring before me I cannot prom- 
 ise you very speedy success in the laudable purpose of erad- 
 icating the seeds of discord from the human heart. But if 
 in your disappointment you stand in need of consolation, 
 I recommend to your meditations the theory of the ingenious 
 Mr. Malthus. He, perhaps, may prove to your satisfac- 
 tion that the real misfortune of Europe is to be overburdened 
 with population, or if he should fail in that, he may at least 
 convince you that the population of Europe is neither more 
 nor less for such fields as that of Waterloo. The number of 
 officers who gloriously fell upon that memorable day made 
 no chasm in the military establishment of the conquerors. 
 The London Gazette within ten days afterwards filled up all 
 the vacancies which that day had made in the British army, , 
 and Mr. Malthus insists that it is precisely the same with 
 the process of population; that where one mouth is removed, 
 another will immediately be produced to take its place. If 
 this theory be just, you might perhaps find occasion to re- 
 consider the project of perpetual peace, even if it should be 
 practicable; for it would be necessary to take into the account 
 the mass of glory which you would deprive so many heroes 
 of acquiring in exchange for their worthless lives, and also 
 the immense multitudes of little candidates for existence 
 whom you would cruelly debar from the possibility of com- 
 ing into life. It would be a sort of murder of the innocents 
 that would out-Herod Herod. 
 
 I am Informed that in this letter there is a mixture oi 
 solidity and levity which makes it proper to bring it to a 
 conclusion. I have as yet no answer from the government 
 
i8is] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 439 
 
 to the proposal which I made for an exchange which would 
 give me the benefit of your assistance,^ but I have intima- 
 tions from a private source that a different arrangement has 
 been made. I shall regret the circumstance on my own ac- 
 count, though in the present condition of my eyes it will 
 probably be an advantageous one to you. I wrote last week 
 to Mr. Eustis and beg to be remembered kindly to him now, 
 being with the highest regard and esteem, etc. 
 
 TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE 
 
 No. 23. [James Monroe] 
 
 London, 14th December, 181 5. 
 Sir: 
 
 Mr, John A. Smith ^ arrived here on the 9th instant, with 
 a commission as secretary of the legation of the United 
 States at this court. I had not the pleasure of receiving any 
 dispatches from you by him; but the day after his arrival 
 Messrs. Alexander Glennie, Son and Company sent me a 
 letter from Mr. Pleasanton, dated on the 26th of July last, 
 inclosing the protest of the master of the schooner Baltimore^ 
 a. vessel taken during the late war by the boats of several 
 British men-of-war within the jurisdiction of Spain. Mr. 
 Pleasanton adds an instruction by your order to apply di- 
 
 . rectly to the British government for redress to the sufferers. 
 This will accordingly be done; but I beg leave to observe 
 .. that during my residence here I have had numerous ap- 
 plications from citizens of the United States for my official 
 
 I interposition to obtain from the British government restitu- 
 
 ' As secretary of legation. 
 ^ John Adams Smith. 
 
440 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 tion or indemnity for losses or injuries sustained during the 
 late war upon various occasions, and several of them pre- 
 cisely of the same nature as the case of the Baltimore, in so 
 far as relates to the violation of the neutral jurisdiction. 
 In one instance, the case of the William and Mary, taken last 
 February within the harbor of Cadiz and condemned at 
 Gibraltar, I have applied to the Spanish Ambassador, re- 
 questing his authority to the correspondents of the American 
 owners here to enter an appeal from the jsentence of the 
 Admiralty Court at Gibraltar. Upon this the Ambassador 
 has written for instructions to his court and is now waiting 
 for their answer. Another case is that of the Nanina, Cap- 
 tain Barnard, belonging to the House of John B. Murray 
 and Son of New York, in which I have approved of the entry 
 of an appeal from the sentence of the Admiralty Court at 
 this place. A third case was that of the Brig Hope, Obed 
 Chase master, taken at Buenos Ayres. The Spanish Am- 
 bassador declined authorizing an appeal in this case, upon 
 the principle that the colony was in a state of insurrection 
 at the time of the capture, and that according to the Spanish 
 laws no foreign vessel would have been admitted at Buenos 
 Ayres or consequently liable to capture there. I have in 
 none of these cases thought it advisable or proper without 
 special instructions from you to make application for satis- 
 faction to the suiferers to this government. The positive 
 and peremptory refusal by the British government at the 
 negotiations of Ghent to make reparation for any of the 
 wrongs committed by their officers during the war, however 
 contrary to the laws of war, had fully convinced me that 
 every diplomatic application for any such reparation would 
 not only be utterly hopeless of success, but rather tend to 
 make the refusal of redress certain in cases when a private 
 application from the individual interested might have some 
 
i8i5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 441 
 
 chance of standing alone, and addressed merely to the sense 
 of equity or of humanity of this government, of being Hs- 
 tened to more favorably. The cases of capture by British 
 armed ships of American vessels under the shelter of neutral 
 jurisdiction were very numerous and occurred I believe in 
 every quarter of the globe. I have to request therefore your 
 instructions whether, after making application in the case 
 of the Baltimore, it is to be renewed in others of a similar 
 nature upon which the parties interested have already 
 solicited or may hereafter solicit my interference. The in- 
 closed letter for Captain Trenchard ^ of the United States 
 Navy was sent me with a particular request that it might 
 be safely transmitted to him. It is from a person supposing 
 himself to be his relative and desirous of ascertaining the 
 fact. 
 If I have the honor, etc. 
 
 TO JONATHAN RUSSELL 
 
 Ealing near London, 14 December, 181 5. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 Your favor of the 31st October has been some days re- 
 :eived, but the course of my correspondence has been for 
 several weeks obstructed by a severe inflammation of the 
 2yes, from which I am just now recovering. The commer- 
 :ial convention between the United States and this country, 
 iigned on the 3rd of July last, has been received in America, 
 vhere no small impatience has been manifested for its 
 publication. Party spirit appears very anxious to lay hold 
 )f it; but when it comes out, it will be found a bone too bare 
 md dry to be gnawed with any sort of satisfaction. The 
 
 1 Edward Trenchard (1784-1824). 
 
442 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 occlusion of the island of St. Helena, so cavalierly announced . 
 in the face of the stipulation of free access to it, may afford 
 some materials for declamation; but in my own opinion the 
 best answer to it is, that if from nothing you take nothing, 
 there remains as much after the operation as there was before 
 it. Admission at the Cape of Good Hope is also stipulated 
 in the convention and therefore cannot be granted as an 
 equivalent for it. Although I am not inclined to set any 
 more value upon this convention than I was when it was 
 signed, yet it is here represented as containing enormous 
 and most impolitic concessions by the British government 
 to the United States, and what may appear to you a little 
 singular is that these representations come from the quarter 
 of the opposition. There has been for nearly three months 
 a series of papers published in the Morning Chronicle written, 
 with very considerable ability and a knowledge of the sub- 
 ject sufficient for an artful and elaborate misrepresentation 
 of facts and an insidious perversion of argument, to prove 
 that this most innocent convention has made many highly 
 important and unwarrantable sacrifices of the British com- 
 mercial interests to the Americans. These articles serve at 
 least to show the prevailing current of opinions and senti- 
 ments in this country towards America. On the ministerial 
 side scarcely any attempt at a defence has been made, and a 1 
 few occasional paragraphs, which have in a manner [been] 
 forced from the journalists, have been either unblushing de 
 nials that any such convention had been made, or untoward i, 
 assertions in general terms, that it contained no concessions 1 
 whatsoever. I told you that from the first beginning of the : 
 negotiation there was a flat and dry refusal to treat upon:, 
 the subject of the admission of our vessels to any of their 
 possessions in the West Indies, and I have since seen in the( 
 newspapers a letter from Lord Bathurst to the governor of 
 
^ 
 
 1815] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 443 
 
 one of the islands, dated 22nd of May, three days before my 
 arrival in London, and while Mr. Clay and Mr. Gallatin 
 were negotiating, in which the governor was censured for 
 having admitted American vessels, and notified that the 
 navigation laws were to be carried into rigorous execution. 
 As we did not agree upon any article concerning our inter- 
 course with their northern possessions on the American con- 
 tinent, it was also understood that they reckoned upon carry- 
 ing it all on in the British vessels. This however will depend 
 altogether upon ourselves. If Congress are of my mind, 
 they will try a little the effect of exclusion on our side too. 
 
 But the fur trade! the fur trade! Mr. Clay and Mr. Gal- 
 latin had been told that as an equivalent for the trade to the 
 East Indies some accommodation would be expected on the 
 part of the United States, such as for instance in the fur 
 trade. Not that the British government took much interest 
 particularly in that, but it was mentioned merely by way of 
 illustration. The refusal on our part was as flat and dry in 
 this case as theirs was about the West India trade. It was 
 said that if by the fur trade it was meant to imply an inter- 
 course with the Indians within our territory, we were ex- 
 pressly prohibited by our instructions from assenting to it, 
 and that this prohibition was founded not upon commercial 
 but upon political considerations. We were not pressed upon 
 this subject, and the refusal was taken apparently with 
 better grace than I should have expected. I am neverthe- 
 
 ■ less convinced that it closed the door against everything in 
 the spirit of accommodation upon the other side, and this 
 is the very point upon which the opposition written in the 
 
 : Morning Chronicle casts the bitterest reproaches upon the 
 ministers. I think we shall have more of this matter here- 
 after, and that whenever we may have an object of any im- 
 
 I portance upon which we shall expect compliance on their 
 
444 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 part, it will be given us to understand that a fair way of 
 obtaining it will be by some reciprocal compliance in the 
 relation to the fur trade. 
 
 The lakes of Canada may be considered as having in the 
 late war made their debut upon the political scene. They 
 are, if I mistake not, destined at no distant period to per- 
 form upon that theatre a still more conspicuous part. Very 
 early in the summer the British government determined to 
 maintain and increase in the midst of peace their naval 
 armaments upon them. It appears that our government 
 thought it necessary to follow the example. It is possible 
 that if the peace should continue for some years, both parties 
 may become weary of the expense which it will entail upon 
 them, and gradually reduce the force which they now propose 
 to keep up; but should there be an early renewal of hostilities, 
 as a general presentiment on both sides the Atlantic appears 
 to anticipate, those lakes will probably be the theatre of 
 still more desperate conflicts, and, God grant, of as heroic 
 achievements as they have been during the late war. 
 
 The affairs of France as you see are settled. The execu- 
 tion of Ney and a second project of an amnesty are the most 
 recent acts of Bourbon legitimacy. Here all is triumph and 
 exultation; opposition itself has nothing to murmur at but 
 the convention with America, and the ruinous cheapness of 
 the necessaries of life. Nay! do not laugh; for the Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer and the Lords of the Treasury find this a 
 most serious subject. There is even danger that it may pre- 
 maturely break down the property tax. If you see Cobbett's 
 Register you may be amused with his comments upon It; 
 but I think his alarms are as exaggerated as his remedies 
 are desperate. . . . 
 
i8is] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 445 
 
 TO JOHN ADAMS 
 
 Boston House, Ealing, 16 December, 1815. 
 My Dear Sir: 
 
 Mr. John A. Smith, Secretary to the Legation of the 
 United States at the Court of Great Britain, arrived here 
 last week and dehvered to me your favor of 22nd October, 
 I sincerely wish he may find his new situation as agreeable 
 and as profitable to himself as he anticipates. 
 
 The construction which the British court put upon the 
 treaties as they relate to the fisheries will be well known to 
 the government of the United States before you will receive 
 this letter. They hold that by the laws of nations war dis- 
 solves all obligations of previous treaties between the parties, 
 without exception, although they admit that treaties may 
 and often do contain stipulations irrevocable in their nature, 
 and therefore not to be affected by a subsequent war. The 
 acknowledgment of the independence of the United States 
 contained in the treaties of 1782 and 1783 they consider as 
 one of these irrevocable concessions; but the liberties con- 
 nected with the fisheries within the British jurisdiction, 
 stipulated in the same treaties in favor of the people of the 
 United States, they view as grants temporary and experi- 
 mental, entirely cancelled by the war which has intervened 
 between the two countries, and no longer to be conceded 
 without an equivalent, or at least without modifications 
 under which they profess in general terms to be willing to 
 negotiate for their renewal. 
 
 I have seen an able and elaborate argument leading to the 
 same conclusion in an American newspaper, the author of 
 which, professing to be an American, considers and labors 
 with no small subtlety, and a great display of black letter 
 
446 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 lore, to prove that these liberties are irretrievably extin- 
 guished and lost to us forever. His reasoning, like that of 
 many of our lawyers who apply their country court logic to 
 the controversies of nations, is founded almost entirely upon 
 the principles of British common law and the decisions of 
 cases reported from the courts of Westminster Hall. The 
 main hinge of her argument is, that we have forfeited the 
 right, in consequence of our having been ousted of the pos- 
 session of this incorporeal hereditament during the war. I 
 must do the British government the justice to say that in 
 their view of the subject they have resorted to no such pre- 
 tence as this: their ground is, that the article in the treaty 
 was abrogated by the mere fact of the war, and if it is in 
 justice not a whit more untenable than that of their Yankee 
 advocate, it is at least more suitable to their character as 
 statesmen ruling the councils of an empire. 
 
 But this subject must ultimately be settled either by nego- 
 tiation, or by force. I have already told you that the main- 
 tenance or the recovery of these liberties will depend upon 
 ourselves alone; if we are content to abandon the right, it 
 will certainly be taken from us. If we are firm and inflexi- 
 ble in the assertion of it, we may yet secure it, perhaps with- 
 out the resort to the ultima ratio. From the temper which 
 prevailed in New England during the late war, and for 
 several years preceding it, and which now seems to prevail 
 even in relation to this question, I am strongly apprehen- 
 sive that it will be a right to be recovered, rather than a right 
 uninterruptedly maintained. New England has yet no con- 
 sciousness of rights, when they are contested by Great 
 Britain. 
 
 I have not been informed when Louis the Desired is to be 
 consecrated with the miraculous oil from the Sainte Am- 
 poule. But in the meantime he is making processions in 
 
 i 
 
isisl JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 447 
 
 honor of the Holy Virgin to the Church of Notre Dame, and 
 his nephew, the pious Duke of Angouleme, is walking bare 
 foot with the monks and instigating the butchery of Protes- 
 tants in the south of France. Such authority is assuredly 
 not derived from a pigeon. It is much to be regretted that, 
 in the decay of the monastic orders, the practice of turning 
 Les Rois Faineants into monks has gone out of fashion. The 
 house of Bourbon would of itself people a convent, and be 
 placed in a condition much more suitable to their characters 
 and capacities, than upon the thrones to which they have 
 been nailed by the royal hammersmiths of social order and 
 religion. They have been fixing the fate of Europe again by 
 treaties of peace in the name of the holy and undivided 
 Trinity. They have stripped, and robbed, and plundered 
 France ad libitum for about half a year, as they had already 
 done once before, and as she had been doing for a number 
 of years to most of them. In return for the sacrifices of 
 everything that could give strength, credit, and dignity to 
 the nation, they have bound themselves to keep the nation 
 under the blessed yoke of the Bourbons, as fixed and im- 
 moveable as 150,000 bayonets at the throats of the French 
 people, and a million more within a whistling distance, can 
 keep them. This arrangement may last six months, but I 
 think not three years. Government, whether founded upon 
 the will of the people, or upon the will of God, never yet had 
 a durable foundation upon the basis of a foreign and hostile 
 soldiery. 
 
 To call the puppet show now displayed at Paris a legiti- 
 mate government, is an insult upon human speech, and an 
 outrage upon the laws of God. It cannot last. France must 
 be conquered again. France must be dismembered and 
 scattered to the winds of heaven — or else, Sampson is bound, 
 his eyes are extinguished, his locks are shorn. But the day 
 
448 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 may come when his returning vigor will yet shake the pillars 
 of the temple of Dagon, and if he perish in its fall, will bury 
 with him all the lords of the Philistines, the worshippers of 
 the senseless idols in the ruins. 
 
 You assure me that I have neither profits nor laurels to 
 expect, and in sooth my profits here are of the negative kind; 
 but the garden of Boston House is bordered round with 
 laurels, and I hope my boys will yet give you proof that 
 classics and mathematics, as well as a deportment, are as- 
 siduously taught at Ealing school. They are now coming 
 home to a vacation for six weeks, and I am happy to assure 
 you that the Yankee boys have done no dishonor to the 
 reputation of their country. 
 
 I have got Mr. Abraham Tucker's seven volumes of the 
 Light oj Nature ready to send you by the first opportunity 
 from London, and I hope they will not make you blind, as 
 they have almost made me. I can get Brucker ^ if you think 
 him worth nine guineas; but for my part I think all the 
 philosophy worth having Is to be obtained at a cheaper 
 rate — the philosophy that will never spend a sigh for a 
 laurel, or a wish for profits, beyond the old Boston Town 
 Clerk Cooper's modicum of bread and turnips. I am etc. 
 
 TO LORD CASTLEREAGH 
 
 The undersigned Envoy Extraordinary and Minister 
 Plenipotentiary from the United States of America has had 
 the honor of receiving Lord Castlereagh's note of the 29th 
 ultimo. Informing him that a representation has been made 
 by the Lord Mayor of London to His Majesty's Principal 
 Secretary of State for the Home Department, stating that a 
 
 ^ Johann Jakob Brucker, Historta criiica Philosophies, Leipsig, 1767. 
 
i8is] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 449 
 
 number of American seamen have been found wandering 
 about the streets of London in a most wretched and dis- 
 tressed condition, and that several are now supported in the 
 poHce establishments and hospitals of the city at a very con- 
 siderable expense. His Lordship, therefore, requests the 
 undersigned to take measures in order that these seamen may 
 be conveyed to their native country with the least possible de- 
 lay. The undersigned has the honor to inform Lord Castle- 
 reagh that provision is made by the laws of the United 
 States for the support and reconveyance to their native 
 country of destitute and distressed American seamen in 
 foreign ports, that this provision has been found sufficient 
 for the purposes for which it was intended in other countries, 
 and in ordinary circumstances in this; but that within these 
 few months the number of persons in this condition has been 
 multiplied beyond all former example, and that this increase 
 has been principally occasioned by the measures of the 
 British government; that by far the greatest proportion of 
 distressed American seamen who have made application 
 for relief at the consulate of the United States have con- 
 sisted of persons discharged from the naval service of Great 
 Britain. Considerable numbers of these had been compelled 
 to enter the British service by the process of impressment, 
 others had been induced to enter it by the encouragement 
 held out to them by the British laws and proclamations. 
 It is confidently presumed by the undersigned that all, or 
 nearly all, those whose wretched situation has been repre- 
 sented by the Lord Mayor of London to His Majesty's gov- 
 ernment are persons precisely in this predicament. The 
 undersigned is informed that several hundreds of them have 
 already been conveyed to the United States at the expense 
 of the American government, and that about eighty are at 
 the time receiving their daily subsistence from the American 
 
450 THE WRITINGS OF [iSij 
 
 consular office. The undersigned would be deficient in his 
 duty to his country were he to forbear on this occasion to 
 submit to the consideration of His Majesty's government 
 that the burden of supporting these men until they can be 
 restored to their country, and that of conveying them thither, 
 ought in justice to be borne, not by the American, but by 
 the British government; and he will add that there are others 
 whose claim to the equity and humanity of Great Britain 
 are no less deserving of consideration. He refers to seamen 
 not perhaps in absolute distress, but who from their long 
 services, or from wounds received in the British service, 
 are entitled to small pensions. By the existing regulations 
 of the navy the undersigned understands that every such 
 American seaman who returns to his own country is reduced 
 to the necessity of alienating his annuity for the inadequate 
 compensation of two or at most three years purchase. The 
 undersigned flatters himself that the knowledge of these 
 circumstances being thus communicated. His Majesty's 
 government will not hesitate to make provision for the re- 
 conveyance to the United States of all the American seamen 
 who have been discharged from the British naval service by 
 the late general paying off" of the navy, and for affording the : 
 means to pensioners disabled in their service of receiving! 
 after their return to the United States during their lives the; 
 pensions which have been assigned to them. The under- 
 signed observes that the representations of the Lord Mayor, 
 being in terms very general and containing specifically the 
 name only of one American seaman, he is unable to ascer- 
 tain the individual Americans represented to be in distress.; 
 The means of designating them are doubtless in possessioni 
 of the British government; but it is probable there may be 
 cases of seamen in a distressed condition who alleged them-i 
 selves to be Americans, when they are not really such. 
 
i8i5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 451 
 
 Should every person presenting himself at the American 
 consulate as an American seaman be received as such, and 
 conveyed to the United States at their expense, a charge 
 heretofore made, though utterly without foundation, against 
 the American government, of inviting British seamen into 
 the service of the United States might recur with an appear- 
 ance of plausibility. The undersigned deems it, therefore, 
 proper to express the expectation that when he is required 
 by the British government to provide for the reconveyance 
 to their country of American seamen, the individuals will 
 be pointed out to him in such a manner as to satisfy him of 
 their right to that provision. He is, however, fully persuaded 
 that the measures he has herein suggested will render every 
 other unnecessary, and entirely remove the ground of a 
 complaint upon which the representation of the Lord Mayor 
 was founded. The Undersigned begs Lord Castlereagh to 
 accept, etc. 
 
 TO JAMES MADISON 
 
 Ealing near London, 24 December, 181 5. 
 ; Sir: 
 
 y The pamphlet which I do myself the honor of transmitting 
 ' to you with this letter was some time since sent me by its 
 ' author with the request that I would forward it to you. 
 This gentleman^ who resides at Berlin and is librarian to the 
 King of Prussia is by birth a Spaniard. His father was form- 
 erly in high diplomatic office as Minister of Spain succes- 
 sively at several European courts. Nearly two years since 
 he wrote me a letter, relating to me some of the particulars 
 of his life, and expressing an earnest wish to remove to the 
 
 ^ Alvar-Augustin de Liagno. 
 
452 THE WRITINGS OF [1815 
 
 United States and settle there for the remainder of his days. 
 His opinions and the course of Hfe which he had adopted 
 were so much at variance with the predominating prejudices 
 and estabHshments of his country, that he had voluntarily 
 quitted it, and in seeking a condition congenial to his own 
 temper and disposition had somehow or other alighted upon 
 that in which he was then and yet is situated. It was not, 
 however, adapted to give him contentment, and he was 
 anxious to go to America; but it was necessary that he should 
 find some situation which would furnish him the means of 
 subsistence, and although he was a man of letters and of 
 science, I knew of none which would secure to him the com- 
 fortable station which he expected to find, particularly as 
 among the multitude of his acquirements he was not master ! 
 of our language. In my answer to his letter I therefore dis- 
 suaded him from his project of going to the United States, , 
 and I have not heard from him directly upon that subject 
 again. From the manuscript additions to the copy of the 
 pamphlet which he has addressed to you, and from some in- 
 timations in his letter to me which accompanied It, I think . 
 it probable that he has not altogether abandoned the design; 
 but in the meantime he has employed his leisure in attacking 
 the writings of an author who has recently acquired great 
 celebrity in France. I have not felt obliged to decline com- 
 plying with his request of forwarding to you the Inclosed copy 
 of his work, but I thought It proper at the same time to 
 mention to you these particulars relating to him that you 
 may be apprised of his situation and purposes in case you 
 should think proper to take any notice of his offering. 
 I have the honor etc. 
 
i8is] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 453 
 
 TO ABIGAIL ADAMS 
 
 I Boston House, 27 December, 18 15. 
 
 My Dear Mother: 
 
 • • ■ • • • • , 
 
 r This new political connection will, however, probably not 
 be of long continuance. My Father's opinion that I can do 
 here no good for my country so far coincides with my own, 
 that combining with the terms upon which it has pleased 
 my country to impose upon me the duty of representing her 
 here, it has induced me repeatedly to request to be relieved 
 from the burden which upon those terms will from day to 
 day become more insupportable. If it be possible for me to 
 do any good, the same service may be equally performed by 
 many others to whom it would be more agreeable, and whose 
 circumstances in life may enable them to perform it without 
 injustice to themselves and their families. 
 
 As Congress are now in session, I suppose your enigma 
 about the commercial treaty or convention has before this 
 time found a solution. The British government, who were 
 yery unwilling to make any commercial treaty at all, ap- 
 peared to be actuated by the principle when they did con- 
 sent to treat, of making as little of a treaty as possible. 
 ■From the anxious expectation which it appears to have ex- 
 cited in the United States there cannot fail to result much 
 disappointment, and not a little derision when it comes to 
 be known. Little however as it is, it has excited some dis- 
 content among the commercial monopolists of this country, 
 and has been attacked with as much bitterness, and probably 
 far more ability, for what it contains, as I have no doubt it 
 will be In America for what it omits. 
 
 Our naval campaign in the Mediterranean has been per- 
 
454 THE WRITINGS OF [iSij ; 
 
 haps as splendid as anything that has occurred In our annals 
 since our existence as a nation. It has excited little atten- 
 tion in Europe, because a more extensive scene and more 
 powerful Interests have absorbed all the attention of the 
 European nations at the same time; but it has manifested 
 an American influence upon the Barbary powers which, if 
 not much noticed by the people of the Christian nations, 
 will sink deep enough into the memory of the cabinets by 
 which they are governed. While we remain entirely dis- 
 connected with the political arrangements of Europe, our 
 affairs and our achievements will be but little noticed by 
 them, and when noticed, we must expect to discover the 
 impression which it produces upon them, not by their ap- 
 probation, but by their jealousy. Europe, which has al- 
 ready felt us far more than she or we ourselves are aware, is 
 destined yet to feel us perhaps more than she or we expect. 
 It Is for us to remember that during the last year of our late 
 war with Great Britain, there was a virtual combination 
 of all Europe with her against us, and although It Is to be 
 hoped that the ascendancy which Great Britain has acquired 
 Is already waning, and will rapidly decline, we must still 
 be always prepared for self-defence against the aggressions 
 which her Interests or her passions may point or excite to 
 effect If possible our ruin. Her language at the present time 
 Is pacific, but the situation of her people Is so far from being 
 easy or contented, that it is a prevailing sentiment here that 
 a foreign war Is Indispensably necessary to save the nation 
 from Internal convulsions. Their animosities against France 
 have been almost satiated by the condition to which they 
 have reduced her, but their feelings against America are 
 keener, more jealous, more envious, more angry than ever. 
 The government Is making the experiment of peace; but 
 peace already ruins the agricultural interest of the country. 
 
iSis) JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 455 
 
 and as they must soon find the absolute necessity of making 
 new loans and issuing new floods of Bank paper, it is to be 
 feared that their only expedient for reconciling the people 
 to these measures will be to Involve them in a war which 
 will furnish the pretext for resorting to them. I hope, how- 
 ever, that It will at least not arise until I shall have been 
 released from the station of sentinel at this post. . . . 
 
 TO RUFUS KING 
 
 Ealing near London, 29 December, 181 5. 
 
 1^ My Dear Sir: 
 
 ' Very shortly after my arrival in this country I had the 
 pleasure of meeting In London your son, and Mr. Robert Ray 
 delivered to me the letter of Introduction which you had 
 given him for me. Mr. Ray's residence In London was only 
 for a few days, and your son has been there so little that I 
 have not had the happiness of meeting either of them so 
 often as I should have desired. Mr. J. A. Smith who ar- 
 rived here a few days since Informs me that he had the pleas- 
 ure of seeing you just before his departure from New York, 
 and that you were kind enough to express to him the re- 
 membrance of that friendly correspondence which formerly 
 subsisted between us so much to my benefit and satisfac- 
 tion and which I hope accident alone has interrupted. Of 
 your kindness and good offices to me I trust you will believe 
 that I shall never lose the recollection, and although of late 
 years considerable shades of difference between our political 
 
 • opinions upon objects of high concernment to our country 
 have arisen, yet I flatter myself that they have In no respect 
 
 ■■ impaired in the mind of either of us the confidence in the 
 
 ' other's integrity or the sentiments of personal friendship. 
 
4s6 THE WRITINGS OF [1816 
 
 I now take the liberty of introducing to your acquaintance 
 the bearer of this letter, Mr. Frederic Pursh. He is a natural- 
 ized citizen of the United States, author of a flora of North 
 America considered as a very valuable botanical work and 
 is now upon his return to that country with the purpose of 
 pursuing his researches of the same nature in a manner 
 which may be highly useful to the public and in which your 
 aid and encouragement may be essentially serviceable to 
 him. I beg leave to recommend him to them and to assure 
 you at the same time of the high respect with which I am 
 etc. 
 
 TO GEORGE JOY 
 
 Boston House, i January, 18 16. 
 Sir: 
 
 Many returns of a happy New Year to you and many 
 thanks for the perusal of the inclosed letters, which I hope 
 you will receive in time for tomorrow's post. I have re- 
 ceived last week a letter from Mr. Bourne on the subject of 
 consular compensation. I had received many from him on 
 the same subject before. I have repeatedly stated his case 
 at his request to the government, and have as often recom- 
 mended a revision of our consular establishment as to con- 
 vince myself that it is labor in vain. There is weight in the 
 observation of the captain quoted by our friend at the Hague, 
 but what is more important to the point Is that both Houses 
 of Congress are precisely of the captain's opinion. Our 
 Yankee countrymen will argue that a man is not a dollar's 
 worth the better for the governor of a state because he can 
 draw down thunder from Heaven. They would be apt 
 shrewdly to suspect him not so good for It. They have no 
 relish for a government of thunderbolts. Jonathan chooses 
 
I 
 
 I 
 
 1816I JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 457 
 
 to live snug and at small cost. He chooses to have no useless 
 servants at great expense, and if now and then any of his 
 men tells him it is impossible to live upon the wages he gives 
 and asks for his discharge, Jonathan gives it, and the next 
 day he finds an hundred solicitors storming his doors to get 
 the place at the same wages that he gave before, aye, and 
 the thunderbolt man as eager as any of the rest. When you 
 talk to Jonathan about the necessity of maintaining his 
 dignity, he laughs, casts a sly look across the waters at 
 Brother John and says, there's dignity enough for both of 
 us. Who is the best served.'* For Jonathan after all is some- 
 times vain of his servants and esteems them much, though 
 he pays them little. To be sure all his servants, when they 
 have got their places, tell him that he is a stingy master. 
 Alas! I tell him so myself! but I think he will not believe 
 me, but prove to me that he can be served quite as well by 
 another. To say the truth I do not know that Jonathan 
 ever lost any important service, though he has lost many 
 good servants, by the smallness of his wages. Money is not 
 the only inducement or reward to important service. Men 
 of spirit and of honor serve their country for fame, for glory, 
 for patriotism; and believe me, my dear sir, whatever Jon- 
 athan may pay for his servants he is and will be well served. 
 I do not ask you to burn this, though I have more reason 
 than your other correspondent. Adieu! 
 
4S8 THE WRITINGS OF Ii8i6( 
 
 TO GEORGE JOY 
 
 Boston House, 5 January, 1816. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 More thanks for the perusal of President Kirkland's 
 letter. No man has a more clear and lucid style than he 
 generally writes with. But I did not understand the first I 
 part of his letter until I was told it meant, that federalists : 
 when in Europe were good Americans and in America good I 
 federalists — ubicunque good as Bonaparte was ubicunquei: 
 felix. I am like you waiting for the reasons why the proc- •; 
 lamation of the President for equalizing duties was post-| 
 poned, and to see whether the convention will or will not t' 
 be ratified. The Chronicle indignantly arraigns the Ministry '\ 
 for a superabundance of generosity to America. President K. .; 
 thinks the anti-Britannic feeling is kept up for mere election- ■! 
 eering purposes. The Chronicle and the President are both 
 mistaken. The message is brought to me while I am wait- 
 ing. There is nothing in it which looks like non-ratification 
 of the Convention, but the Senate are to decide upon it. . . . 
 
 TO JOHN ADAMS 
 
 Boston House, Ealing, 5 January, 18 16. 
 My Dear Sir: 
 
 • •••••• 
 
 I plainly perceive that you are not to be converted, even 
 by the eloquence of Massillon, to the Athanasian creed. 
 But when you recommend to me Carlostad, and SchefF- 
 macher, and Priestley, and Waterland, and Clerk, and 
 Beausobre — Mercy! mercy! what can a blind man do to be 
 saved by unitarianism, if he must read all this to understand 
 
i8i6l JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 459 
 
 his Bible? I went last Christmas day to Ealing Church, 
 and heard the Reverend Colston Carr, the vicar, declare and 
 pronounce, among other things, that whosoever doth not 
 keep the catholic faith whole and undefilcd, without doubt 
 he shall perish everlastingly. And the catholic faith is this: 
 That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity, 
 etc. — in short the creed of Saint Athanasius; which, as you 
 know, the eighth article of the English Church says, may be 
 proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture. Now 
 I have had many doubts about the Athanasian Creed; but 
 if I read much more controversy about it, I shall finish by 
 faithfully believing it. Mr. Channing says he does not be- 
 lieve, because he cannot comprehend it. Does he compre- 
 hend how the omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, infinite, 
 eternal spirit, can be the father of a mortal man, conceived 
 and born of a Virgin? Does he comprehend his own mean- 
 ing when he speaks of God as the Father, and Christ as the 
 Son.? Does he comprehend the possibility according to 
 
 . human reason, of one page in the Bible from the first verse 
 
 1 in Genesis to the last verse of the Apocalypse.'* If he does, I 
 give him joy of his discovery, and wish he would impart it 
 to his fellow Christians. If the Bible is a moral tale, there is 
 no believing in the Trinity. But if it is the rule of faith — 
 
 I I hope you will not think me in danger of perishing ever- 
 lastingly, for believing too much, and when you know all, 
 with your aversion to thinking of the Jesuits, you may think 
 
 j I have made a lucky escape, if I do not believe in transub- 
 
 • stantiation. During almost the whole period of my late 
 residence in Russia, I had the pleasure of a social and very 
 friendly acquaintance with the Right Reverend Father in 
 
 ( God, Thaddeus Brozowsky, then and now Father General 
 of the Jesuits, one of the most respectable, amiable, and 
 
 ! venerable men that I have ever known. As I was the medium 
 
46o THE WRITINGS OF Ii8i6^ 
 
 of communication between him and his correspondents in; 
 the United States, he used frequently to call upon me, and 
 I had often occasion to return his visits. We used to con- 
 verse upon all sorts of topics, and among the rest upon reli- 
 gion. He occasionally manifested a compassionate wish for 
 my conversion to the true Catholic faith, and one day under- 
 took to give me a demonstration of the real presence in the 
 Eucharist. He said it was ingeniously proved in a copper- 
 plate print which he had seen, representing Jesus Christ 
 sitting between Luther and Calvin, each cf them bearing 
 the wafer of the communion. Each of them had also a label 
 issuing from his lips, and, pointing with the finger to the 
 bread, Christ was saying, "This is my body," while Luther 
 said, "This represents my body," and Calvin, "This signifies 
 my body." At the bottom of the whole was the question, 
 "Which of them speaks the truth.?" It was not the worthy 
 Father's fault if I did not consider this demonstration as 
 conclusive as he did. Another day — and it will give you an 
 idea of the simplicity of this good man's heart — we were dis- 
 cussing together the celibacy of the clergy, which he deemed 
 indispensable, that they might be altogether devoted to the 
 service of their Lord and master, and not liable to the avoca- 
 tions of this world's concerns. I did not think it would be 
 generous to remind him of the manner in which the experi- 
 ence of the world had shown that the vows of religious chas- 
 tity usually resulted, but rather resorted to authority with 
 regard to the principle. I observed to him that not only all 
 the Protestant communities, but the Greek Church also, 
 allowed the clergy to marry. Upon which, after a moment 
 of reflection, he said, "Oui, c'est vrai. II n'y a que I'eglise 
 romaine qui soit encore vierge!" Indeed, you must give 
 me some credit for firmness of character, for withstanding 
 the persuasion of such a patriarch as this. 
 
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 461 
 
 We have, in the newspapers of last evening and this morn- 
 ing, the President's message at the opening of the session of 
 Congress. It gives upon the whole a pleasing view of the 
 state of our public affairs, but not quite so fair an aspect of 
 the finances as were to be wished. Peace, however, will be 
 the most healing of all medicines to them, and the complex- 
 ion of the message is entirely pacific. The present intentions 
 of the British government, I believe, are of a corresponding 
 spirit; but it is an opinion widely circulated here, that peace 
 itself, instead of healing their finances, will prove their in- 
 evitable destruction. That nothing but a new war can save 
 them, and that the most convenient and least burdensome 
 war would be with America. The distrust In the continu- 
 ance of the peace is so universal, and I am beset by so many 
 and so frequent anxious inquiries from some quarters, and 
 mysterious hints from others, that although the official pro- 
 fessions have been invariably pacific and friendly, I am some- 
 times not without uneasiness, lest a want of sufficient vigi- 
 lance should leave undiscovered a lurking danger, which 
 might break upon us unawares. A war, however, even with 
 America, could not be undertaken without preparations 
 and armaments of which there is not the slightest indication. 
 A war must be preceded by complaints well or 111 founded, 
 of which there are indeed some on our part sufficient, perhaps, 
 ultimately to result in hostilities, but which neither require 
 nor would justify them at this time. On their part I have 
 heard of none, nor have I reason to suppose that Mr. Bagot, 
 who Is about embarking for America as the British minister, 
 i goes with any particular load of grievances. He has been 
 I anxiously waiting, as I am gravely assured, upwards of three 
 ' months for his passage, because men could not be obtained 
 by enlistment to navigate the frigate in which he is to go. 
 The effect of the peace here which proves so distressing 
 
462 THE WRITINGS OF [1816 
 
 is the depreciation in the value of grain, and of the other 
 productions of the soil.^ The natural and inevitable con- 
 sequence of which has been the inability of the farmers to 
 pay their rents; the fall in the value of all landed estates, a 
 partial defalcation of the revenue, and an aggravated sore- 
 ness under the burdens of tythes and taxation. There is 
 doubtless much exaggeration in some of the accounts that 
 are published of this state of things; but on all sides it is ad- 
 mitted that the suffering of the agricultural interest is very 
 severe. That peace should be followed by plenty, is of very 
 old experience. But that plenty should operate as a great 
 national calamity, requires a public debt of a thousand mil- 
 lions sterling, and a banking system to be accounted for. 
 At the meeting of Parliament, which is to be on the first of 
 February, the extent of the evil, and the remedies to be pro- 
 vided for it, will be more fully ascertained. Some put their 
 trust in war, and some in famine, to relieve the people from 
 their burdens. Others look for salvation by the flooding of 
 paper from the Bank. That institution has called in so much 
 of its paper that there is now scarcely any advance upon 
 silver and gold. The project of resuming specie payments 
 is to be attempted, and whether it can be accomplished 
 with forty millions of annual interest upon the public debt 
 to be paid, is the problem now about to receive the solution 
 of experience. Whatever the result may be, the lesson may 
 be profitable to us. If a nation can prosper in peace or war 
 with a debt of a thousand millions sterling, it will be useful 
 to us to make ourselves perfect masters of the mode in which 
 such a marvellous paradox is converted into practical truth. 
 If the paper castle be really built upon a rock impregnable 
 and immovable, let us learn the art of building it. If the 
 same course of conduct which leads to inevitable and irre- 
 
 * This subject is treated in Tooke, History of Prices, II. 2. 
 
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 463 
 
 coverable private ruin is the sure and only path that will 
 conduct a nation to the pinnacle of human greatness and 
 power, let us trace it to its utmost bounds. But if a day of 
 reckoning for extravagance and profusion must come for 
 nations as well as individuals, if the wisdom of ages will 
 ultimately vindicate its own maxims, and if prudence is not 
 to yield forever her place as one of the cardinal virtues to 
 prodigality, then will the catastrophe of paper credit, which 
 cannot now longer be delayed in this country, place before 
 us the whole system of artificial circulation in all its good 
 and all its evil, and while disclosing all the uses of this 
 tremendous machine as an engine of power, teach us at 
 the same time the caution necessary to guard ourselves from 
 the irreparable ruin of its explosion. . . . 
 
 TO LORD CASTLEREAGH 
 
 The undersigned Envoy Extraordinary and Minister 
 Plenipotentiary from the United States of America, in reply 
 to the note which he has had the honor of receiving from 
 Lord Castlereagh of the 5th instant, observes that besides 
 the reciprocal liberty of commerce between the territories of 
 the United States and all the British territories in Europe, 
 stipulated in the first article of the commercial convention 
 concluded in July last, there is in the second article of the 
 same convention a provision that "no higher or other duties 
 or charges shall be imposed in any of the ports of the United 
 States on British vessels than those payable in the same 
 ports by vessels of the United States, nor in the ports of any 
 of His Britannic Majesty's territories in Europe on the 
 vessels of the United States than shall be payable In the 
 same ports on British vessels. 
 
464 THE WRITINGS OF [1816 
 
 It appears to the undersigned that a restriction which 
 permits vessels of the United States to take from the ports 
 of Ireland only one passenger for every five tons register of 
 the vessel, while it allows British vessels to take one pas- 
 senger for every two tons, does not comply with the engage- 
 ment for a reciprocal liberty of commerce. It likewise ap- 
 pears to him to subject in its operation the vessels of the 
 United States to higher charges in the ports of Ireland than 
 those imposed in the same ports on British vessels. The 
 undersigned is informed that in the commercial intercourse 
 between the United States and Ireland the greatest propor- 
 tion of the freight of vessels going to America consists of 
 passengers, and that a limitation of the number of them to 
 one person for every five tons is nearly equivalent to an ex- 
 clusion of the vessels subject to it, while other vessels are 
 not liable to the same limitation. So that while one of the 
 principal objects of the contracting parties to the commercial 
 convention was to place the vessels of the two nations upon 
 a footing of equal burdens and advantages in the ports of I 
 both, this regulation will confine the commerce between 
 Ireland and the United States exclusively to British vessels, 
 unless the restriction be removed, or unless countervailing 
 regulations should be resorted to by the American govern- 
 ment. If it be said that the regulation in question does not 
 directly violate the letter of the stipulation to which the 
 undersigned refers, he requests His Lordship to suppose the 
 case that by a regulation of the government of the United 
 States British vessels in the ports of the United States should 
 be permitted to take a lading of only two-fifths of their 
 tonnage of the articles of export from that country, while 
 American vessels should possess exclusively the privilege of 
 shipping cargoes to the full extent of their tonnage. Would 
 not the inevitable effect of such a measure be to subject 
 
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 465 
 
 British vessels to heavier charges than those imposed upon 
 American vessels? Would it not be more effectual to deprive 
 British vessels of the equality contemplated by the commer- 
 cial convention than any discrimination of tonnage duties 
 ever established between the vessels of the two countries? 
 Assuredly such a regulation, applied in the ports of this 
 island to the vessels of the United States with respect to 
 the export of manufactured articles which constitute their 
 cargoes, would be tantamount to a prohibition of the Amer- 
 ican merchant flag in the ports of Great Britain. In the 
 trade with America from Ireland passengers form the prin- 
 cipal article of export, and to allow them to be exported only 
 in British vessels is in its result the same as if a prohibitory 
 tonnage duty was laid upon American vessels in the Irish 
 ports. The undersigned indulges the hope that in the execu- 
 tion of that article of the convention, the object of which 
 was to abolish on both sides the discriminating burdens, 
 and to impart on both sides the benefit of equal privileges 
 to the shipping of each nation in ports of the other, both 
 governments will give it a construction corresponding with 
 the liberal and conciliatory spirit in which it was formed — a 
 construction which will give full effect to the mutual in- 
 tentions of the high contracting parties. It was on this prin- 
 ciple that he had the honor of addressing Lord Castlereagh 
 his former note upon the subject, and it is with this senti- 
 ment that he now requests His Lordship to accept the re- 
 newed assurance of his high consideration. 
 13 Craven street,^ 8th January, 18 16. 
 
 1 The office of the legation had been removed from No. 25 Charles Street, West- 
 minster, to No. 13 Craven Street, in the Strand, on December 30, 1815. Craven 
 Street is a narrow street next west of Charing Cross railway station, and runs from 
 No. 10 Strand to the Thames Embankment. Franklin lodged in No. 7 (now No. 36) 
 Craven Street, during his residence in London, I7S7-I77S- 
 
466 THE WRITINGS OF [1816 
 
 TO ABIGAIL ADAMS 
 
 Ealing, 9 January, 1816. 
 My Dear Mother: 
 
 Mr. Bagot, or to speak in the style and after the fashion 
 of this country, the Right Honorable Charles Bagot, was 
 immediately after my arrival in this country appointed by 
 the Prince Regent Envoy Extraordinary and Minister 
 Plenipotentiary to the United States of America. He is a 
 young man, I conjecture about thirty, brother of Lord Bagot, 
 and his lady is a daughter of Mr. Wellesley Pole, the Master 
 of the Mint, and a niece of the Duke of Wellington and the 
 Marquis of Wellesley. ... As I have received personal 
 civilities from Mr. Bagot, and from his lady's family, I am 
 naturally the more disposed to wish that their residence in i 
 America may be made agreeable to them. They have six: 
 children, four of whom they leave in England, taking only 
 two with them. 
 
 By the arrival of the Milo at Liverpool I have received l| 
 your kind letter of 2 December, inclosing the copy of my 
 father's letter to Dr. Price, of which Mr. Morgan has made 
 such improper use.^ I am waiting for the letters by Mr. and 
 Mrs. Tarbell. You may well incline to ask Mr. Morgan who 
 was the dupe? Dr. Price was duped by the goodness and 
 simplicity of his heart, by the enthusiasm of his love for 
 liberty, and by his ignorance of the world in which he lived. 
 His ardent zeal in favor of the French Revolution has shed 
 a sort of ridicule upon his reputation, and his opinions upon 
 that and some other subjects have been so completely falsi- 
 fied by events which have happened since his death, that 
 his very name is sinking into oblivion. Indeed the Dissent- 
 ers in this country have fallen much into contempt since his 
 
 * fForks of John Adams, X. 175. 
 
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 467 
 
 time. Their political and religious doctrines have a tide 
 equally strong running against them; and their conduct, 
 which at one time swelled into seditious insolence, and at 
 another sunk into fawning servility, has thrown them into 
 such discredit, that the church may now, if they please, 
 persecute them with impunity. They attempted here a few 
 weeks since to make a stir about the real persecution under 
 which the Protestants are suffering in the south of France. 
 They held meetings, and passed high sounding resolutions, 
 and opened subscriptions, and sent deputations to his 
 Majesty's ministers, and buzzed about their importance, 
 as busily and intrusively as so many horse-flies in dog-days. 
 His Majesty's ministers put off their deputation with general, 
 insignificant civilities, which they met again, and resolved 
 to give highly satisfactory assurances of support and Inter- 
 ference in behalf of French Protestants. His Majesty's 
 ministers then set their daily newspapers to circulate the 
 report that Protestants In France were all Jacobins, and 
 that If they were massacred, and had their churches burnt, 
 their houses pulled down over their heads. It was not for 
 their religion but for their politics. From that moment 
 Master Bull has had neither compassion nor compunction 
 for the French Protestants. The Dissenters by a rare notion 
 of stupidity and Jesuitism (for there are Jesuits of all de- 
 nominations) have denied the fact, and vainly attempted 
 to suppress the evidence that proved it; of stupidity for not 
 perceiving that this must ultimately be proved against them, 
 and of Jesuitism for contesting the fact against their better 
 knowledge, because they could produce Protestant invec- 
 tives against Bonaparte after his fall, and Protestant adula- 
 tion to Louis 18 after his restoration. The French Protes- 
 tants, like the English Dissenters, have been throughout 
 the course of the French Revolution generally time-servers. 
 
468 THE WRITINGS OF [i8i6 
 
 Like the mongrel brood of Babylonians and Samaritans 
 after the Assyrian captivity, their political worship has been 
 after "the manner of the God of the land." They have 
 feared the Lord and served their graven images. They 
 hated Bonaparte, no doubt, in proportion as they found 
 themselves galled by his yoke, and they had no gratitude 
 for the protection and security which his authority gave 
 them for the free exercise of their religion and the quiet 
 enjoyment of their property. But the Protestants had un- 
 questionably been from the first ardent supporters and. ex- 
 aggerated friends of the revolution. It was indeed natural 
 enough that they should be, for the revolution had redeemed 
 them from a worse than Egyptian thraldom. My father 
 well remembers from personal knowledge what was the con- 
 dition of the Protestants In France before the revolution, 
 and in what sort of sentiments concerning them and their 
 religion all the Bourbons were educated. The revolution 
 gave them equal religious and political rights with those of 
 the rest of their countrymen. They had been twenty years 
 freely and eagerly purchasing the national property, and 
 among the rest, it appears, had purchased two of the old 
 convents at Nismes, and used them for churches. Yet they 
 joined in the hue and cry against Napoleon after he was 
 down. Yet they fawned upon the Bourbons, when from the 
 shoulders of the enemies of France they were turned off 
 upon them, and licked the dust at the feet of Louis le Desire. 
 As if tythes, and monks, and barefoot processions, and leg- 
 ends, and relics, and religious bigotry, had not been the 
 darling and only consolations of Louis and his Bourbons In 
 their exile, and would not inevitably bring back religious 
 intolerance with them. Now, this is the foundation upon 
 which the Dissenters here have relied, to deny that the 
 present persecution of the French Protestants has been for 
 
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 469 
 
 i 
 
 politics. But now comes a letter from the Duke of Welling- 
 ton, formally announcing that it was for politics, and hence- 
 forth, instead of whining, and resolving, and subscribing 
 for the French Protestants, the churchmen here, if the coal 
 of the Angouleme fires were extinguished, would lend him 
 a fagot to kindle them again. The Duke of Wellington says, 
 too, that he is convinced the French government have done 
 all in their power to protect the Protestants, This is not so 
 certain. But whether they have or not, is held to be per- 
 fectly immaterial. The French Protestants were Jacobins 
 or Bonapartists — nothing more just and proper than that 
 they should be hunted down as wild beasts. At the same 
 time, the ministerial prints are teeming with reproaches 
 upon two of the king's sons for having lately attended at a 
 charity sermon preached in a Methodist chapel, and giving 
 broad hints that the church must be strengthened against 
 the Dissenters. 
 PI Since I began this letter yours of 10 March, 181 5, has 
 been put into my hands, together with one of 11 March from 
 my father. Letters from him and you can never come out of 
 season, but if Mr. Copeland, who was the bearer of these, 
 had delivered them to me when I saw him last April in Paris, 
 they would have been still more welcome and afforded me 
 at least fresher intelligence. Instead of that they were left 
 In a drawer at the New England Coffee House, where they 
 have just now been discovered and sent to me by the master 
 of that house. I had never known of the origin of the cor- 
 respondence between Mr. Lloyd and my father, though I 
 have seen in this country the effusion, "half froth and half 
 venom," spit abroad against my father by the reptile Ran- 
 dolph in his letter to Lloyd. ^ The letter from Mr. Lloyd to 
 
 1 John Randolph had, in 1814, written an appeal to Lloyd against the Hartford 
 Convention. It is printed in Niles, Register, VII. 258. 
 
470 
 
 THE WRITINGS OF [1816 
 
 my father upon the fisheries I had long since received and 
 have derived much information from its contents. 
 
 I learnt with much concern the decease of that amiable 
 and excellent woman, Mrs. Waterhouse — a heavy and in- 
 comparable loss to the doctor and her daughters. I am very 
 sorry also to hear of the illness and infirm state of health of 
 Mr. Boylston. His brother, Sir Benjamin Hallowell,^ has 
 a house at Ealing, within a mile of us. His family resided 
 there since we have been here, and we dined with him and 
 his lady at Mr. WiUiam Vaughan's ^ in September. Mr. 
 Vaughan resides with his sisters at East Hill, Wandsworth, 
 about six miles from us. Admiral Hallowell has the com- 
 mand at Cork on the navy peace establishment, and is now 
 there with his lady. Their sister, Mrs. Elmsley, now resides 
 at their house in Ealing, and I propose shortly to call and 
 see her. Our boys are in the midst of their Christmas 
 vacation. . . . 
 
 TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE 
 
 No. 26. [James Monroe] 
 
 London, 9 January, 18 16. 
 
 Sir: 
 
 With my last dispatch I had the honor of inclosing a copy 
 of a note which I had addressed to Lord Castlereagh, con- 
 cerning a discrimination between vessels of the United 
 States and British vessels in the number of passengers which 
 
 1 Sir Benjamin Hallowell Carew (1760-1834), son of Benjamin Hallowell, a royal 
 Commissioner of the American Board of Customs before the War for Independence. 
 He took the name Carew in 1828. 
 
 2 William Vaughan (1752-1850), son of Samuel and Sarah (Hallowell) Vaughan. 
 
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 471 
 
 they are permitted to take in the ports of Ireland for con- 
 veyance to America, I now inclose copies of his Lordship's 
 answer and of my reply. 
 
 I have not yet addressed to him an official note upon the 
 subject of the Baltimore, taken within the Spanish jurisdic- 
 tion at St. Andrew, because the only evidence of the fact 
 contained in the papers is the protest of the master and mate 
 of the vessel. This protest states that there was at the time 
 of the capture a Spanish pilot on board. The owner's 
 nephew, Mr. Karthaws, has been here, and I have advised 
 him of the necessity of obtaining the testimony of the pilot, 
 or of other impartial witnesses at St. Andrew. For other- 
 wise, as soon as my note shall be presented to this govern- 
 ment, they will refer it to the captain of the ship which took 
 the Baltimore, and will consider his report as a satisfactory 
 answer to the claim. I have formerly mentioned to you 
 another and a similar case, that of the William and Mary, 
 captured last February at Cadiz, sent to Gibraltar, and 
 there condemned by the Vice Admiralty Court. The viola- 
 tion of the Spanish jurisdiction was in that case established 
 upon indisputable evidence. It was reported to the Spanish 
 government by the Governor of Cadiz himself, who made a 
 fruitless demand for the restitution of the captured vessel 
 by the Court at Gibraltar. Messrs. Dickason and Nevell, 
 the agents of the American owners here, had applied to 
 Count Fernan Nunez, the Spanish Ambassador, for author- 
 ity to enter an appeal of territory before the Admiralty 
 Court of Appeal, which he had declined to do without orders 
 from his court. On October last I wrote to the Ambassador, 
 stating the circumstances of the case and requesting him 
 to apply to his government for instructions to authorize 
 the appeal. He readily complied, and on the 14th of last 
 month wrote me that he had received orders to demand the 
 
i 
 
 472 THE WRITINGS OF [1816 
 
 restitution of the vessel and cargo or their equivalent. That 
 he had sent in a note to the British government accordingly, 
 and would communicate to me their answer when he should 
 receive it. A few days since he sent me a copy of Lord 
 Castlereagh's answer to his note which was, that as the case 
 was pending in the Admiralty Court of Appeal, the Ambas- 
 sador was authorized to authorize the agents of the claim- 
 ants to enter the appeal of territory. The Count informed 
 me that he was ready to give the authority, it being under- 
 stood that all the expenses of the appeal were to be at the 
 charge of the claimants. I have given notice of this to the 
 agents, and I trust the cause will terminate in the restitu- 
 tion of the property. I mentioned the case in a letter to 
 Mr. Morris ^ at Madrid, requesting him if he should have 
 the opportunity, to urge an early answer to the Ambassador's 
 demand for instructions. Mr. Morris answers me on the 
 loth ultimo, that he had in May last made to Mr. Cevallos 
 two applications in this same case, to which he had received 
 in July only a verbal and offensive answer that it was under 
 advisement. It is yet remarkable that even when he wrote 
 to me, he was not informed of the orders which had been 
 transmitted to Count Fernan Nunez. . . . 
 
 TO LORD CASTLEREAGH 
 
 The undersigned Envoy Extraordinary and Minister 
 Plenipotentiary from the United States of America has re- 
 ceived and communicated to the government of the United 
 States the answer of Lord Bathurst to a letter which he had 
 the honor of addressing to His Lordship on the 25th of Sep- 
 tember last, representing the grounds upon which the Amer- 
 
 ^ Anthony Morris. 
 
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 473 
 
 lean government considers the people of the United States 
 entitled to all the rights and liberties in and connected with 
 the fisheries on the coasts of North America, which had been 
 enjoyed by them previously to the American Revolution, 
 and which by the third article of the treaty of peace of 1783 
 were recognized by Great Britain as rights and liberties be- 
 longing to them. The reply to Lord Bathurst's note has 
 been delayed by circumstances which it is unnecessary to 
 detail. It is for the government of the United States alone 
 to decide upon the proposal of a negotiation upon the sub- 
 ject. That they will at all times be ready to agree upon 
 arrangements which may obviate and prevent the recurrence 
 of those inconveniences stated to have resulted from the 
 exercise by the people of the United States of these rights 
 and liberties, is not to be doubted; but as Lord Bathurst 
 appears to have understood some of the observations in the 
 letters of the undersigned as importing inferences not in- 
 tended by him, and as some of his Lordship's remarks par- 
 ticularly require a reply, it is presumed that since Lord Cas- 
 tlereagh's return it will with propriety be addressed to him. 
 It had been stated in the letter to Lord Bathurst that the 
 treaty of peace of 1783 between Great Britain and the 
 United States was of a peculiar nature, and bore in that na- 
 ture a character of permanency not subject, like many of 
 the ordinary contracts between independent nations, to 
 abrogation by a subsequent war between the same parties. 
 His Lordship not only considers this as a position of a novel 
 nature, to which Great Britain cannot accede, but as claim- 
 ing for the diplomatic relations of the United States with 
 her, a different degree of permanency from that on which 
 her connections with all other states depends. He denies 
 the right of any one state to assign to a treaty made with her 
 I such a peculiarity of character as to make it in duration an 
 
474 THE WRITINGS OF [1816 
 
 exception to all other treaties, in order to found on a pecul- 
 iarity thus assumed an irrevocable title to all indulgences, 
 which (he alleges) has all the features of temporary con- 
 cessions, and he adds in unqualified terms that ^' Great 
 Britain knows of no exception to the rule that all treaties are 
 put an end to by a subsequent war between the parties." 
 The undersigned explicitly disavows every pretence of 
 claiming for the diplomatic relations between the United 
 States and Great Britain a degree of permanency different 
 from that of the same relation between either of the parties 
 and all other powers. He disclaims all pretence of assigning , 
 to any treaty between the two nations any peculiarity not 
 founded in the nature of the treaty itself. But he submits 
 to the candor of his Majesty's government, whether the 
 treaty of 1783 was not from the very nature of its subject- : 
 matter, and from the relations previously existing between 1 
 the parties to it, peculiar .f" Whether It was a treaty which , 
 could have been made between Great Britain and any other I 
 nation? And if not, whether the whole scope and objects of 1 
 the stipulations were not expressly intended to constitute a 
 new and permanent state of diplomatic relations between 
 the two countries, which would not and could not be an- 
 nulled by the mere fact of a subsequent war between them? 
 And he makes this appeal with the more confidence, be- 1 
 cause another part of Lord Bathurst's note admits treaties 1 
 often contain recognitions and acknowledgments In nature 
 of perpetual obligations, and because it impliedly admits that i 
 the whole treaty of 1783 is of this character, with the ex- 
 ception of the article concerning the navigation of the Mis- 1 
 sisslppi, and a small part of the article concerning the fish- 
 eries. The position that "Great Britain knows no exception 
 to the rule that all treaties are put an end to by a subsequent 
 war between the same parties," appears to the undersigned 
 
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 475 
 
 not only novel, but unwarranted by any of the received 
 authorities upon the laws of nations, unsanctioned by the 
 practice and usages of sovereign states, suited in its tendency 
 to multiply the incitements to war, and to weaken the ties 
 to peace between independent nations, and not easily recon- 
 ciled with the admission that treaties, not unusually, con- 
 tain together with articles of a temporary character, liable 
 to revocation, recognitions and acknowledgments in nature 
 of perpetual obligation. A recognition or acknowledgment 
 of title stipulated by convention is as much a part of the 
 treaty as any other article, and if all treaties are abrogated 
 by war, the recognitions and acknowledgments contained 
 in them must necessarily be null and void, as much as any 
 other part of the treaty. If there be no exception to the rule 
 that war puts an end to all treaties between the parties to it, 
 what can be the purpose or meaning of those articles which 
 in almost all treaties of commerce are provided, expressly 
 for the contingency of war, and which during the peace are 
 without operation? On this point the undersigned would 
 refer Lord Castlereagh to the loth article of the treaty of 
 1794 between the United States and Great Britain, where it 
 is thus stipulated: "neither the debts due from the individ- 
 uals of one nation to the individuals of the other, nor shares, 
 nor moneys, which they may have In the public funds or in 
 the public or private banks, shall ever, in any event of war or 
 national differences, be sequestered or confiscated." If war 
 puts an end to all treaties, what could the parties to this 
 engagement Intend by making It formally an article of the 
 treaty.? According to the principle laid down, excluding all 
 exception by Lord Bathurst's note, the moment a war broke 
 out between the two countries this stipulation became a dead 
 letter, and either state might have sequestered or confis- 
 cated those specified properties without any violation of 
 
476 THE WRITINGS OF [1816 
 
 compact between the nations. The undersigned believes 
 there are many exceptions to the rule by which the treaties 
 between nations are mutually considered terminated by the 
 intervention of a war; that these exceptions extend to all 
 engagements contracted with the understanding that they, 
 are to operate equally in war and peace, or exclusively during 
 war; to all engagements by which the parties superadd the 
 sanction of a formal compact to principles dictated by the 
 eternal laws of morality and humanity; and finally, to all 
 engagements which, according to the expressions of Lordl, 
 Bathurst's note, are in the nature of perpetual obligation. To 
 the first and second of these classes may be referred the 
 tenth article of the treaty of 1794, and all treaties or articles 
 of treaties stipulating the abolition of the slave trade. The 
 treaty of peace of 1783 belongs to the third. The reasoning 
 of Lord Bathurst's note seems to confine this perpetuity of i 
 obligation to recognitions and acknowledgments of title, to 
 consider its perpetual nature as resulting from the subject- 
 matter of the contract, and not from the engagements of the 
 contractor. While Great Britain leaves the United States 
 unmolested in the enjoyment of all the advantages, rights, 
 and liberties, stipulated in their behalf in the treaty of 1783, 
 it is immaterial to them whether she founds her conduct 
 upon the mere fact that the United States are in possession 
 of such rights, or whether she is governed by good faith and 
 respect for her own engagements. But if she contested any 
 one of them, it is to her engagements only that the United 
 States can appeal as the rule for settling the question of 
 right. If this appeal be rejected, it ceases to be a discussion 
 of right, and this observation applies as strongly to the 
 recognition of independence and to the boundary line in the 
 treaty of 1783, as to the fisheries. It is truly observed by 
 Lord Bathurst's note, that in that treaty the independence 
 
 u 
 
i8i6l JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 477 
 
 of the United States was not granted but acknowledged. 
 He adds, that it might have been acknowledged without any 
 treaty, and that the acknowledgment, in whatever mode 
 made, would have been irrevocable. But the independence 
 of the United States was precisely the question upon which 
 a previous war between them and Great Britain had been 
 waged. Other nations might acknowledge their independ- 
 ence without a treaty, because they had no right, or claim 
 of right, to contest it; but this acknowledgment, to be binding 
 upon Great Britain, could have been only by treaty, because 
 it included the dissolution of one social compact between 
 the parties, as well as the formation of another. Peace could 
 exist between the two nations only by the mutual pledge 
 of faith to the new social relations established between them, 
 and hence it was that the stipulations of that treaty were in 
 the nature of perpetual obligation, and not liable to be for- 
 feited by a subsequent war, or by any declaration of the will 
 of either party without the assent of the other. In this view 
 it certainly was supposed by the undersigned that Great 
 Britain considered her obligation to hold and treat with the 
 United States as a sovereign and independent power, as de- 
 rived only from the preliminary articles of 1782, as converted 
 into the definitive treaty of 1783. The boundary line could 
 obviously rest upon no other foundation. The boundaries 
 were neither recognitions nor acknowledgments of title. 
 They could have been fixed and settled only by treaty, and 
 it is to the treaty alone that both parties have always referred 
 in all discussions concerning them. Lord Bathurst's note 
 denies that there is in any one of the articles of the treaty of 
 Ghent any express or implied reference to the treaty of 1783 
 as still in force. It says that by the stipulation for a mutual 
 restoration of territory, each party necessarily "reverted to 
 their boundaries as before the war, without reference to the 
 
478 THE WRITINGS OF [1816 
 
 title by which their possessions were acquired, or to the' 
 mode in which their boundaries had been previously fixed.'' 
 
 There are four several articles of the treaty of Ghent, ini 
 every one of which the treaty of 1783 is not only named, but? 
 its stipulations form the basis of the new engagements be- 
 tween the parties for carrying its provisions into execution. 
 These articles are the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th. The undersigned f 
 refers particularly to the fourth article, where the boundaries i 
 described are not adverted to without reference to the title ■' 
 by which they were acquired, but where the stipulation of i 
 the treaty of 1783 is expressly assigned as the basis of the- 
 claims, both of the United States and of Great Britain, to • 
 the islands mentioned in the article. The words with which ; 
 the article begins are, " Whereas it was stipulated by the 
 second article in the treaty of peace of one thousand seven '} 
 hundred and eighty-three, between his Britannic Majesty ' 
 and the United States of America, that the boundary of the '^ 
 United States should comprehend all islands, etc." It pro- 
 ceeds to describe the boundaries as there stipulated, then .■ 
 alleges the claim of the United States to certain islands as 
 founded upon one^part of the stipulation, and the claim of ' 
 Great Britain as derived from another part of the stipula- 
 tion, and agrees upon the appointment of two commissioners 
 to decide to which of the two contracting parties the islands 
 belong, "{w conformity with the true intent of the said treaty 
 of peace of 1783." The same expressions are repeated in 
 the fifth, sixth and seventh articles, and the undersigned is 
 unable to conceive by what construction of language one of 
 the parties to these articles can allege that at the time when '■ 
 they were signed, the treaty of 1783 was, or could be con- 
 sidered, at an end, ' 
 
 When in the letter of the undersigned to Lord Bathurst 
 the treaty of 1783 was stated to be a compact of a peculiar 
 
 d 
 
f8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 479 
 
 character, importing in its own nature a permanence not 
 liable to be annulled by the fact of a subsequent war between 
 the parties, the recognition of the sovereignty of the United 
 States and the boundary line were adduced as illustrations 
 to support the principle. The language of the above men- 
 ioned articles in the treaty of Ghent, and the claim brought 
 'orward by Great Britain at the negotiation of it for the free 
 lavigation of the Mississippi, were alleged as proofs that 
 jreat Britain herself so considered it, except with regard to 
 i small part of the single article relative to the fisheries, and 
 :he right of Great Britain was denied thus to select one par- 
 icular stipulation in such a treaty and declare it to have 
 Deen abrogated by the war. The answer of Lord Bathurst 
 denies that Great Britain has made such a selection, and 
 iffirms that the whole treaty of 1783 was annulled by the 
 ate war. It admits, however, that the recognition of in- 
 dependence and the boundaries were in the nature of per- 
 3etual obligation, and that with the single exception of the 
 iberties in and connected with the fisheries within British 
 jurisdiction on the coasts of North America, the United 
 States are entitled to all the benefit? of all the stipulations 
 in their favor contained in the treaty of 1783, although the 
 stipulations themselves are supposed to be annulled. The 
 fishing liberties within British jurisdiction alone are con- 
 sidered as a temporary grant, liable not only to abrogation 
 by war, but as it would seem from the tenor of the argument 
 revocable at the pleasure of Great Britain, whenever she 
 might consider the revocation suitable to her interest. The 
 note affirms "that the liberty to fish within British limits, 
 Dr to use British territory, is essentially different from the 
 right to independence, in all that can reasonably be sup- 
 posed to regard its intended duration. That the grant of 
 this liberty has all the aspect of a policy, temporary and ex- 
 
48o THE WRITINGS OF [1816 
 
 perimental, depending on the use that might be made of it 
 on the condition of the islands and places where it was to be 
 exercised, and the more general conveniences or inconven- 
 iences in a military, naval, or commercial point of view, re- 
 sulting from the access of an independent nation to such 
 islands and places." The undersigned is induced on this 
 occasion to repeat his Lordship's own words, because on a 
 careful and deliberate review of the article in question he is 
 unable to discover in it a single expression indicating even 
 in the most distant manner a policy temporary and experi- 
 mental, or having the remotest connection with military, 
 naval, or commercial conveniences or inconveniences to 
 Great Britain. He has not been inattentive to the variation 
 in the terms by which the enjoyment of the fisheries on the 
 main ocean, the common possession of both nations, and 
 the same enjoyment in a small portion of the special juris- 
 diction of Great Britain, are stipulated in the article and. 
 recognized as belonging to the people of the United States. 
 He considers the term right as importing an advantage to be 
 enjoyed in a place of common jurisdiction, and the term 
 liberty as referring to the same advantage incidentally lead- 
 ing to the borders of a special jurisdiction. But evidently 
 neither of them imports any limitation of time. Both were 
 expressions no less familiar to the understanding than dear 
 to the hearts of both the nations parties to the treaty. The 
 undersigned is persuaded it will be readily admitted that, 
 wherever the English language is the mother tongue, the 
 term liberty, far from including in itself either limitation of 
 time or precariousness of tenure, is essentially as permanent 
 as that of right, and can with justice be understood only as 
 a modification of the same thing. And as no limitation of 
 time is implied in the term itself, so there is none expressed 
 in any part of the article to which it belongs. The restric- 
 
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 481 
 
 1 
 I 
 
 tlon at the close of the article is Itself a confirmation of the 
 permanency which the undersigned contends belongs to 
 every part of the article. The intention was that the people 
 of the United States should continue to enjoy all the benefits 
 of the fisheries which they had enjoyed theretofore. And with 
 the exception of drying and curing fish on the island of New- 
 foundland, all that American subjects should enjoy there- 
 after among them was the liberty of drying and curing fish on 
 the shores then uninhabited adjoining certain bays, harbors 
 and creeks. But when those shores should become settled, 
 and thereby become private and Individual property, it was 
 obvious that the liberty of drying and curing fish upon them 
 must be conciliated with the proprietary rights of the owners 
 of the soil. The same restriction would apply to British 
 fishermen, and It was precisely because no grant of a new 
 right was Intended, but merely the continuance of what had 
 been previously enjoyed that the restriction must have been 
 assented to on the part of the United States. But upon the 
 common and equitable rule of construction for treaties, the 
 expression of one restriction Implies the exclusion of all 
 others not expressed, and thus the very limitation which 
 looks forward to the time when the unsettled deserts should 
 become inhabited to modify the enjoyment of the same 
 liberty, conformably to the change of circumstances, cor- 
 roborates the conclusion that the whole purport of the com- 
 'pact was permanent and not temporary, not experimental, 
 but definitive. That the term right was used as applicable 
 :to what the United States were to enjoy in virtue of a recog- 
 ' nized independence, and the word liberty, to what they were 
 to enjoy as concessions strictly dependent on the treaty It- 
 self. The undersigned not only cannot admit, but considers 
 . this as a construction altogether unfounded. If the United 
 States would have been entitled in virtue of a recognized in- 
 
482 THE WRITINGS OF [1816 
 
 dependence to enjoy the fisheries to which the word rights is 
 applied, no article upon the subject would have been re- 
 quired in the treaty. Whatever their right might have been, 
 Great Britain would not have felt herself bound, without a 
 specific article to that effect, to acknowledge it as included 
 among the appendages to their independence. Had she not 
 acknowledged it, the United States must have been reduced 
 to the alternative of resigning it, or of maintaining it by 
 force, the result of which must have been war, the very 
 state from which the treaty was to redeem the parties. 
 That Great Britain would not have acknowledged these 
 rights as belonging to the United States in virtue of their 
 independence, is evident. For in the cession of Nova Scotia 
 by France to Great Britain in the twelfth article of the treaty 
 of Utrecht, it was expressly stipulated that as a consequence 
 of that cession, French subjects should be thenceforth "ex- 
 cluded from all kind of fishing in the said seas, bays, and 
 other places, on the coasts of Nova Scotia, that is to say, on 
 those which lie towards the east within 30 leagues, beginning 
 from the island commonly called Sable inclusively, and 
 thence stretching along towards the southwest. " The same 
 exclusion was repeated with some slight variation in the 
 treaty of peace of 1763, and in the i8th article of the same 
 treaty, Spain explicitly renounced all pretensions to the 
 right of fishing, "in the neighborhood of the island of New- 
 foundland." It was not, therefore, as a necessary result of 
 their independence that Great Britain recognized the right 
 of the people of the United States " to fish on the Banks of 
 Newfoundland, in the gulf of St. Lawrence," and at all other 
 places in the sea where the inhabitants of "both countries 
 used at any time theretofore to fish," She recognized it by 
 a special stipulation as a right which they had theretofore 
 enjoyed as a part of the British nation, and which as an in- 
 
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 483 
 
 dependent nation they were to continue to enjoy unmolested. 
 And it is well known that, so far from considering it as 
 recognized by virtue of her acknowledgment of independence, 
 her objections to admitting it at all formed one of the most 
 prominent difficulties in the negotiation of the peace of 1783. 
 It was not asserted by the undersigned, as Lord Bathurst's 
 note appears to suppose, that either the right or the liberty 
 of the people of the United States in their fisheries was in- 
 defeasible. It was maintained that after the recognition of 
 them by Great Britain in the treaty of 1783, neither the 
 right nor the liberty could be forfeited by the United States 
 but by their own consent; that no act or declaration of 
 Great Britain alone could divest the United States of them; 
 and that no exclusion of them from the enjoyment of either 
 could be valid, unless expressly stipulated by themselves, 
 as was done by France in the treaty of Utrecht, and by 
 France and Spain in the peace of 1763. 
 
 The undersigned is apprehensive, from the earnestness 
 with which Lord Bathurst's note argues to refute inferences 
 which he disclaims, from the principles asserted in his letters 
 to his Lordship, that he has not expressed her meaning in 
 terms sufficiently clear. He affirmed that previous to the 
 independence of the United States their people, as British 
 subjects, had enjoyed all the rights and liberties in the fish- 
 eries which form the subject of the present discussion, and 
 that when the separation of the two parts of the nation was 
 consummated by a mutual compact, the treaty of peace de- 
 fined the rights and liberties which by the stipulation of 
 both parties the United States in their new character were 
 to enjoy. By the acknowledgment of the independence of 
 the United States Great Britain bound herself to treat them 
 thenceforward as a nation possessed of all the prerogatives 
 and attributes of sovereign power. The people of the United 
 
484 THE WRITINGS OF [1816 
 
 States were thenceforward neither bound in allegiance to 
 the sovereign of Great Britain, nor entitled to his protection 
 in the enjoyment of any of their rights as his subjects. Their 
 rights and their duties as members of a state were defined 
 and regulated by their own constitutions and forms of gov- 
 ernment. But there were certain rights and liberties which 
 had been enjoyed by both parts of the nation while subjects 
 of the same sovereign, which it was mutually agreed they 
 should continue to enjoy unmolested, and among them were 
 the rights and liberties in these fisheries. The fisheries on 
 the Banks of Newfoundland, as well in the open seas as in 
 the neighboring bays, gulfs, and along the coasts of Nova 
 Scotia and Labrador, were by the dispensations and the laws 
 of nature in substance only different parts of one fishery. 
 Those of the open sea were enjoyed, not as a common and 
 universal right of all nations, since the exclusion from them 
 of France and Spain, in whole or in part, had been expressly 
 stipulated by those nations, and no other nation had in fact 
 participated in them. It was, with some exceptions, an ex- 
 clusive possession of the British nation, and in the treaty of 
 separation it was agreed that the rights and liberties in them 
 should continue to be enjoyed by that part of the nation 
 which constituted the United States; that it should not be 
 a several, but as between Great Britain and the United 
 States, a common fishery. It was necessary for the enjoy- 
 ment of this fishery to exercise it in conformity to the habits 
 of the species of game of which it consisted. The places 
 frequented by the fish were those to which the fishermen were 
 obliged to resort, and these occasionally brought them to the 
 borders of the British territorial jurisdiction. It was also 
 necessary for the prosecution of a part of this fishery that 
 the fish, when caught, should be immediately cured and 
 dried, which could only be done on the rocks or shores ad- 
 
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 485 
 
 I joining the places where they were caught. The access to 
 those rocks and shores for these purposes was secured to the 
 people of the United States as incidental and necessary to 
 the enjoyment of the fishery. It was little more than an 
 access to naked rocks and desolate sands; but it was as 
 permanently secured as the right to the fishery itself. No 
 limitation was assigned of time. Provision was made for 
 the proprietary rights which might at a distant and future 
 period arise by the settlement of places then uninhabited, 
 but no other limitation was expressed or indicated by the 
 terms of the treaty, and no other can either from the letter 
 or spirit of the article be inferred. Far then from claiming 
 the general rights and privileges belonging to British sub- 
 jects within the British dominions, as resulting from the 
 treaty of peace of 1783, while at the same time asserting 
 their exemption from the duties of a British allegiance, the 
 article in question is itself a proof that the people of the 
 United States have renounced all such claims. Could they 
 have pretended generally to the privileges of British sub- 
 jects, such an article as that relating to the fisheries would 
 have been absurd. There was in the treaty of 1783 no ex- 
 press renunciation of their rights to the protection of a 
 British sovereign. This renunciation they had made by their 
 Declaration of Independence on the Fourth of July, 1776, 
 and it was implied in their acceptance of the counter re- 
 nunciation of sovereignty in the treaty of 1783. It was pre- 
 cisely because they might have lost their portion of this 
 joint national property, to the acquisition of which they had 
 contributed more than their share, unless a formal article of 
 the treaty should secure it to them, that the article was intro- 
 duced. By the British municipal laws, which were the laws 
 of both nations, the property of a fishery is not necessarily 
 in the proprietor of the soil where it is situated. The soil 
 
486 THE WRITINGS OF [1816 
 
 may belong to one individual and the fishery to another. 
 The right to the soil may be exclusive, while the fishery may 
 be free or held in common. And thus, while in the partition 
 of the national possessions in North America stipulated by 
 the treaty of 1783, the jurisdiction over the shores washed 
 by the waters where this fishery was placed was reserved to 
 Great Britain, the fisheries themselves and the accommoda- 
 tions essential to their prosecution were by mutual compact 
 agreed to be continued in common. 
 
 In submitting these reflections to the consideration of His 
 Majesty's government the undersigned is duly sensible to 
 the amiable and conciliatory sentiments and dispositions 
 towards the United States manifested at the conclusion of 
 Lord Bathurst's note, which will be met by reciprocal and 
 corresponding sentiments and dispositions on the part of the 
 American government. It will be highly satisfactory to them 
 to be assured that the conduciveness of the object to the 
 national and individual prosperity of the inhabitants of the 
 United States operates with His Majesty's government as a 
 forcible motive to concession; undoubtedly the participa- 
 tion in the liberties to which their right is now maintained 
 is far more important to the interests of the people of the 
 United States, than the exclusive enjoyment can be to the 
 interests of Great Britain. The real, general and ultimate 
 interests of both the nations on this object, he is fully con- 
 vinced, are the same. The collisions of particular interests 
 which heretofore may have produced altercations between 
 the fishermen of the two nations, and the clandestine intro- 
 duction of prohibited goods by means of American fishing 
 vessels, may be obviated by arrangements duly concerted 
 between the two governments. That of the United States, 
 he is persuaded, will readily cooperate in any measure to 
 secure those ends, compatible with the enjoyment by the 
 
I 
 
 8i6l JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 487 
 
 people of the United States of the Hberties to which they 
 consider their title as unimpaired, inasmuch as it has never 
 been renounced by themselves. The undersigned prays 
 Lord Castlereagh to accept the renewed assurance of his 
 high consideration. 
 
 13 Craven street, 22 January, 18 16. 
 
 TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE 
 
 No. 28. [James Monroe] 
 
 London, 22 January, 1816. 
 Sir: 
 
 • •«•••* 
 
 I It is to be hoped that the restoration of the ordinary dip- 
 lomatic relations between the United States and Spain will 
 be followed by a more conciliatory policy on the part of the 
 
 i latter power than she has hitherto pursued. The internal 
 administration of Spain has given so much disgust to the 
 public feeling of Europe, and particularly of this country, 
 that the British Cabinet has in some sort partaken of it. 
 
 ; The national sentiment in England is likewise strong in 
 favor of the South Americans, and the prevailing opinion 
 is that their independence would be highly advantageous to 
 the interests of this country. A different and directly oppo- 
 site sentiment is entertained by the government. Their dis- 
 position is decided against the South Americans, but by a 
 political obliquity not without example, it is not so unequiv- 
 ocally in favor of the mother country. In the year 1776, 
 that wise and honest minister, Mr. Turgot, reported to the 
 King of France, that it was for the interest of his kingdom 
 that the insurrection in North America should be suppressed, 
 
488 THE WRITINGS OF [1816 
 
 because the insurgents, when subdued, would still be such 
 turbulent and mutinous subjects that it would employ all 
 the force of Great Britain to keep them down, and her weak- 
 ness would make her a peaceable or at least a harmless 
 neighbor. In the month of February, 1778, France con- 
 cluded a treaty of commerce and an eventual treaty of 
 alliance with the United States, because they were de facto 
 independent. In the interval between those two periods 
 France was wavering and temporizing, with one hand seiz- 
 ing American privateers in her ports, and with the other 
 sending supplies of arms and ammunition to America. This 
 is precisely the present situation of Great Britain towards 
 Spain. The Cabinet have many other reasons besides that 
 of Mr. Turgot to secure the good neighborhood of impotence, 
 for wishing that the insurrection should be suppressed: 
 I. They have a deep rooted inveterate prejudice, fortified 
 by all the painful recollections of their own unfortunate con- 
 test against any revolution by which colonies were emanci- 
 pated and become independent states. 2. They have a 
 forcible moral impression, like that of their antipathy to the 
 slave trade, that it is wrong to assist or encourage colonies 
 in the attempt to throw off the yoke of their mother country. 
 3. They dread the influence of example, and always remem- 
 ber how many colonies they themselves still possess. 4. They 
 fear the consequences of South American independence upon 
 the whole system of European colonial policy. Their at- 
 tachment to this has been amply displayed in their anxious 
 and persevering efforts to draw the Braganza family back 
 to Lisbon, efforts well known to you, and which will probably 
 not be successful. 5. The mystic virtue of legitimacy. It is 
 impossible to write with proper gravity upon this subject, 
 but it has no small operation against the South American 
 independents. 6. And last, but not least, they look with no 
 
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 489 
 
 propitious eye to the relation which will naturally arise 
 between independent governments on the two American 
 continents. They foresee less direct advantage to themselves 
 from a free commercial intercourse with South America, 
 than indirect injury by its tendency to promote the interests 
 of the United States. Perhaps they think a period may arise, 
 when one of the parties to this struggle will offer exclusive 
 advantages and privileges to them as the price of their as- 
 sistance. Hitherto they have professed to be neutral, and 
 at one time offered their mediation between the parties. 
 But they have assisted Ferdinand at least with money, 
 without which Morillo's ^ armament never could have sailed 
 from Cadiz, and they have suffered all sorts of supplies to 
 be sent to the insurgents from Jamaica. For as, notwith- 
 standing their inclinations, they are aware the South Amer- 
 icans may ultimately prove de facto independent, they hold 
 themselves ready to take advantage of the proper moment 
 to acknowledge them, if it should occur. This is one of the 
 points upon which the opposition are continually urging the 
 ministry, but hitherto without effect. 
 
 Should the United States be involved In a war with Spain, 
 whether by acknowledging the South Americans, or from 
 any other cause, we must take it for granted that all the 
 propensities of the British government will be against us. 
 Those of the nation will be so perhaps in equal degree, for 
 we must not disguise to ourselves that the national feeling 
 against the United States is more strong and more universal 
 than It ever has been. The state of peace, instead of being 
 attended by general prosperity, is found only to have ag- 
 gravated the burden of taxation which presses upon the coun- 
 try. There is considerable distress weighing chiefly upon 
 the landed interest, although the accounts which you will 
 
 1 Pablo Morillo. 
 
490 
 
 THE WRITINGS OF [1816 
 
 see of it are excessively exaggerated. Enough however is 
 felt to prompt a strong wish for a new war in a great portion 
 of the community, and there is no nation with which a war 
 would be so popular as with America. But I have no hesita- 
 tion in stating my conviction that the present policy of the 
 ministry towards America is more pacific than that of the 
 nation. They are aware of the responsibility that such ai 
 war would bring upon them, and are not at this time pre- • 
 pared to encounter it. Of the cession of Florida I have not ; 
 lately heard, but I think there is no considerable armed force : 
 prepared or preparing to be sent there, either from England i 
 or Ireland. The navy, as I have informed you, is reduced 1 
 to a peace establishment unusually small, and even the ; 
 ships that are recommissioned cannot be manned without : 
 bounties and impressment. There is a Colonel Stapleton, , 
 Secretary of the Commissioners of the barrack office, going ; 
 out in the frigate with Mr. Bagot. He goes to Charleston, , 
 South Carolina, as he says, on private business of his own. 
 This is the only symptom I have yet perceived of a large : 
 military expedition to Florida. I have the honor to inclose 
 my reply to Lord Bathurst's note concerning the fisheries. 
 It has been delayed by an illness which for several weeks 
 disabled me from writing. I am with great respect, etc. 
 
'i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 491 
 
 TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE 
 
 No. 29. [James Monroe] 
 
 London, 31 January, 18 16. 
 Sir: 
 
 In my Interview with Lord Castlereagh on the 25th in- 
 stant we had much conversation, as well upon the topics 
 which have formed the subjects of discussion with this 
 government during his absence, as upon those concerning 
 which I have recently been honored with your instructions. 
 As propositions for a formal negotiation had been made on 
 both sides, I thought it necessary to ascertain whether this 
 government would consider the full power under which I 
 had acted jointly with my late colleagues as yet sufficient 
 for concluding with me any further conventional arrange- 
 ments. At the time when we signed the commercial con- 
 vention of 3 July last, we had given notice that the objects 
 upon which we had been instructed to treat under that full 
 power were much more extensive than those upon which we 
 found it then practicable to come to an agreement; but as 
 the British plenipotentiaries informed us that their powers 
 would terminate In the conclusion of that convention, I told 
 them that I should make no further propositions unless by 
 virtue of subsequent instructions from my own government, 
 and in that case should address them In the ordinary chan- 
 nel of the Foreign Department. I now Inquired of Lord 
 Castlereagh, whether this government were disposed now to 
 enter upon a further negotiation, and If they were, whether 
 they would expect me to produce a new full power. With 
 regard to the latter point Lord Castlereagh said that If I 
 should declare the government of the United States still 
 
492 THE WRITINGS OF [1816 
 
 considered the joint power under which I had treated here- 
 tofore as in force to authorize me to treat separately, and 
 that the proposals which I should make were by the instruc- 
 tions of my government, he thought it would not be neces- 
 sary for me to produce a new power. As this answer, how- 
 ever, is not perfectly explicit, and as it requires of me a 
 declaration of what I must rather infer than positively know,. 
 I would request as the safest course that a new full power 
 may be transmitted to me. 
 
 Lord Castlereagh inquired what were the subjects upon 
 which we should be desirous of treating. I mentioned as the 
 first and most important that which relates to seamen, ob- 
 serving the great anxiety which was felt in the United States 
 on this subject, the principal source of the late contest be- 
 tween the two countries, and that from which the greatest; 
 danger of future dissensions was to be apprehended, unless; 
 some provision should be made during the peace to prevent 
 the recurrence of the same evils whenever a new war may 
 take place. I noticed the new recommendation in the 
 President's message to Congress of the law for confining the 
 navigation of American vessels to American seamen, and 
 the solicitude manifested by the President that it may lead 
 to the total discontinuance of the practice of impressment 
 in our vessels. Lord Castlereagh expressed his satisfaction 
 at what he termed this change of policy on the part of the 
 United States, but far from appearing to think it a motive 
 for Great Britain to stipulate by treaty to forbear the prac- 
 tice of impressment, he intimated the opinion that this 
 measure of the United States, if fairly adopted and properly 
 carried into execution, would rather make any arrangement 
 between the two nations unnecessary. He said that its con- 
 sequence must be that there would be no British seamen on 
 board of American vessels to take, and, if so, the practice of 
 
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 493 
 
 taking them would cease of course. He remarked that as the 
 inconvenience did not exist during the peace, it might be 
 doubted whether it was the most seasonable time for a dis- 
 cussion upon which there was such a different and opposite 
 view in point of principle entertained by the two govern- 
 ments. And although I argued that the time of peace, when 
 there was no immediate interest of either party at stake, 
 and when the feelings on both sides would be cool and com- 
 posed, might be peculiarly adapted to a mutual effort for 
 closing this fruitful source of dissensions, he was not in- 
 clined to that opinion. He intimated that there was still in 
 England a very strong and highly irritable feeling on this 
 subject; that the government could not incur the responsi- 
 bility of concession in relation to it; that it would be expe- 
 dient to wait until the new policy of the United States for 
 encouraging their own native seamen should fully have been 
 developed, and by its consequences have proved that Great 
 Britain would not need impressment to preserve herself 
 from the loss of her own seamen. He added, nevertheless, 
 that the British government would always be ready to hear 
 proposals on this subject, and to adopt arrangements which 
 might guard against abuses in the exercise of their rights. 
 
 As connected with this subject, I spoke to Lord Castle- 
 reagh of the notes which I have lately received from him re- 
 quiring me upon representations made by the Lord Mayor 
 of London and the Mayor of Liverpool to send to the United 
 States a number of distressed American seamen. As the 
 second requisition had been made to me without any reply 
 to the answer which I had given to the first, I concluded that 
 Lord Castlereagh had not seen my answer, and he confirmed 
 me in the correctness of that conjecture. He said my answer 
 must have been received while he was in the country, which 
 had been the cause of his not having seen it. I then men- 
 
494 THE WRITINGS OF [1816 
 
 tloned to him the substance of Its contents, the claim of far 
 the greater portion of the American seamen represented by 
 the Lord Mayor of London to be in so great distress to the 
 consideration of the British government, as having been re- 
 cently discharged from their service, into which most of 
 them had been impressed, and the propriety of indicating 
 to me by name those whom I should be required to take 
 measures for sending to America. I added that immediately 
 after receiving his note concerning the seamen at Liverpool 
 for whom I was called upon to provide, I had written to the 
 consul of the United States at that port requesting him to 
 ascertain who they were, and what claim they had to relief 
 from the American government. The Mayor of Liverpool 
 had stated their number to be twenty-six. The consul was 
 informed that they would all attend at his office; only nine- 
 teen presented themselves, and the consul had no means of 
 compelling the attendance of the others. Of the nineteen 
 only five had anv document or proof whatsoever to prove 
 them Americans. He must be aware that if the American 
 consuls were required to provide for and send to the United 
 States every man who should present himself to them as a 
 distressed seaman, and call himself an American, it would 
 open a door to many a British seaman to find his way to 
 America, and would tend to defeat the intentions of the 
 American government, however earnestly intent upon clos- 
 ing it against them by law. There were now great multitudes 
 of British seamen without employment. It was matter 
 of public notoriety that numbers of them had already gone 
 into the service of other countries; the newspapers asserted 
 that many had already found employment in American 
 vessels. I hoped, therefore, that this government would take 
 into consideration the propriety, i. Of making provision 
 themselves for defraying the expense of maintaining and 
 
I 
 
 i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 
 
 495 
 
 of sending to the United States all the destitute American 
 seamen recently discharged from the British naval service. 
 2. Of enabling those of them who were entitled to small pen- 
 sions, the reward of long service or of mutilation by wounds, 
 to receive those annuities in America, without compelling 
 them at once to go there and to renounce their claim to this 
 little stipend for the mere amount of two or three years pur- 
 chase. 3. Of specifying by name the persons whom they 
 consider me or the American consul bound to provide for 
 and send as destitute American seamen to the United States. 
 Lord Castlereagh said that certainly these were very fair 
 subjects of representation, and that he would pay proper at- 
 tention to them; but he thought the inconveniences which 
 had unavoidably resulted from the reduction of the navy 
 were now nearly done away. Sixty or seventy thousand 
 men had been in the course of two or three months dismissed 
 from the service. It was impossible that such numbers of 
 men of the same occupation should be thus suddenly brought 
 upon the public without becoming for a time more or less 
 burdensome. London and Liverpool being the two prin- 
 cipal seaports of this country, an unusual proportion of the 
 discharged seamen had naturally resorted to them. The 
 representation from the Lord Mayor of London referred to 
 foreign seamen of various nations, and the note from Lord 
 Castlereagh which I had received on that occasion was a 
 i circular. But as commerce was now in a very flourishing 
 situation, the seamen were gradually finding employment, 
 and as the incumbrance which they have occasioned was 
 merely temporary it has nearly passed over. 
 
 I shall give you in my next the sequel of this conference, 
 the result of which has confirmed all the opinions with re- 
 gard to the policy of this government which I gave you in 
 my last dispatch. There appears to me no prospect that 
 
496 THE WRITINGS OF [1816 
 
 under the present ministry any constitutional arrangement 
 for renouncing the practice of impressment will be attainable, 
 and you will observe the new argument which Lord Castle- 
 reagh derives against such a stipulation from the measures 
 recommended by the President for excluding foreign seamen 
 from our service. There is no immediate prospect of any 
 maritime war, nor indeed any remote discernible prospect 
 of such a war with the United States neutral to it. As the 
 occurrence, however, is not impossible, and as the outrage 
 of that practice can never be tolerated by a nation of the 
 strength and resources to which the United States are rising, 
 it cannot too forcibly be urged upon their conviction, that 
 the only means of protecting their seafaring citizens in the 
 enjoyment of their right will consist in the ener gy^w'ith. which 
 they shall be asserted. 
 
 With regard to the other topics embraced in the confer- 
 ence, I can only now state in a summary manner that I 
 think the proposal for mutually disarming on the lakes of 
 Canada which I made conformably to your instructions will 
 not be accepted; that no cession of Florida by Spain to 
 Great Britain has been made; that the British policy is 
 neutrality between Spain and the South Americans, and that 
 she considers the non acknowledgment of their independence 
 as essential to this system of neutrality; that the British 
 government adhere to their doctrine respecting the fisheries, 
 but are willing to negotiate, and do not wish to prevent our 
 people from fishing; that they will give no satisfaction for 
 the slaves carried away in violation of the treaty of Ghent, 
 and that they are not pleased at the emigrations from Ire- 
 land to the United States. I am etc. 
 
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 497 
 
 TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE 
 
 No. 30. [James Monroe] 
 
 London, 8 February, 18 16. 
 Sir: 
 
 I By way of Introduction to the proposals which I was in- 
 ' structed to make to this government, in relation to the naval 
 armaments on the Canadian lakes, I observed to Lord Castle- 
 reagh at the conference with him on the 25th ultimo, that 
 next to the subject of seamen and impressment the most 
 dangerous source of disagreement between the two countries 
 arose in Canada. It had occasioned much mutual ill will 
 heretofore and might give rise to great and frequent ani- 
 mosities hereafter, unless guarded against by the vigilance, 
 firmness and decidedly pacific dispositions of the two govern- 
 ments. That there were continual tendencies to bad neigh- 
 borhood and even to acts of hostility in that quarter pro- 
 ceeding from three distinct causes: the Indians, the temper 
 of the British local authorities, and the British armaments 
 on the lakes. The post of Michiliimackinac had been sur- 
 rendered not immediately after the ratification of the peace, 
 nor until late in the last summer, and some of the British 
 officers in Upper Canada had been so far from entering into 
 the spirit of their government, which had so anxiously pro- 
 vided for securing a peace for the Indians, that they took 
 no small pains to instigate the Indians to a continuance of 
 hostilities against the United States. The detention of the 
 post had also contributed to lead the Indians to expect 
 further aid from Great Britain in the prosecution of war, and 
 the consequences had been that it remained long very doubt- 
 ful, whether the Indians in that quarter would accept the 
 
498 THE WRITINGS OF I1816 
 
 peace, the option of which had been secured to them. You 
 had represented these circumstances in a letter to Mr. Baker. 
 I had under your instructions repeated these representations 
 to Lord Liverpool and Lord Bathurst, both of whom had 
 given the strongest assurances that the intentions of this 
 government were sincerely pacific, and that its earnest wish 
 had been that the Indians should agree to the peace. That 
 no detention of Michillimackinac had been authorized by 
 its orders, and no instigation of the Indians against the 
 United States had been warranted by it. The fort was sur- 
 rendered in July, and as soon as the Indians found they 
 would not be supported by Great Britain in the war they 
 had manifested a readiness for peace, which I believe had 
 been concluded with all or most of the tribes in that direc- 
 tion. Other and more recent incidents had however oc- 
 curred of an unpleasant nature. A British officer had pur- 
 sued into the territory of the United States a deserter, had 
 taken him there, and carried him away. The officer him- 
 self had afterwards been arrested within the American 
 jurisdiction, tried and, owing to the absence of a principal 
 witness, convicted only of a riot, and moderately fined. An 
 Indian with a party, trespassing on the property of an Amer- 
 ican citizen at Gross Isle, had been killed in a boat while in 
 the act of levelling his musket at the American, and although 
 this had happened on the American territory the British 
 Commandant at Maiden had offered a reward of four hun- 
 dred dollars for the apprehension of the person who had 
 killed the Indian. An American vessel upon Lake Erie had 
 also been fired upon by a British armed vessel. But the 
 most important circumstance was the increase of the British 
 armaments upon the Canadian lakes since the peace. Such 
 armaments on one side rendered similar and counter arma- 
 ments on the other indispensable. Both governments would 
 
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 499 
 
 thus be subjected to heavy, and in time of peace useless 
 expenses, and every additional armament would create new 
 and very dangerous incitements to mutual irritation and 
 acts of hostility. That the American government, anxious 
 above all for the preservation of peace, had authorized me 
 to propose a reduction of the armaments upon the lakes 
 upon both sides. The extent of this reduction the President 
 left at the pleasure of Great Britain, observing that the 
 greater it would be the more it would conform to his prefer- 
 ence, and that it would best of all suit the United States if 
 the armaments should be confined to what is necessary for 
 the protection of the revenue. Lord Castlereagh admitted 
 that the proposal was perfectly fair, and assured me that 
 so far as it manifested pacific and amicable dispositions it 
 would meet with the sincerest reciprocal dispositions on the 
 part of this government. He inquired if it was meant to 
 include in this proposition the destruction of the armed ves- 
 sels already existing there ."* I answered that it was not so 
 expressed in my instructions. I did not understand them 
 to include that, but if the principle should be acceptable to 
 Great Britain there would be ample time to consult the 
 American government with regard to the details. The im- 
 mediate agreement which I was directed to propose was 
 that there should be no new armament on either side. He 
 replied that as to keeping a number of armed vessels parad- 
 ing about upon the lakes in time of peace, it would be ridicu- 
 :ous and absurd. There could be no motive for it, and every- 
 thing beyond what should be necessary to guard against 
 smuggling would be calculated only to produce mischief. 
 That he would submit the proposal to the consideration of 
 His Majesty's government, but we were aware that Great 
 Britain was on that point the weaker party. And therefore 
 it was that she had proposed at the negotiation of Ghent that 
 
500 
 
 THE WRITINGS OF [1816 
 
 the whole of the lakes including the shores should belong to 
 one party. In that case there would have been a large and 
 wide natural separation between the two territories, and 
 there would have been no necessity for armaments. He 
 expressed a strong predilection in favor of such broad natural 
 boundaries, and appeared to consider the necessity for 
 Great Britain to keep up considerable naval force on her 
 side of the lakes as resulting from the objections made on 
 the part of the United States to the expedient for preserving 
 the future peace between the two countries by Great Britain 
 upon that occasion. He said that just before the conclusion 1 
 of the peace Great Britain had been under the necessity of 
 making extraordinary exertions, and to build a number of 
 new vessels upon the lakes to enable her to maintain her 
 footing there. And when I remarked that this was not what 
 had drawn the animadversion of the American government 
 but the new armaments, vessels of war begun and built 
 since the peace, he replied that we had so much the advan- 
 tage over them there by our position that a mutual stipula- 
 tion against arming during the peace would be unequal and 
 disadvantageous in its operation to Great Britain. For as 
 the hands of both parties would by such an engagement be 
 tied until war should have commenced, the Americans by 
 their proximity would be able to prepare armaments for 
 attack much sooner than those of the British could be pre- 
 pared for defence. I urged that, as at all events the state of 
 the armaments during peace on one side must be the meas- 
 ure of those on the other, this advantage of proximity must 
 be nearly the same, whether they are great or small; that 
 the agreements to forbear arming in time of peace would 
 rather diminish than add to it; and that a war could not break 
 out on the part of the United States suddenly, or without 
 such a previous state of the relations between the two na- 
 
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 501 
 
 tions as would give the British government warning to be 
 prepared for the event, to take such measures as might en- 
 able them to arm on the lakes when the war commenced, 
 quite as rapidly and effectually as the United States could do 
 on their side. But although Lord Castlcreagh promised to 
 submit the proposal to the Cabinet, his own disinclination 
 to accede to it was so strongly marked that I cannot flatter 
 myself it will be accepted. The utmost that he may be in- 
 duced to consent to may be an arrangement to limit the 
 force which either party shall keep in actual service upon 
 the lakes. I next observed that at the other extremity of 
 the United States the Indians again appeared in the shape 
 of disturbers of the peace between our countries. I reca- 
 pitulated your remonstrances to Mr. Baker and mine by 
 your order to Lord Bathurst against the conduct of Colo- 
 nel Nicholls; that officer's pretended treaties of alliance, 
 offensive and defensive, and of commerce and navigation, 
 with certain runaway Indians whom he had seen fit to style 
 the Creek nation; and the very exceptionable manner in 
 which he had notified his transactions to the agent of the 
 United States with the Creeks, with an intimation that we 
 were to hear more about these treaties when they should be 
 ratified in England. I mentioned that Lord Bathurst had 
 in the most candid and explicit manner verbally disavowed 
 to me those proceedings of Colonel Nicholls; had told me that 
 the pretended treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, 
 had been indeed transmitted by the Colonel for ratification, 
 but this government had refused to ratify it, and informed 
 Colonel Nicholls that they would agree to no such treaty; 
 that the Colonel had even brought over some of his Indians 
 here, who would be sent back with advice to make their 
 terms with the United States as they could. These verbal 
 assurances I had reported to my government and presumed 
 
502 THE WRITINGS OF [i8i6 
 
 they had been received with much satisfaction. Whether 
 they had been repeated in a more formal manner and in any 
 written communication I had not been informed. I had 
 noticed the conduct of Colonel NichoUs in one of my notes to 
 Lord Bathurst, and to that part of the note had received no 
 answer. As the complaint had also been made through 
 Mr. Baker, a written answer might perhaps have been re- 
 turned through that channel. My motive for referring to 
 the subject now was that by the President's message to 
 Congress at the opening of the session I perceived that the 
 conduct of the Indians in that part of the United States still 
 threatened hostilities, and because there, as in the more 
 northern parts, the Indians would certainly be disposed to 
 tranquillity and peace with the United States, unless they 
 should have encouragement to rely upon the support of 
 Great Britain. Lord Castlereagh said with a smile that he 
 had a good many treaties to lay before Parliament, but none 
 such as those I described were among them. I observed 
 that this affair had given more concern to the government of 
 the United States, because they had received from various 
 quarters strong and confident intimations that there had 
 been a cession of Florida by Spain to Great Britain. "As to 
 that (said Lord Castlereagh with a little apparent emotion) 
 I can set you at ease at once. There is not and never has 
 been the slightest foundation for it whatever. It never has 
 been mentioned. " I replied that he must be aware that such 
 rumors had long been in circulation, and that the fact had 
 been positively and most circumstantially asserted in their 
 own public journals. "Yes (said he) but our journals are so 
 addicted to lying[ No! If it is supposed that we have any 
 little trickish policy of thrusting ourselves in there between 
 you and Spain, we are very much misunderstood indeed. 
 You shall find nothing little or shabby in our policy. We 
 
t 
 
 1816] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 503 
 
 have no desire to add an inch of ground to our territories in 
 any part of the world. We have as much as we want or 
 wish to manage. There is not a spot of ground on the globe 
 that I would annex to our territories, if it were offered to us 
 tomorrow." I remarked that the United States, without 
 inquiring what might in that respect be the views of Great 
 Britain generally, did think that with dominions so exten- 
 sive and various as hers, she could not wish for such an ac- 
 quisition as Florida, unless for purposes unfriendly to the 
 United States, and hence it was that these rumors had given 
 concern to the American government, who I was sure would 
 receive with pleasure the assurance given by him that no 
 such cession had been made. "None whatever (I quote his 
 words as accurately as I can recollect them). It has never 
 been mentioned, and if it had, it would have been decisively 
 declined by us. Military positions may have been taken by 
 us during the war of places which you had previously taken 
 from Spain, but we never intended to keep them. Do you 
 only observe the same moderation. If we shall find you 
 hereafter pursuing a system of encroachment upon your 
 neighbors, what we might do defensively is another consid- 
 eration." 
 
 The tone of struggling irritation and complacency with 
 which this was said induced me to observe, that I did not 
 precisely understand what he intended by this advice of 
 moderation. That the United States had no design of en- 
 croachment upon their neighbors, or of exercising any in- 
 justice towards Spain. Instead of an explanation he replied 
 only by recurring to the British policy with regard to Spain. 
 "You may be sure (said he) that Great Britain has no de- 
 sign of acquiring any addition to her possessions there. 
 Great Britain has done everything for Spain. We have 
 saved, we have delivered her. We have restored her govern- 
 
S04 
 
 THE WRITINGS OF [i8i6 
 
 inent to her, and we had hoped that the result would have 
 proved more advantageous to herself as well as more useful 
 to the world than it has been. We are sorry that the event 
 has not altogether answered our expectations. We lament 
 the unfortunate situation of her internal circumstances, owing 
 to which we are afraid that she can neither exercise her 
 own faculties for the comfort and happiness of the nation, 
 nor avail herself of her resources for the effectual exertion 
 of her power. We regret this, but we have no disposition to 
 take advantage of this state of things to obtain from it any 
 exclusive privilege for ourselves. In the unfortunate troubles 
 of her colonies in South America we have not only avoided 
 to seek, but we have declined even exclusive indulgence or 
 privilege to ourselves. We went even so far as to offer to take 
 upon us that most unpleasant and thankless of all offices, 
 that of mediating between the parties to those differences. 
 We appointed a formal mission for that purpose, who pro- 
 ceeded to Madrid, but there the Court of Spain declined 
 accepting our oifer, and we have had the usual fortune of 
 impartiality, we have displeased both parties — the Spanish 
 government for not taking part with them against their 
 colonies, and the South Americans for not countenancing 
 their resistance." I told him that the policy of the Ameri- 
 can government towards Spain had in this particular been 
 the same. They had not, indeed, made any offer of their 
 mediation. The state of their relations with the Spanish 
 government would neither have warranted nor admitted 
 of such an offer. But they have observed the same system 
 of impartial neutrality between the parties. They have 
 sought no peculiar or exclusive advantage for the United 
 States, and I was happy to hear from him that such was the 
 policy of Great Britain for it might have an influence upon 
 the views of my own government to cooperate with it. "I 
 
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 505 
 
 have always (resumed he) avowed it to be our policy in 
 Parliament. We have never acknowledged the govern- 
 ments put up by the South Americans, because that would 
 not have comported with our views of neutrality. But we 
 have not consented to prohibit the commerce of our people 
 with them, because that was what Spain had no right to 
 require of us. Our plan in offering the mediation which 
 Spain rejected was, that the South Americans should submit 
 themselves to the government of Spain as colonies, because 
 we thought she had the right to authority over them as the 
 mother country, but that she should allow them commerce 
 with other nations. Nothing exclusive to us. We neither 
 asked, nor would have accepted, any exclusive privileges 
 for ourselves. We have no little or contracted policy. But 
 we propose that Spain should allow a liberal commercial 
 intercourse between her colonies and other nations, similar 
 to that which we allow in our possessions in India." I then 
 asked him what he thought would be the ultimate issue of 
 this struggle in South America.^ Whether Spain would 
 subdue them, or that they would maintain their independ- 
 ence.'' He answered that everything was so fluctuating in 
 the councils of Spain, and generally everything was so de- 
 pendent upon events not to be calculated, that it was not 
 possible to say what the result might be. The actual state 
 of things was the only safe foundation for present policy 
 which must be shaped to events as they may happen. In 
 closing this part of our conversation Lord Castlereagh de- 
 sired me to consider all that he had said with regard to Spain, 
 the situation of her internal affairs, and the conduct of her 
 government as confidential, it having been spoken with the 
 most perfect freedom and openness, and that if I should re- 
 port It to my government I would so state it. I have there- 
 fore to request that it may be so received. 
 
5o6 THE WRITINGS OF [1816 
 
 In adverting to the subject of the slaves I reminded him 
 that there were three distinct points relating to them which 
 had been under discussion between the two governments. 
 The first, regarding the slaves carried away by the British 
 commanders from the United States contrary, as the Ameri- 
 can government holds, to the express stipulation of the 
 treaty of Ghent. After referring to the correspondence 
 which has taken place on this topic at Washington and here, 
 I observe that the last note concerning it which I had re- 
 ceived from Lord Bathurst seemed to intimate that this 
 government had taken its final determination on the matter. 
 That I hoped it was not so. I hoped they would give it 
 further consideration. It had been the cause of so much 
 anxiety to my government; it was urged so constantly and 
 so earnestly in my instructions; the language of the treaty 
 appeared to us so clear and unequivocal, the violation of it 
 in carrying away the slaves so manifest, and the losses of 
 property occasioned by it to our citizens were so considera- 
 ble and so serious, that I could not abandon the hope that 
 further consideration would be given to it here, and ulti- 
 mately that satisfaction would be made to the United States 
 on this cause of complaint. Lord Castlereagh said that he 
 had not seen the correspondence to which I referred, but 
 that he would have it looked up and examine it. There was 
 I told him a special representation concerning eleven slaves 
 taken from Mr. Downman by the violation of a flag of truce 
 sent ashore by Captain Barrie. I also had received from 
 Lord Bathurst an answer relative to this complaint, stating 
 that it had been referred to Captain Barrie for a report and 
 giving the substance of that which he had made. It did not 
 disprove any of the facts alleged by Mr. Downman. But I 
 must remark that Captain Barrie was himself the officer who 
 had sent the flag of truce, and who was responsible for the 
 
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 507 
 
 violation of it, and that as a general principle it was scarcely 
 to be expected that satisfaction for an injustice could ever 
 be obtained if the report of the person upon whom it was 
 charged should be received as a conclusive answer to the 
 complaint. He said he supposed the complaint itself was 
 only the allegation of an individual, and that naturally 
 reference must be made to the officer complained of for his 
 answer to the charge, I replied that the documents of which 
 I had furnished copies in Mr. Downman's case did not con- 
 sist merely of his allegations. There were affidavits of 
 several other persons, taken indeed ex parte, because they 
 could not be taken otherwise; but they were full and strong 
 to the points both of the violation of the flag and of the carry- 
 ing away of the slaves. He said he did not know how they 
 could proceed otherwise, unless the affair were of sufficient 
 importance for the appointment of commissioners by the 
 two governments. But he had not seen the papers and would 
 look into them. The third point relating to slaves I said was 
 the allegation made during the war that some of those se- 
 duced from their masters in the United States by the British 
 officers were afterwards sold in the West Indies. He said 
 he thought it was not possible, because it was expressly for- 
 bidden by law. I replied that I was not referring to the fact 
 but to the allegation. As this had been made in the midst 
 of the war, it had not been expected by the government of 
 the United States that it would be a subject of discussion 
 between the governments after the peace; and as it involved 
 many circumstances of an unpleasant nature and irritating 
 tendency, they would have preferred that it should be by 
 mutual consent laid aside and nothing further said about it. 
 At the same time they were ready to communicate such 
 evidence of the fact as they could collect, if that course should 
 be preferred by this government. I had made the proposal 
 
5o8 THE WRITINGS OF [1816' 
 
 I 
 of either alternative to the Earl of Liverpool last summer, 
 
 and he had appeared to prefer that the evidence should be 
 produced. I had now received a considerable mass of it, and 
 although preferring to repeat the proposal of dropping the 
 subject altogether, I would, if he should desire it, furnish 
 him with copies of it all. He said that so far as it might 
 contain matter of irritation, they had no wish to pursue the 
 inquiry any further. If the American government, in the 
 heat of war and under the feelings of that state, had ad- 
 vanced against the British officers a charge beyond what 
 the proof of facts would bear out, there was no wish here to 
 carry the discussion of it into the state of peace, and in that 
 point of view it would be readily dismissed. But with regard 
 to the fact they were obliged to ask for the evidence, because, 
 if established, it affected the character of their officers and 
 the observance of their laws. In that case the officers who 
 have been guilty should be punished and, if otherwise, it 
 should be known for the vindication of the character of 
 individuals. I remarked that in the charge as originally 
 made no individual had been named, but that in the docu- 
 ments that I had secured there were several and that from 
 one of the papers it appeared that slaves taken as prize were 
 actually sold. He said that by the last act of Parliament 
 those that were taken, for example, on the vessels which 
 carry on the slave trade by contraband, were committed to 
 the care of certain conservators appointed by royal author- 
 ity, but they were not slaves. I suggested that the docu- 
 ments in my possession would probably induce this govern- 
 ment to pursue the investigation further. That the proof 
 which the American government could obtain in the places 
 where the sales were alleged to have been made must be 
 imperfect. It had no control over the local authorities, but 
 for a full and satisfactory investigation the cooperation of 
 
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 509 
 
 both governments would be necessary. The mode suggested 
 to me, and which had already been proposed by you to 
 Mr. Baker, was that the American government would fur- 
 nish lists of the slaves taken during the war, and in most 
 instances the names of the vessels into which they had been 
 taken, and that the British government should show what 
 disposal had been made of them. Lord Castlereagh ex- 
 pressed his approbation of this course of proceeding and 
 thought it would have the assent of this government. In 
 relation to the fisheries little was said. He told me that he 
 had the evening before read my note to him concerning 
 them. That the British government would adhere to their 
 principle respecting the treaty and to the exclusive rights of 
 their territorial jurisdiction. But that they had no wish to 
 prevent us from fishing, and would readily enter into a nego- 
 \''. tiation for an arrangement on this subject. Copies have been 
 transmitted to you of the note I have addressed to Lord 
 Castlereagh, concerning a discrimination made in the ports of 
 Ireland between British and American vessels in regard to 
 the number of passengers which they are allowed to take in 
 proportion to their tonnage upon voyages to the United 
 States, of his answer and of my reply. As no answer to this 
 had been returned, and no determination of the government 
 upon my application had been known to me, I spoke of these 
 papers, but he avoided any explicit assurance concerning it. 
 He said that the regulation had perhaps been made before the 
 convention had been concluded. "But (said he) we might 
 question the application of it to the case, as the convention 
 was not intended to interfere in any restrictions under which 
 we may think proper to prevent emigration from Ireland." 
 I assured him that my intention had not been to object to the 
 regulation as a restriction upon emigration; that, 1 was aware, 
 must be exclusively the consideration of this government. 
 
510 THE WRITINGS OF I1816 
 
 We had nothing to say about It. It was the discrimination 
 between the shipping of the two countries of which I had 
 complained. I presumed that an order to the port office 
 would remove the distinction. He said he did not know 
 that. It might be by act of Parliament, and they might 
 question our right to consider passengers as articles of mer- 
 chandize. They might regard the discrimination Itself as a 
 mode of restriction upon emigration. "You do not want 
 our people" (said he), to which I readily assented, observing 
 that our increase of native population was sufficiently rapid 
 so far as mere public policy was concerned. We invited no 
 foreigners. We left all to individual option. "No (he re- 
 peated), our people and our seamen — you really do not want 
 them." I observed that If that were the case, this country 
 should rather be under obligation to us for relieving it of 
 such unprofitable subjects.^ He did not assent to this con- 
 clusion, and left me uncertain whether the regulation In ques- 
 tion would be removed or retained. The great length into 
 which this report has already run precludes any comment of 
 mine upon the substance of this conference, in which Lord 
 Castlereagh's manner was uniformly courteous, and his as- 
 surances of the friendly disposition of this government 
 towards the United States were earnest and repeated. I am 
 etc. 
 
 ^ "The propensity to emigration is one of the most uncomfortable considera- 
 tions of this government, and their endeavors to prevent it are the strongest proofs 
 of the embarrassment which it gives them. The present state of Ireland likewise 
 occasions an extraordinary degree of jealousy, of which various symptoms have 
 recently disclosed themselves. It appears that American citizens are not permitted 
 to go from this country to Ireland without special passports from the Alien Office, 
 and that those passports are not obtained without difficulty." To the Secretary of 
 State, February 17, 1816. Ms. 
 
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 511 
 
 TO ABIGAIL ADAMS 
 
 Ealing, 8 February, 1816. 
 My Dear Mother 
 
 • •••••• 
 
 I called a few days since upon Mrs. Copley and saw the 
 portrait of my dear sister ^ which she has agreed to let me 
 have. The likeness is excellent, but the drapery part of the 
 picture was never finished. Mr. Copley himself died last 
 September.^ I had seen him shortly after my arrival in 
 England. Even then he had little to resign but breath. 
 Mrs. Copley ^ bears her age much better, but an interval 
 of twenty years makes a mighty change in us all. Their 
 son is well settled in the practice of the law.'* The second 
 daughter is yet unmarried and lives with her mother, still 
 in the house where you knew them, No. 25 George street, 
 Hanover Square. Mr. West also still resides in the house 
 where we have always known him. No. 14 Newman street. 
 I have called twice to see him, but he was both times absent 
 in the country. . . . 
 
 TO LORD CASTLEREAGH 
 
 The undersigned Envoy Extraordinary and Minister 
 Plenipotentiary from the United States of America requests 
 the attention of Lord Castlereagh to the letter which he had 
 the honor of addressing to his Lordship on the 9th of August 
 
 1 Abigail (Adams) Smith. The portrait was destroyed by fire. 
 * September 9, 1815. 
 
 3 Susannah Farnum Clarke, daughter of Richard Clarke of Boston. 
 < John Singleton Copley, Lord Lyndhurst (1772-1863). 
 
512 THE WRITINGS OF [1816 
 
 and 5th of September last, in relation to the slaves belonging 
 to citizens of the United States carried away by the naval 
 commanders of the British forces from places within the 
 United States subsequently to the peace between the two 
 countries and in violation of the engagement in the first 
 article of the treaty of Ghent. . 
 
 In pressing this subject once more upon the consideration 
 of His Majesty's government the undersigned deems it 
 necessary to state the terms of the stipulation in the treaty, 
 and the facts in breach of it constituting the injury for which 
 he is Instructed to ask redress from the justice and good 
 faith of the British government. 
 
 The stipulation of the treaty is as follows : 
 
 All territory, places and possessions whatsoever, taken by either 
 party from the other during the war, or which may be taken after 
 the signing the treaty, excepting only the islands hereinafter men- 
 tioned, shall be restored without delay, and without causing any 
 destruction or carrying away any of the artillery or other public 
 property originally captured in the said forts or places, and whichi 
 shall remain therein upon the exchange of the ratification of this^ 
 treaty, or any slaves or other private property. 
 
 1 
 
 The facts in violation of this stipulation are, that in evac- 
 uating sundry places within the United States which had 
 been taken by the British forces during the war, the British 
 naval commanders did carry away great numbers of slaves 
 belonging to citizens of the United States. In his letter of 
 the 5th of September the undersigned had the honor of In- 
 closing a list of seven hundred and two slaves carried away, 
 after the ratification of the treaty of peace, from Cumber- 
 land Island and the waters adjacent in the state of Georgia, 
 by the forces under the command of Rear Admiral Cockburn. 
 with the names of the slaves and those of their owners, citi- 
 
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 513 
 
 •zens of the United States. A number perhaps still greater 
 was carried away from Tangier Island In the state of Virginia, 
 and from other places, lists of whom and of the proprietors 
 the undersigned expects to be enabled In like manner to 
 produce. The only foundation which these naval com- 
 manders have alleged for this procedure was a construction 
 of the paragraph containing this stipulation, so contrary to 
 its grammatical sense and obvious purport, that the under- 
 'signed is well assured, if the same phrase had occurred in 
 |any municipal contract between Individuals, no judicial 
 tribunal in this kingdom would entertain for a moment a 
 question upon it — a construction under which the whole 
 operation of the words "slaves or other private property" 
 ,was annihilated, by extending to them the limitation con- 
 fined by the words of the treaty to artillery and public 
 .property. 
 
 In addition to the unequivocal import of the words, the 
 undersigned in his letter of the 9th of August adduced the 
 manner in which the article had been drawn up, discussed, 
 and finally agreed upon, at the negotiation of the treaty, to 
 prove that the intention of the parties had been conformable 
 to the plain letter of the article. It was intimated in the 
 answer to his two letters which he had the honor of receiving 
 'from Earl Bathurst, that some inconvenience might result 
 'if the parties upon whom treaties are binding were to recur 
 to the intentions of the negotiators of such treaty. Instead 
 of taking as their guide the context of the treaty itself, on 
 any point of controversy respecting It. In reply to which 
 the undersigned observes, that his letter did not recur to 
 the intentions of the negotiators, but the intentions of the 
 'parties to the treaty as manifested In the process of drawing 
 up and agreeing to the article; and not even to them instead 
 of the context of the treaty itself, but to support and main- 
 
514 THE WRITINGS OF [1816 
 
 tain the context of the treaty against what he deemed a mis- 
 construction, equally at variance with the rules of grammar 
 and the intentions of the parties. 
 
 It is observed in Lord Bathurst's answer that in this in- 
 stance the article as it stands was agreed to by "a verbal 
 amendment suggested by the American plenipotentiaries to 
 the original article proposed by the British Commissioners." 
 Far otherwise. The original article was proposed by the 1 
 American and not by the British plenipotentiaries. The i 
 original article proposed that in evacuating the places to be ] 
 restored no property public or private, artillery or slaves 
 should be carried away. An alteration was proposed by the 
 British plenipotentiaries, and its object was to limit the 
 property to be restored with the places to such as had been 
 originally captured in the places and should be remaining 
 there at the time of the exchange of the ratifications. The 
 reason alleged for the alteration applied only to public 
 property. It might be Impracticable to restore property 
 which, though originally captured In the place, might have 
 been removed from It before the exchange of the ratifications. 
 But private property, not having been subject to legitimate 
 capture with the place, was not liable to the reason of the 
 limitation, to which the American plenipotentiaries there- 
 fore assented only so far as related to artillery and public 
 property. They did not assent to it as related to slaves and 
 other private property. It was not a mere verbal alteration 
 which they proposed; they adhered in relation to slaves and 
 other private property to their original draft of the article, 
 while they consented to the proposed alteration with regard 
 to artillery and public property. To this qualified accept 
 ance the British plenipotentiaries agreed, nor need the under 
 signed remind Lord Castlereagh that the British commis- 
 sioners did not sign the treaty of Ghent until this article, 
 
 I 
 
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 515 
 
 as finally agreed to, and every other Important part of the 
 treaty had been submitted to the British government itself 
 and received their sanction and approbation. 
 
 If Lord Bathurst had taken this which Is presented as the 
 true view of the circumstances under which the article in 
 question was drawn up and adopted, the undersigned Is 
 persuaded that he would have been spared the necessity of 
 adverting to the following passage of his Lordship's answer, 
 in which the undersigned trusts that some error of a copyist 
 has left its meaning imperfectly expressed : 
 
 "It Is certainly possible that one party may propose an 
 alteration with a mental reservation of some construction 
 Df his own, and that he may assent to It on a firm persuasion 
 that the construction continues to be the same, and that 
 therefore he may conciliate and yet concede nothing by 
 2;iving his assent." The only sense which the undersigned 
 an discover in this sentence as It stands Is, that a party may 
 onclliate and yet concede nothing by assenting to an altera- 
 tion insidiously proposed by himself. Impossible as It Is 
 that such would have been Lord Bathurst's real meaning, 
 the undersigned Is equally unwilling to believe that his 
 Lordship Intended to Insinuate that in the case of the stipu- 
 lation now in question an alteration was on the part of the 
 United States proposed with a mental reservation of a con- 
 struction not there avowed, which was assented to by Great 
 Britain with the firm persuasion that under the alteration 
 the construction would remain the same. The undersigned 
 :nust be allowed to say that there was nothing In the trans- 
 action referred to which could justify such an Insinuation. 
 That the article originally drawn by the American pleni- 
 DOtentlarles and presented to the British government was 
 Dlaln and clear. That it admitted of no other construction 
 than that for v/hich the American government now con- 
 
5i6 THE WRITINGS OF [1816 i 
 
 tends. That it avowedly and openly contained a stipula- ^ 
 tion that in the evacuation of all the territories, places and 
 possessions to be restored, no slaves should be carried away. 
 That an alteration was proposed by the British plenipoten- •! 
 tiaries which was accepted only in part, that in this partial 1 
 acceptance the British government acquiesced, the under-- 
 signed will certainly not say with a mental reservation to 
 make up by a subsequent construction of their own for the 
 part to which the United States did not assent; but he does 
 deem it his duty to say that when Great Britain proposed an 
 alteration to that, of the meaning of which there could be no 
 doubt, and when the alteration was accepted conditionally 
 and under a modification to which she agreed, she was bound 
 to perceive that the modification thus insisted upon by the 
 other party was not a mere verbal change in the phraseology 
 of her proposal, but so far as it extended a substantial ad- 
 herence to the original draft of the article. It is further urged i 
 in Lord Bathurst's answer that the construction contended! 
 for by the American government is inconsistent with another 
 article of the treaty, for that it would require the restoration 
 of all merchant vessels and their effects captured on the 
 high seas, even if they should not be within the limits of the 
 United States at the time of the exchange of the ratifications. 
 The undersigned is not aware how such an inference can be 
 drawn from anything that has passed between the two 
 governments on the subject. Merchant vessels and effects 
 captured on the high seas are by the laws of war between 
 civilized nations lawful prize, and by the capture become 
 the property of the captors. It was never asserted by the 
 American government that the stipulation in question could 
 mean that in evacuating the places taken within the terri-; 
 torial jurisdiction of either party the other should be pre- 
 cluded from carrying away his own property. But as by 
 
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 517 
 
 the same usages of civilized nations private property is not 
 the subject of lawful capture in war upon the land, it is per- 
 fectly clear that in every stipulation that private property 
 shall be respected, or that upon the restoration of places 
 taken during the war it shall not be carried away, the mean- 
 ing of the expressions is defined by the subject-matter to 
 which they relate, and extends only to the property of the 
 party from whom the place was taken or of persons under 
 his allegiance. But in the present case it will not be pre- 
 tended that the slaves whose removal Is complained of as a 
 breach of the compact were the property either of his 
 Majesty, of the naval officers in her service who carried them 
 away, or of any of his subjects. They were the property of 
 citizens of the United States, precisely the species of property 
 which it was expressly stipulated should not be carried away; 
 and far from setting up now, as is suggested in Lord Bath- 
 urst's note, a construction not thought of when the treaty 
 was formed, the American government do but claim the 
 performance of the stipulation In the only sense which could 
 be applied to it at that time. That the British government 
 gave It then any other construction was not only never com- 
 municated to the government of the United States, but was 
 impossible to be foreseen by them. When Great Britain 
 had solemnly agreed without hinting an objection to the 
 principle of restoring captured slaves, it could not be fore- 
 seen that the engagement would be narrowed down to 
 nothing by a strained extension to them of a condition 
 limited by the words of the treaty to another species of 
 property. It was Impossible to anticipate a construction of 
 an Important stipulation which should annihilate Its opera- 
 tion. It was Impossible to anticipate that a stipulation not 
 to carry away any slaves would by the British government 
 ijI be considered as faithfully executed by British officers In 
 
5i8 THE WRITINGS OF [1816 
 
 carrying away all the slaves in their possession. The under- 
 signed concludes with the earnest hope that His Majesty's 
 government, reviewing the subject in the spirit of candor 
 and of justice, will accede to the proposal which he had been 
 instructed to offer, and make provision to indemnify the 
 owners of the slaves which were carried away in contraven- 
 tion to the engagement of the treaty. He is happy to avail 
 himself of the occasion to renew to Lord Castlereagh the 
 assurance of his high consideration. 
 13 Craven street, 17 February, 1816. 
 
 TO WILLIAM PLUMER 
 
 Ealing near London, 27 February, 1816. 
 My Dear Friend: 
 
 • •••••• 
 
 Several of my friends have given me accounts of your hur- 
 ricane in September and of the subsequent influenza; but I 
 am certainly not proficient enough either in physics or in: 
 philosophy to form an opinion whether they were totally 
 distinct or associated phenomena of nature. In general I 
 distrust the system of connecting together in the relation of 
 cause and effect extraordinary things merely because they 
 happen at or near the same time. It savors of judicial as- 
 trology. It is the comet which from its horrid hair shakes 
 pestilence and war. Mr. Noah Webster published a book 
 about the yellow fever,^ where he pushed this concatenating 
 humor to such a length that I have been looking over the 
 advertisements in the late American newspapers to see if 
 he had not come out with a volume to prove that both the 
 hurricane and influenza were direct consequences of the 
 Hartford Convention. . . . 
 
 ^ A Brief History of Epidemic and Pestilential Diseases, Hartford, 1799. 
 
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 519 
 
 The present situation of this country is singular and 
 worthy of very attentive observation. The issue of the long 
 and bloody wars in which they have been engaged for up- 
 wards of twenty years has been (with the exception of the 
 American war, upon which they are sore precisely because 
 it was a draw7i game) in their view prosperous and glorious 
 beyond their most sanguine hopes and beyond all former 
 example. Their naval and military fame surpasses in their 
 own eyes everything that the world ever saw or ever will see. 
 They have a legitimate King of France reigning under the 
 protection of the Duke of Wellington, and a King of Spain 
 of whose legitimacy whatever may be the doubts, at least, 
 as Lord Castlereagh has boasted in Parliament, dependent, 
 literally dependent upon them for his daily bread. They 
 are (so again they boast) in close alliance and unsuspicious 
 undissembled friendship with all the other great powers on 
 the continent of Europe, irresistible in Africa, triumphant 
 in Asia, distributing crowns and sceptres with one hand and 
 dispensing freedom to slaves with the other. Yet all this 
 availeth them nothing owing to the depreciation of the nec- 
 essaries of life. They are perishing by plethora, staggering 
 under a political apoplexy. 
 
 The Regent in his speech to Parliament earnestly recom- 
 mends economy, and his ministers propose a peace establish- 
 ment of thirty millions sterling of expenditure for the year, 
 besides the interest upon the debt — an army of 150,000 men 
 and a navy of 33,000. To defray all this they are obliged to 
 continue almost all the burdensome war taxes which the 
 faith of Parliament was pledged to discontinue immediately 
 after the peace. And all this while the whole agricultural 
 interest is suffering under a depression of the prices of their 
 produce of nearly one-half. The distress is indeed much ex- 
 aggerated, as is proved by the produce of the revenue and 
 
S20 THE WRITINGS OF [1816 
 
 especially of the excise, which has been this year more 
 abundant than it has ever been before; but there has been 
 greater difficulty in collecting the taxes, and that of rents 
 has very considerably failed. The petitions against the 
 large peace establishment and the war taxes are numerous, 
 but the ministerial majority in Parliament Is overwhelming 
 and they will probably carry through their plan. It will 
 however be followed by great discontent, and if the pressure 
 should continue, with important consequences. I am etc. 
 
 TO JOHN ADAMS 
 
 Ealing, 29 February, 18 16. 
 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 You have doubtless seen what Alexander the Blessed (a 
 title which his Imperial Senate at the instigation of the Arch- 
 bishop Metropolitan of the Empire sent a solemn deputa- 
 tion of three Alexanders to offer him, but which he has the 
 good sense and modesty to decline) has been doing with my 
 old friends the Jesuits. When I gave you the account of the 
 pains which the venerable Father General took to convert 
 so obstinate a heretic as myself, I did not know that he and 
 his associates had so far overreached their own wisdom as 
 to venture upon the same experiment with the religious creed 
 of the country, where they themselves, as I very clearly saw, 
 were but indulged with a jealous and reluctant toleration. 
 Yet I had other indications of their proselyting zeal besides 
 the worthy Father's obliging solicitude for my salvation; 
 for they did actually convert, receive into the bosom of the 
 church, and baptize with much public solemnity, two negro 
 men, who were successively my servants, and one of whom 
 
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 521 
 
 I had taken with me from America. Still the Father General, 
 who gave me an account of their college and of their system 
 of education at it, repeatedly told me that they never inter- 
 fered with the religious principles of those of their pupils 
 who were not of their own church, but left them altogether 
 to the teachers in that particular of their respective denom- 
 inations; and the jealousy with which they were regarded 
 by the national priesthood of the Greek church I could easily 
 discern. That they may have been indiscreet in their rest- 
 less anxiety for the propagation of their faith, I think very 
 probable. Mr. Harris, our charge d'affaires, writes me that 
 the decree against them has given universal satisfaction; 
 but that is neither proof of their guilt, nor justification of 
 the manner in which they have been punished. I have felt 
 much compassion for them. Their learning was of a much 
 better kind than that of the Greek clergy, and their college 
 was the only good school for classical education in the coun- 
 try. They have been expelled, turned adrift upon the world, 
 and deprived of their property without a trial, by the mere 
 will of the Emperor, upon secret investigations and accusa- 
 tions of enemies and rivals, to all appearance without having 
 been allowed even a hearing to defend themselves.^ Such 
 are the forms of autocracy even in the hands of the mild, the 
 magnanimous, the pious Alexander, immediately after pub- 
 lishing his holy autograph league and covenant with his 
 imperial and royal brethren of Austria and Prussia. ^ 
 
 The Temple of Janus will not be long closed; but oh! may 
 we not be the first to open it. From rumors circulating here 
 it would seem as if we were getting seriously into a quarrel 
 
 iQn the suppression of the Jesuits in 1773 by Clement XIV, members of the 
 order sought refuge in Russia and received recognition from the Czar; but in 1816 
 the order was driven from Moscow and St. Petersburg, mainly on the charge of 
 attempted proselytizing in the imperial army. 
 
 ^ The Holy Alliance. 
 
522 THE WRITINGS OF [1816 
 
 with Spain. It is much to be deprecated. From Spain we 
 have nothing to fear, but let us keep at peace with all the 
 world, until something foreign or domestic shall seriously 
 employ the energies of this nation. Long we shall certainly 
 not need to wait. A crisis approaches here, more formidable 
 than any that they have yet encountered. Let their debt, 
 and taxes, and overweening pride, have its own natural and 
 inevitable course, and they will soon prey too deeply upon 
 their vitals to be dangerous to us. Their establishment for ' 
 the present year is avowedly calculated upon an engage- • 
 ment to maintain by force the Bourbons on the throne of " 
 France and upon the chance of a war with America. Upon ; 
 those two pillars they have raised a necessity for a standing ; 
 army of a hundred and fifty thousand men, and for an ex- • 
 penditure of thirty millions, besides the interest of their ■ 
 debt. Let us not give them the chance of war, and they will . 
 soon be obliged to discard their system for one of real peace, 
 or it will sink them. I am etc. 
 
 TO ABIGAIL ADAMS 
 
 Ealing, 4 March, 1816. 
 My Dear Mother: 
 
 • • • • • • • 
 
 In one of your former letters you have expressed some 
 curiosity for further particulars respecting my last winter's 
 visit to Paris. It was in many respects the most agreeable 
 interlude, if I may so call it, of my life. It was after an in- 
 terval of thirty years that I revisited that great city, where 
 all the fascinations of a luxurious metropolis had first 
 charmed the senses of my childhood, and dazzled the imagi- 
 nation of my youth. I was at an age when the hey-day of 
 
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 523 
 
 the blood is tame, and waits upon the judgment. I had seen 
 much of the world during the interval between the two 
 periods, and was capable of estimating more nearly at their 
 real worth the enchantments of that fairy land. I had entire 
 leisure, and a mind, not merely at ease, but enjoying relief 
 from a weight of anxiety almost insupportable for the situa- 
 tion and prospects of my country — a relief which had been 
 equally complete and unexpected. I arrived at Paris in the 
 midst of a carnival week, to which the partisans of the re- 
 stored Bourbons were ostentatiously and painfully striving 
 to give an air of revival to the festivities which had been 
 peculiar to that season in ancient times. I saw the gloomy 
 court of Louis 18, and the splendid circles of the Duke of 
 Orleans. I frequented the unparalleled assemblage of the 
 masterpieces of art in the Museum of Napoleon and in that 
 of the French monuments, the meetings of the National 
 Institute, the Courts of Law, the theatres, the collections 
 of mechanical models, the Gobelin tapestry manufacture, 
 and even the deserted churches and the subterraneous cata- 
 combs. Although the king's ministers were singularly shy, 
 and avoided all notice whatsoever of the American diplomats 
 from Ghent, I found society as much as I could desire, until 
 the landing of Napoleon. I visited and dined at Madame de 
 Stael's, and at our very old friend's, Mr. Marbois. I visited 
 the Duke de la Vauguyon, but though he sent me a very 
 civil message, he neither received me nor returned my visit. 
 From the time of Napoleon's appearance at Cannes all that 
 sort of society was at an end. Most of my acquaintance 
 were dispersed, but I was indemnified for the loss by the safe 
 arrival of my wife and Charles, safe from the long and not 
 unperilous winter journey from Russia. After that time, 
 however, the situation of Paris and of France became far 
 less agreeable for the abode of a travelling visitor. The com- 
 
524 THE WRITINGS OF [1816 
 
 munications with the rest of Europe were Immediately cut 
 off. The prospects of the country were from day to day 
 growing darker and more threatening. The combination 
 of all Europe against them, as it became continually more 
 apparent, kindled afresh all the flames of their civil discord; 
 a fearful foreboding of the fate that awaited them took pos- 
 session of the public mind and, before we left France, I was 
 strongly impressed with the expectation of the issue which 
 so shortly afterwards ensued. Napoleon himself had no 
 doubt presentiments of the same kind. I saw him only at 
 the windows of the Tuileries, and once at Mass; and I was 
 present the only evening that he attended at the Theatre 
 Fran9ais. The performance was by his direction the tragedy 
 of Hector, one of the best that has been brought upon the 
 French stage since the death of Voltaire. It was written by 
 a professor at the university of Paris, named Luce de Lanci- 
 val, now dead, and from its first appearance had been a 
 favorite with the Emperor. It turns of course upon the 
 interest of a heroic character, who deliberately sacrifices his 
 life to the defence of his country, and its principal merit 
 consists in the adaptation to the drama of some of the most 
 affecting scenes and sublimest sentiments of Homer, trans- 
 lated into such French verse as Racine himself might have 
 owned. The house was so crowded that the very musicians 
 of the orchestra were obliged to give up their seats, and re- 
 tire to perform their symphonies behind the scenes. And 
 never at any public theatre did I witness such marks of 
 public veneration, and such bursts of enthusiasm for any 
 crowned head, as that evening exhibited for Napoleon. I 
 certainly was not among his admirers when he was in the 
 plenitude of his power, and I remember that David, the man 
 after God's own heart, was forbidden to build a temple to 
 his God, because he had "shed blood abundantly and made 
 
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 525 
 
 great wars." Napoleon is no fit person to built a temple to 
 the name of the Lord. But "neither do the spirits reprobate 
 all virtue base." Had the name of Napoleon Bonaparte 
 remained among those of the conquerors of the earth, it 
 would not have been the blackest upon the list; and as to 
 the mob of legitimates, who by his fall have been cast again 
 upon their tottering and degraded thrones, where is tlic 
 head or the heart among them capable of rising to the ad- 
 miration of such a character as Hector.^ Their Hector be- 
 longs not to tragedy but to comedy; not the champion of 
 Troy, but the knave of diamonds. 
 
 My visits to the National Museum were frequent, but 
 such was the magnificence, and such the variety of its treas- 
 ures, that daily visits for many months would have been 
 necessary to give distinct ideas of the individual merit of 
 almost every work of art in the collection. The antique 
 statues were very numerous, but those from which I derived 
 the least satisfaction, were precisely those from which I 
 had anticipated the most. The Apollo, the Venus de Medicis, 
 and the Laocoon, — I had seen so many and such excellent 
 copies of these that I was unable to discover any new excel- 
 lence in the originals. And the Venus in particular was 
 so much mutilated, and so much restored, that she too 
 strongly displayed the perishable attribute of beauty, even 
 in marble. Those which gave me the greatest pleasure were 
 originals of which I had seen no copies, and they were for 
 the most part busts. Among them was a small Hippocrates, 
 of great antiquity, and bearing in the face so strong a re- 
 semblance to our late excellent friend, Dr. Rush, that had 1 
 seen it in a copy of modern marble, I should have pronounced 
 without hesitation that it had been taken from him. 
 
 The gallery of pictures was immense, but so much ac- 
 cumulation of excellence is rather unfavorable to the proper 
 
526 THE WRITINGS OF [1816 
 
 estimation of every separate masterpiece. I had seen before 
 at Antwerp, at the Hague, and at Potsdam, many of the 
 most admirable pictures in the collection, and I had seen at 
 Dresden one picture of Raphael which had so absorbed my 
 whole stock of enthusiasm, that I had little ardor of ecstacy 
 left even for the unrivalled beauties of the Transfiguration. 
 I could have returned and spent two or three hours every 
 day for a twelvemonth with new delight in this paradise of 
 human art, but limited as I was in time, the pleasure which 
 I enjoyed was not unmixed with confusion, like that which 
 obscures the vision immediately after looking at the sun. 
 The Museum is now no more, and as I shall never again 
 have the opportunity of beholding such a collection of the 
 wonders of human genius, the remembrance of the hours 
 that I passed in contemplating affords me a satisfaction 
 almost as lively as that which I took in the enjoyment 
 itself. . . . 
 
 TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE 
 
 No. 34. [James Monroe] 
 
 London, 6th March, 18 16. 
 Sir: 
 
 On the 1st instant I called upon Lord Castlereagh at his 
 house to which he was then confined by a slight indisposi- 
 tion. I had received a letter from Mr. Luke, the Consul at 
 Belfast, inclosing one from several masters of American ves- 
 sels at Londonderry to Mr. Thomas Davenport, Vice Consul 
 at that place, complaining of the discrimination between 
 British and American vessels with regard to the number of 
 passengers which they are allowed to take from the Irish 
 ports. Lord Castlereagh apologized for not having replied 
 
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 527 
 
 to the several notes which he had received from me, alleging 
 his indisposition and the great pressure of business at this 
 time in Parliament. I told him there was only one of the 
 subjects upon which I was anxious for an immediate deci- 
 sion, and that was this discrimination in Ireland. There 
 were a number of American vessels now at Londonderry 
 whose masters were waiting only for this decision, and if it 
 should be against them would be obliged to return home in 
 ballast, or come in search of freights to English ports. He 
 said if there had not been an earlier decision, it was not from 
 any indisposition here to meet us in giving the fullest effect 
 to the principle of equalizing the duties upon the vessels of 
 both nations, and they were desirous of arranging this dif- 
 ference in Ireland to our satisfaction, and without at the 
 same time touching upon the question of their policy in the 
 existing restriction as a check upon emigration. But he in- 
 quired how it was with regard to the execution of the conven- 
 tion of 3rd July, 18 1 5, in America .f* Observing that he had 
 seen that a bill for carrying it into execution which had passed 
 in the House of Representatives of the United States had 
 been rejected by the Senate, I told him that I had no com- 
 munication from the government relating to the convention 
 since its ratification, but that by the Constitution of the 
 United States as soon as the ratifications were exchanged it 
 became the law of the land. It must and would of course 
 be executed, and by the public accounts in the gazettes with 
 respect to the bill to which he referred, it appeared that the 
 difference of opinion between the two houses of Congress 
 arose, not from any disposition in either to oppose the execu- 
 tion of the convention, but from a question whether an act 
 of Congress was or was not necessary to give it effect. He 
 then intimated that he had information that there had been 
 some difficulty as to its actual execution, and asked me if I 
 
528 THE WRITINGS OF [1816 
 
 could state the time from which it had been understood 
 to commence in favor of British vessels in America? I said 
 that was a matter about which I believed it would be neces- 
 sary to come to a mutual understanding. It was usual to 
 consider treaties as commencing to operate from the time of 
 the exchange of the ratifications. In this case, at the proposal 
 of the British plenipotentiaries, the convention was ex- 
 pressly made binding upon the parties for four years from 
 the day of the signature. For some time after it was signed 
 an extra duty had been levied here upon cotton imported 
 in American vessels. I had conversed upon the subject with 
 Mr. Robinson, one of the British plenipotentiaries who 
 signed the convention, and afterwards with the Earl of 
 Liverpool last summer. An Order in Council had issued in 
 August removing this duty upon cotton. Of all this you had 
 been informed. I had received a letter from you, written 
 shortly after the ratification of the convention, expressing 
 the expectation that it would be ratified, observing that the 
 President had not previously issued a proclamation revoking 
 the discriminating duties, because the Order in Council of 
 August had never been oflficially communicated, and because 
 it did not extend to tonnage duties. My own opinion had 
 been that the obligations of the convention commenced 
 from the day of its signature, and that whatever extra duties 
 contrary to it had been since then levied by either govern- 
 ment must be refunded. He said it was then evident that 
 there was yet something to be done to give the convention 
 its full effect; that as Mr. Robinson had been one of the 
 British plenipotentiaries who had signed it, he would ask 
 him to appoint a day to meet me and agree upon some ar- 
 rangement, adding that there would be some inconvenience 
 refunding duties already collected. As to the duties col- 
 lected at the Trinity House, light money for the maintenance 
 
i8i6j JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 529 
 
 of light houses, they were levied by the particular charter 
 of that corporation; he thought the government could not 
 remove them, and that they were not included among the 
 duties and charges contemplated by the convention. I ob- 
 served that if that was the understanding, it was necessary 
 that we should know it, similar charges of light money and 
 for the same purpose of maintaining light houses being 
 levied in the United States; and if the principle of equaliza- 
 tion should not be applied to them here, it would of course 
 not be applicable to them there. He renewed the assurance 
 that they were cordially disposed to give the fullest practi- 
 cable effect to it, and said that as to the case of the passengers 
 from Ireland they would put the ships of the two countries 
 on the same footing, either by reducing the restriction upon 
 American vessels to the same scale as that upon British ves- 
 sels, or by increasing that upon the British to the standard 
 of that upon the American. ... 
 
 The ministers are very hard pressed in Parliament and by 
 petitions from all parts of the country against the renewal 
 of the property tax. It is said even to be doubtful whether 
 they can carry it by a majority in the House of Commons. 
 But they are determined to have a vote there for or against 
 it. It is not impossible that they may be more willing to 
 lose the question than to carry it, but the question they must 
 have. They will undoubtedly carry all their establishments 
 and their expenditure of twenty-nine millions for the year. 
 The precarious state of the pacific relations with America 
 has been distinctly stated by Lord Castlereagh and others 
 of the ministers as reasons among others for maintaining 
 the army of 150,000 men, and even the opposition have ad- 
 mitted the necessity of the 9,500 men for Canada and Nova 
 Scotia. 
 
 I am etc. 
 
530 THE WRITINGS OF [1816' 
 
 TO JONATHAN RUSSELL 
 
 Ealing near London, 8th March, 18 16. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 My residence at this distance from the capital has de- 
 prived me of the pleasure of seeing Mr. Lawrence during the 
 short time that he was in this country. I received however 
 your friendly letter of the nth January of which he was the 
 bearer. He came with the intention of visiting France before 
 his return home but while here changed his mind and went a 
 few days since to embark directly for New York at Liverpool. 
 
 You are regularly supplied with the Morning Chronicle but 
 do not see Cobbett's Register. His paper however, from the 
 turn that he has taken and the turn that the affairs of the • 
 world are likely to take, has become so interesting not only 
 to Americans but in regard to the condition of this country, 
 that I wish you could see all his present publications. His 
 representation of the state of England is colored with all 
 the exaggerations that belong to his character, and yet there 
 are facts disclosing themselves from day to day which indi- 
 cate that his picture, caricature as it is, bears a stronger re- 
 semblance to the original than those of any other painter 
 of the British periodical press. He Is now in the execution 
 of a project which, if not baffled by legal interpositions 
 against which he appears to think himself secure, is to pub- 
 lish his Register cotemporaneously both at London and at 
 New York, but the New York edition is to contain all the 
 matter that he deems it not expedient to publish in England. 
 His influence upon the public mind In America will be much 
 greater than it Is here, where he Is so much out of credit with 
 all the political parties that they scarcely take any more 
 notice of his paper than if it had no existence. It was how- 
 
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 531 
 
 ever In his paper that the first Indications were given of 
 what is now called the general distress of the country. It 
 was so much kept out of sight from all other quarters until 
 the meeting of Parliament that his papers appeared to me 
 as if they contained the Imaginary description of another 
 world. The proposition to continue the property tax re- 
 duced to five per cent and otherwise modified, together with 
 that of maintaining an army of 149,000 men, and of pro- 
 viding for an expenditure of 29 millions for the present year, 
 has drawn forth grievous complaints and earnest petitions 
 from all parts of the country, and they all state that the 
 people, particularly the farmers, are in great distress. But 
 although this has tended to confirm the representations of 
 Cobbett in some degree, there are strong facts to show that 
 the distress is by no means general, and that in the only 
 particular which would render It formidable to the govern- 
 ment It does not even exist. Among his other predictions 
 Cobbett foretold a falling off In the revenue of at least one 
 third. But the revenue of 1815 yielded upwards of sixty-six 
 millions, an excess of a million and a half beyond that of any 
 preceding year. And almost the same excess appears in the 
 single article of excise, a duty upon consumption, which if 
 there was any general failure of prosperity in the country 
 would be the first to show a deficiency. Cobbett prophesies 
 like Joanna Southcott. When the time for the accomplish- 
 ment of his prediction arrives without fulfilling It, he ad- 
 journs it to another day. He now says the deficiencies will 
 appear next July. But if one portion of the people are 
 obliged to diminish the amount of their voluntary taxes, 
 another portion acquire the means of Indulging themselves 
 by the Increase of theirs, and July, like January, will prob- 
 ably bring an undiminished and perhaps augmented tribute 
 to the revenue. It is evident that no material falling off" Is 
 
 I 
 
532 THE WRITINGS OF [1816 
 
 anticipated by the government, and their security upon a 
 point of such infinite importance to them Is more truly 
 prophetical than the loose speculations of Cobbett. I do 
 nevertheless perceive that when the farmer pays two bushels 
 of wheat during peace for the same taxes which in war time 
 he discharged with one, the unavoidable consequence must 
 be individual distress and It may be to a great extent. There 
 are indeed two things towards which the state of this country 
 would seem to tend Irresistibly, should it continue at peace, 
 and which in any other country would have a most ominous 
 and terrifying aspect. The one Is a deadly collision of in- 
 terest between the landowners and the fundholders; and 
 the other an Intestine war of debtors and creditors. But 
 this country has so long and so triumphantly given the lie 
 to every sober calculation and every prudent maxim of 
 political economy, that all foresight is put to the blush, and 
 the natural connection between sound reasoning and just 
 conclusion is dissolved. The fact of every day bears down 
 the unanswerable argument of every yesterday. Far be It 
 then from me to say that the Bank of England will not be : 
 able to resume payments in cash and yet pay forty millions 
 a year of Interest upon the national debt, or that a debt of a 
 thousand millions sterling may not admit of further and in- 
 definite accumulation without ever becoming insupportable. 
 Abstractly speaking such assertion might safely be made. 
 We are still to see whether they will ever prove true in 
 England. There are accounts from the United States to the 
 5th of last month. Congress had been two months in session, 
 but appear to have done nothing of importance. There 
 seems to be something like an explosion with Spain which 
 I am afraid could not be avoided, but which at this time Is 
 greatly to be regretted. Our finances are still In great con- 
 fusion and a new war so soon will much Increase the diffi- 
 
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 533 
 
 culty of bringing them again into order. Mr. Dallas has 
 again proposed a national bank, a measure about which both 
 parties have trifled like children. While our whole military 
 peace establishment is ten thousand men, all parties are 
 agreed here to keep within 500 of the same number in Canada 
 and Nova Scotia. Lord Castlereagh says the United States 
 have become a great military pozver^ and Lord Palmerston 
 declares that in the event of a new war Britain must be 
 prepared to defend her West India islands against a naval 
 expedition from the United States. See what the five fair 
 frigates and the bits of striped bunting have come to. 
 
 I shall send you by Mr. Connell a small packet of letters 
 from America which came under cover to me by one of the 
 last vessels that has arrived. Our lively Ghent Secretary,^ 
 who makes laws and speeches and puns in the Maryland 
 House of Assembly, writes me now and then a pleasant 
 letter. Shaler is comfortably settled at Algiers and I have 
 the advantage also of a correspondence with him, not of puns, 
 but grave, solemn, and statistical. He has given me very 
 useful information about the barbarians. Believe me etc. 
 
 TO LORD CASTLEREAGH 
 
 The Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 
 from the United States of America has the honor of inviting 
 the attention of Lord Castlereagh to a letter which, on the 
 7th of October last, the undersigned addressed to Earl Bath- 
 urst, in relation to eleven slaves the property of Raleigh 
 W. Downman, a citizen of the United States, alleged to have 
 been taken and carried away by the violation of a flag of 
 truce sent by Captain Barrie, commander of His Majesty's 
 
 1 Christopher Hughes. 
 
534 THE WRITINGS OF [1816 
 
 ship Dragon. With this letter were inclosed copies of Mr. 
 Downman's memorial to the President of the United States 
 representing the facts, and of several other documents to 
 substantiate them, to all which the undersigned now begs 
 leave to refer Lord Castlereagh. 
 
 The undersigned had the honor of receiving from Lord 
 Bathurst an answer to this letter acquainting him that Cap- 
 tain Barrie himself had been immediately referred to for 
 such particulars as he might be enabled to give upon this 
 subject, and communicating the substance of his report upon 
 this reference. 
 
 There are many particulars in this statement of Captain 
 Barrie which, appearing to have no bearing upon the special 
 object of inquiry and tending rather to draw the attention 
 from it to other points of discussion, might with propriety 
 be left unnoticed but for the insinuations that they convey. 
 He remarks, for instance, that at the period in question the 
 violation of a flag of truce was a very tender subject with 
 him, and he refers to a previous correspondence in which he 
 had been engaged with the commanding officer of the United 
 States forces at Norfolk, on want of respect paid to British 
 flags of truce upon occasion of one of his own having been 
 fired upon. The undersigned might deem it sufficient to 
 say that this was not the subject upon which Captain Barrie 
 was called for information. As the Captain does not recol- 
 lect the violation by his own people of the flag sent by him- 
 self, he did not mean to allege it was a retaliation upon that 
 of which another flag sent by himself had been the suff"erer. 
 Yet he avows that if slaves fugitives from their masters had 
 been received on board a flag sent by himself, he would not 
 have restored them to their owners without an express order 
 from his commander in chief — a tenderness for a flag of 
 truce upon which the undersigned forbears to comment. 
 
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 535 
 
 Of the particular incident asserted by Captain Barrie the 
 undersigned has no cognizance. But so far as this part of 
 that officer's narrative may be understood as intending an 
 imputation upon American officers, or the American govern- 
 ment, of disrespect to the sacred character of a flag, the 
 undersigned will only remind Lord Castlereagh of the re- 
 peated offers made by the government of the United States 
 during the war, and by the American plenipotentiaries at 
 the negotiation of the peace, to punish every infraction of 
 the most liberal laws of war on their part, and to indemnify 
 as far as possible every sufferer under them. It was in the 
 power of Great Britain to have accepted these offers on the 
 single condition of reciprocity. The correctness of two of 
 the documents transmitted by the undersigned to Lord Bath- 
 urst and marked A and B is admitted by Captain Barrie. 
 He declares that he never received the document marked D, 
 a circumstance acknowledged in Mr. Downman's memorial, 
 and accounted for by the statement that before a vessel 
 could be procured to bear the flag with this letter the British 
 vessels had left the Chesapeake. 
 
 With regard to the violation of the flag of truce and the 
 taking and carrying away of the slaves. Captain Barrie 
 states in general terms that he has no recollection of any 
 slaves ever having been received on board any flag of truce 
 during the time he was intrusted with the command of the 
 Chesapeake squadron, and that if such a circumstance did 
 occur, it was without his knowledge or authority. The fact 
 of the violation of the flag and of the taking and carrying 
 away of the slaves is testified In the papers transmitted to 
 Earl Bathurst, by the depositions upon oath of four wit- 
 nesses, and His Majesty's government did not consider the 
 transaction as duly investigated, or that justice had been 
 done to the complaining party, merely because Captain Bar- 
 
536 THE WRITINGS OF [1816 
 
 rie had stated the fact not to be within his recollection or 
 knowledge. It was mentioned in Lord Bathurst's note that 
 a communication would forthwith be made to Admiral Cock- 
 burn, for the purpose of obtaining further information upon 
 the subject with which, it is added, he must have been ac- 
 quainted, as it appears he had arrived in the Chesapeake 
 before the surgeon's mate was restored. 
 
 The undersigned can urge no objection to any source of 
 information to which His Majesty's government may deem 
 it expedient to resort for ascertaining the facts to their own 
 satisfaction. But he thinks it proper to suggest that there 
 are other sources which might also tend to the elucidation 
 of the facts. Perhaps Captain Barrie could indicate the 
 name of the officer by whom he sent the flag, Mr. Jeffery, 
 the surgeon's mate, whose restoration was the object of the 
 flag and who actually returned with it, might give some light 
 upon the subject. The captain and officers of the Havanna 
 must be supposed to have known something of the affair. 
 But independently of the recollection of all officers them- 
 selves, so materially and so pointedly interested in the result 
 of the inquiry, from the documents transmitted by the under- 
 signed it appears that one of the slaves made his escape from 
 the island of Bermuda and returned to his master. Informa- 
 tion respecting the others might then be easily obtained by 
 the British government from Bermuda. That the slaves 
 were taken the undersigned believes cannot admit of a 
 doubt. How they were disposed of is a question interesting 
 to the solicitude which His Majesty's government have felt 
 upon an allegation which has been considered as implicating 
 the character of British officers. The violation of a flag con- 
 stitutes in this instance an aggravation which seems to call 
 with peculiar energy for a complete and unequivocal in- 
 vestigation. 
 
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 537 
 
 The undersigned is persuaded that His Majesty's govern- 
 ment will feel it to be due to the complaint of the individual, 
 to the honor of their officers, and to their own sense of 
 justice. 
 
 He has the honor of renewing to Lord Castlereagh the 
 assurances of his high consideration. 
 
 13 Craven street, 12th March, 1816. 
 
 TO ALEXANDER HILL EVERETT 
 
 Ealing near London, 16 March, 18 16. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 • ••••• 
 
 Your letter of nth March, 18 15, principally relates to two 
 subjects, now obsolete enough; but one of which, the victory 
 at New Orleans, will always be in season to the memory of 
 Americans; and the other, the peace of Ghent, will I hope 
 prove to be likewise composed of durable materials. Judg- 
 ing as the character of all political measures should be judged 
 from the existing circumstances of the time, the peace was 
 undoubtedly seasonable and was probably as good a one as 
 could have been obtained; but all who, like you, have de- 
 voted their lives to the honor and welfare of their country, 
 will remember that the peace did not obtain the objects for 
 which the war was waged. From which every mind not 
 besotted by the spirit of faction may draw two conclusions: 
 fj one of caution against commencing war without a fair pros- 
 pect of attaining its objects, as well as a good cause; the 
 other, that the object of the last war must perhaps, and not 
 improbably, be fought for again. In an enlarged point of 
 view the war was much more beneficial than injurious to our 
 country. It has raised our national character in the eyes of 
 
538 THE WRITINGS OF [1816 
 
 all Europe. It has demonstrated that the United States are 
 both a military and a naval power, with capacities which may 
 hereafter place them in both these respects on the first line 
 among the nations of the earth. It has given us generals, 
 and admirals, and subordinate officers, by land and sea, to 
 whom we may hereafter look with confidence for the support 
 of our national rights and interests in war, if the necessity 
 should recur. It has partly removed the prejudice against 
 that best and safest of national defences, an efficient navy. 
 And it has shown us many secrets of our own strength and 
 weakness, until then not sufficiently known to ourselves, 
 and to which it is to be hoped we shall not hereafter wilfully 
 shut our eyes. But some of the worst features in our com- 
 position that it has disclosed are deformities which, if not 
 inherent in the very nature of our constitution, will require 
 great, anxious and unremitting care to enable us to outgrow 
 them. The most disgusting of them all is the rancorous 
 spirit of faction which drove one part of the country head- 
 long towards the dissolution of the union, and towards a 
 treacherous and servile adherence to the enemies of the 
 country. This desertion from the standard of the nation 
 weakened all its exertions to such a degree that it required 
 little less than a special interposition of Providence to save 
 us from utter disgrace and dismemberment; and although 
 the projects of severing the Union were signally disconcerted 
 by the unexpected conclusion of the peace, they were too 
 deeply seated in the political systems, as well as in the views 
 of personal ambition of the most leading men in our native 
 state, to be yet abandoned. They will require to be watched, 
 exposed, and Inflexibly resisted, probably for many years. 
 
 You have doubtless been informed that a few days after I 
 last wrote you, Mr. J. A. Smith arrived here as secretary of 
 legation to this court, and since the meeting of Congress his 
 
I 
 
 1816] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 539 
 
 appointment has been confirmed by the Senate. Whether 
 the government inferred from his personal relation to me 
 this appointment would of course be agreeable to me, or 
 whether it was made upon distinct considerations, and with- 
 out reference to my wishes at all, I think it necessary, from 
 what had previously passed between you and me, to state 
 that your name is the only one that I ever recommended to 
 the government for the office, and that although I knew he 
 had been recommended for it by others, his appointment to 
 it was altogether unexpected by me, until I was informed it 
 had actually taken place. 
 
 It is natural that you should entertain some solicitude 
 with regard to your future prospects, and your idea is just 
 that the situation of secretary to an American legation in 
 Europe is no permanent prospect for a condition in life. The 
 government of the United States have no system of dip- 
 lomatic gradation, and the instances of persons who have 
 commenced as secretaries of legation and afterwards re- 
 ceived higher appointments have been very few. But the 
 reason of this has been, because most of the secretaries have 
 been young men, who obtained their appointments by the 
 influence and solicitations of their friends, and who after 
 obtaining it think more of their own pleasure than of the 
 public service. They come to Europe not to toil, but to en- 
 joy; to dangle about courts and solace themselves for the 
 rest of their lives, with the delightful reflection that kings 
 or princes have looked at them, to see sights, to frequent 
 theatres, balls, masquerades, and fashionable society. I 
 speak not of those who have sunk into baser and more vicious 
 pursuits; nor of those who come to make themselves scien- 
 tific, or virtuosi. Scarcely one in fifty ever came to his duty, 
 and nothing but his duty, or to devote his leisure to the ac- 
 quisition of the proper diplomatic knowledge. The habits 
 
540 
 
 THE WRITINGS OF [1816 
 
 of life into which they fall relax their industry into indolence, 
 and turn their activity to dissipation. They go home with 
 heads as empty, and with hearts fuller of vanity, than they 
 came; generally with a hankering to return to Europe, and 
 almost always with a distaste to the manners and institu- 
 tions of their own country, disdaining or disqualified to take 
 a part in its public affairs, and incapable of making them- 
 selves necessary, either to the general government, or to any 
 of the political parties in the country. 
 
 Nothing of all this applies to you. Had your station been 
 assigned to the mission here, you would have found that the 
 mere drudgery of the office would have absorbed all, and 
 more than all your time. At The Hague you have much 
 leisure, and I am quite sure you are making good use of it. 
 You will never for an instant forget that you are responsible 
 to your country for the employment of every hour; that 
 every moment not devoted to the discharge of present duty 
 must be given to the acquisition of future capability. You 
 will never adopt the fancy of the school boy, who left school 
 and went home because he had learnt out. But as you have 
 asked my advice, I cannot in candor recommend it to you to 
 remain long in your present station under the idea that it 
 will lead to something better. After a suitable period, prop- 
 erly employed, I should say return home, and resume your 
 station at the Bar. Take an interest and exercise an in- 
 fluence in the public affairs. You must steel your heart and 
 prepare your mind to encounter multitudes of political 
 enemies, and to endure all the buffetings without which there 
 is no rising to distinction in the American world. When the 
 knaves and fools open upon you in full pack, take little or no 
 notice of them, and be careful not to lose your temper. 
 Preserve your private character and reputation unsullied, 
 and confine your speculations upon public concerns to ob- 
 
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 541 
 
 jects of high and national importance. You will certainly 
 be favored with no patronage, political or professional, by 
 the prevailing party at Boston; but you must make your way 
 in opposition to and in defiance of them. Their system is 
 rotten to the core, and you may render essential service to 
 the nation by persevering exertions against it. I will give 
 you one word which you may lay down as the foundation of 
 the whole political system to which you may boldly and 
 safely devote from this moment all the energies of your 
 character, all your talents, and all your genius — that word 
 is Union. Let that be the center from which all your future 
 exertions emanate, and to which all your motives tend. Let 
 your conduct be at once bold, resolute, and wary; preserve 
 inflexibly your personal independence, even while acting in 
 concurrence with any party, and take my word for it, you 
 will not need to go in search for public office, at home or 
 abroad. For public office, at home or abroad, at your option 
 will soon come in search of you. 
 
 Be good enough to present my best remembrance to 
 Mr. Eustis, to whom I am yet indebted for a letter, and 
 propose shortly to write. Apthorp did not bring Turreau's 
 book upon America.^ That illustrious Vendean general told 
 me last spring that he intended to publish a book against us. 
 I did not think the worse of him or ourselves for that. Lau- 
 dari a laudato has a counterpart which will easily reconcile 
 me to his vituperation. 
 
 Our accounts from the United States do not appear propi- 
 tious to your projects of perpetual peace. Once the Span- 
 iard,^ they say, has sprung a mine at Washington and gone 
 off. But I have not room to expatiate, and must remain ever 
 faithfully yours. 
 
 ^ Apercu sur la Situation Politique dcs Etats-Unis (T Amerique, Paris, 1815. 
 ^ Don Luis de Onis. 
 
542 THE WRITINGS OF [1816 
 
 TO ABIGAIL ADAMS 
 
 Ealing, 25th March, 18 16. 
 
 My Dear Mother: 
 
 The climate here is a paradise compared with that of 
 St. Petersburg, where life itself scarcely deserves to be called 
 existence. I left that country a skeleton, and verily believe 
 that before the end of another winter I should have left the 
 skeleton there. Since the day that I quitted the banks of 
 the frozen Neva I have been steadily redeeming flesh, until, 
 notwithstanding the drawback of the last autumn, my great- 
 est apprehension now is of becoming unwieldy and lazy. 
 My eyes are not much worse than they were before the 
 violent attack which for several weeks deprived me of their 
 services; but it is in the right hand that I most seriously feel 
 the efi"ect of declining years. You cannot fail to have per- 
 ceived it in my handwriting. It was just perceptible to 
 myself in the second winter of my residence in Prussia, and 
 has been gradually and regularly increasing ever since. It 
 is now painful to me to hold a pen, and I write so slowly that 
 if my necessary correspondence should much increase, I 
 should be obliged to employ habitually an amanuensis and 
 write altogether by the hand of another. How soon I may 
 be reduced to that expedient depends upon a wiser will than 
 mine. The secretary of legation at this court is, I believe, 
 of opinion that I yet write quite rapidly enough. None of 
 the gentlemen who have ever assisted me in that capacity, 
 from my brother in 1794, to Mr. J. A. Smith in 18 16, has 
 had cause to complain for want of employment; but the in- 
 dispensable correspondence here is incessant, and the month 
 
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 543 
 
 during which I was confined threw it into such arrears that 
 they are scarcely yet recovered. Besides the pubHc business 
 with the British government, and the official reports to be 
 made to our own, the mission here is in correspondence with 
 ministers, agents, or consuls of the United States in Russia, 
 Sweden, Holland, France, Spain, Italy, the Barbary coast 
 and Brazil; with the commanders of the American squadron 
 in the Mediterranean, and particularly with the American 
 consuls in the ports of Great Britain, Ireland, Gibraltar and 
 Malta; with the bankers and navy agents of the United 
 States in the Mediterranean, at London, and at Amsterdam. 
 It has occasionally corresponded with the ambassadors and 
 ministers at this court of Austria, Prussia, Bavaria, WUrtem- 
 berg, France, Spain and Portugal, and Denmark. Every 
 American who has a claim of any kind upon the British 
 government calls for the interposition of influence in some 
 shape or other of his minister. Every projector of absurd 
 projects, every inventor of impossible inventions, whose 
 wonder-working genius is not duly esteemed and encouraged 
 by this government, calls for patronage upon the minister 
 of the republic, where freedom reigns and talents are justly 
 appreciated. Newgate and Bedlam sometimes relieve me 
 from correspondents of this class, but the succession of them 
 is as uninterrupted as that of the See of Rome from St. Peter 
 to Pius the yth. I have made it throughout my public life 
 a general rule to be accessible to all persons, and to answer 
 all letters of solicitation or otherwise requiring answers. 
 Some exceptions to this rule are unavoidable. I have hith- 
 erto invariably acted upon it, excepting when there were 
 special reasons for departing from it. But the multitudes 
 of people, who in person or in writing apply for what cannot 
 be granted, and often for what is improper, are so importu- 
 nate, so unreasonable, sometimes so insolent, and consume 
 
544 
 
 THE WRITINGS OF [1816 
 
 so much time, that I really know not how to blame persons 
 as much or still more exposed to such interruptions, who 
 act upon a dIflFerent rule and shut their doors, their ears, 
 and their eyes, against intruders of every kind. 
 
 One would imagine that the American legation at London 
 was the moon of Ariosto, or Milton's Paradise of Fools, the 
 place where things lost upon earth were to be found. We 
 have sometimes applications for estates that once were 
 granted to British subjects, and sometimes for payment of 
 the paper money of the revolutionary war. One comes in 
 search of a suspected inheritance, and another of a conjec- 
 tural genealogy. One gentleman has written to ascertain 
 whether he is not a kinsman of Captain Trenchard of the 
 American navy, and another, both personally and by letter, 
 has applied to know whether Mr. Jared IngersoU of Philadel- 
 phia is not his cousin.^ An English father intreats me to find 
 his son, a sailor, who he hears entered the American service 
 after having been taken in the Macedonia7i, and the friends 
 of a beautiful young lady in America ask my assistance to 
 hunt up her father in England. Good offices of this kind it 
 is impossible to refuse, but the applications which have been 
 most painful to me were those of women, Americans them- 
 selves, or connected with Americans, and in circumstances 
 of distress which it was utterly out of my power to relieve. 
 Not long since an English lady who has a husband of very 
 respectable standing at New York wrote to ask me the means 
 of maintaining herself and a sick daughter, and of finishing 
 the education of her son whom she proposed to present after- 
 wards to my patronage — all this to be at the expense of the 
 public. When I answered that this was impossible, she re- 
 quested a supply of money, offering some fine table linen In 
 pawn for it. At last she wrote me asking my Interposition 
 with the treasurer of his majesty's navy to obtain immediate 
 
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 545 
 
 payment of wages due to one of her sons, deceased. Her 
 son, an American and a gentleman, in tlie midst of the late 
 war between the United States and Great Britain had entered 
 the British naval service, and distinguished himself in fight- 
 ing against his country in the battle on Lake Champlain. 
 It was for the wages of this service she requested my inter- 
 cession for the payment of them to her. I now thought it 
 time to ask her not to favor me with any more of her letters. 
 
 I have at last had my private audience of the Queen and 
 my wife has been presented at the Drawing Room, both, of 
 course, "most graciously received." ^ The Prince Regent 
 has been confined with the gout at Brighton, but is to return 
 this week to London. 
 
 I am etc. 
 
 TO JOSEPH PITCAIRN 
 
 London, 27th March, 18 16. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 Your favor of 12th February came to hand on the 5th in- 
 stant, and the day before yesterday I received the package 
 containing Bode's Uranographia, with the volume and papers 
 belonging to it all In good condition. In returning you my 
 thanks for your kindness In executing this commission I now 
 beg leave to trouble you with another. It Is to procure an- 
 other copy of the same work equally complete. To have it 
 packed in the same manner, to send It by any trusty captain 
 or passenger of any vessel going from Hamburg direct to 
 Boston, who will take charge of It and have it addressed: 
 I "To the Rev. John Thornton Kirkland, President of Har- 
 vard University, Cambridge near Boston, for the use of the 
 
 ^ See Adams, Memoirs, March 21, 1816. 
 
546 THE WRITINGS OF [1816 
 
 '( 
 
 observatory. To be delivered at Boston to the Hon. John / 
 Davis, Treasurer of the University, or to John Lowell Esq., 
 a member of the corporation," either of whom is requested ' 
 to forward it to President Kirkland. And with it I will 
 thank you to write a line to Doctor Kirkland, informing 
 him that it comes from me as a small token of filial attach- 
 ment to the University. The cost and charges please to 
 deduct from the balance in your hands. 
 
 It gives me pleasure to learn that the trade from the 
 United States with Hamburg during the last year has been ] 
 so profitable to the concerned. The merchants here com- 
 plain that theirs has not been of late so beneficial. But com- 
 plaint is one of the articles of an English merchant's stock. 
 The exchange with all the world is in their favor, while they 
 are bewailing the unparalleled distress and utter ruin of 
 their trade. . . . 
 
 TO WILLIAM EUSTIS 
 
 Ealing, 29 March, 18 16. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 The latest news we have from home came down to the 
 20th of last month. There is a correspondence between the 
 Secretary of State and the Spanish Minister Onis, which i 
 looks as old O'Brien, sometime prisoner and sometime consul 
 at Algiers, used to write, squally. It was said that Onis hadt 
 left Washington in high dudgeon and that all communica- 
 tion between our government and him was broken off. This: 
 is since contradicted, but the federal papers say that he 
 complains, and justly complains, that the government have 
 not published all the correspondence. The European dip- 
 lomats in America always take a foolish fancy to negotiate 
 
8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 547 
 
 vith the people. Genet, Yrujo, Jackson, all had an uncon- 
 j-ollable itching to play the demagogue in the garb of an 
 imbassador. Onis has not learnt to be wise from others' 
 larm. He is repeating the same experiment, and I trust 
 vill meet with the same success; but you and I know full 
 veil that if Beelzebub had a plenipotentiary at Washington 
 ivho should complain of ill treatment from the American 
 government, the federalists of the Hartford Convention 
 :rew would cheer him and cry encore to his complaints. 
 VIr. Erving was, on the 9th of February, at Boston, about 
 to embark I believe for France: at least he has directed a 
 :orrespondent here to send letters for him to the care of 
 Hottinguer at Paris. From thence I suppose he means to 
 go to Madrid by land.^ I most earnestly hope that we shall 
 Qot get involved in a war with Spain; for although it might 
 Qot immediately, I am persuaded it would in the end, plunge 
 is into a new contest with this country. I have reason to 
 3elieve that no cession of Florida to Great Britain has been, 
 >r is, in contemplation. The finances of this country now 
 abor to such a degree, and they are settling such an enor- 
 TLous peace establishment, that it is of inexpressible Im- 
 portance to us to gain time for introducing some order into 
 
 ^ "The vivacity of the Chevalier Onis at Washington has by some of our accounts 
 )een such that I have not been without fears an explosion would again arrest you 
 )n your way. I have no official intelligence, but the latest news is not quite so 
 threatening as they had been before. Pray save us from a rupture, if possible. As 
 ;o any dishonorable concession, I know that is out of the question, and God forbid 
 i should propose it; but keep the peace, if you possibly can. Indeed we must not 
 ook with contempt to a war with Spain; nor must we expect it will be a quarrel 
 A'lth Spain alone. A little patience, a little time, is important to us beyond ex- 
 Dression. You see we have no finances, and with more real means and greater 
 potential resources than any other nation upon the globe, how near have we been 
 to a shameful bankruptcy. A year of peace has scarcely brought us any percep)- 
 tible relief, and to go to war again without ways and means provided, would be 
 stark staring madness." To George fV. Erving, March 28, 1816. Ms. 
 
548 THE WRITINGS OF [1816 
 
 our finances, and obtaining some command of our resources. 
 Mr. Dallas's annual report on the finances shows them in a 
 more unfavorable light than I had anticipated. He pro- 
 poses a bank, and a bill for that purpose was brought in; 
 but I hear nothing of its progress, and recollecting that in 
 the extremity of need last winter before the peace was known 
 this measure could not be carried through, I cannot be veryS 
 sanguine in the expectation that the present attempt will 
 be more successful. A doubt has been suggested to me- 
 whether the subscription will be filled, even if the bill should, 
 pass. It is said that the control given to the government: 
 over the bank is too great, and the conditions prescribed to > 
 the corporation are too burdensome; but I think myself 
 that if the bill passes, the subscription will not fail. Your- 
 prediction that our six per cent stock would rise to par after- 
 January may be realized, if the bank should be established;; 
 but as yet there are no symptoms of it. They have indeed ■ 
 risen at Boston to 87, and are here at 85; but as there is tO) 
 be a new loan here, and the stocks of this country will I 
 probably not rise, there will be a corresponding check upom 
 the rise of ours in this market. The noise and clamors about 
 the agricultural and commercial distresses of this country, 
 and above all about the property tax, which have been ex- 
 cited here since the meeting of Parliament, have certainly 
 reached you, but you have not been the dupe of their ex- 
 aggeration. The distress is in a very great degree imaginary. 
 As to commerce the balance of exchange with all the world 
 is at this very moment largely in favor of England. The 
 farmers, to be sure, whose corn and flour have fallen to half 
 the price they bore in time of war, find an increased diffi- 
 culty in paying their rent, their tithes, and their taxes. 
 The rents of course have been lowered, and that has touched 
 the interest of the landlords and made them clamorous. But 
 
;8i61 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 549 
 
 :o talk of their distress is a burlesque upon the word. The 
 ithes which cannot be reduced press harder in proportion 
 :o the diminished means of the farmer, and here and there 
 y^ou hear a half suppressed groan under them. But the 
 "renzy of churchism is indissoluble bound up with the frenzy 
 3f loyalty, and is indeed by far the strongest portion of the 
 :ompound. The tithes cannot be touched, without in- 
 ringing upon the rights of property, and they are not pre- 
 pared for that yet. Nor if they should be, would they dare 
 to begin with the property of the church. As to the taxes, 
 John Bull has made up his account to be relieved from a part 
 of them, and the only mistake of the ministers has been in 
 the amount to which it became necessary to indulge him in 
 this humor. They attempted to retain a part of the prop- 
 erty tax, more I imagine for the sake of the principle than 
 for the sum they expected now to raise by it. But John in- 
 sisted upon having it all given up, and the popular outcry 
 has overawed the House of Commons, and produced to the 
 universal astonishment a majority upon that one question 
 against the ministers. John shouts and chuckles prodi- 
 giously at his victory, but it amounts to nothing. The House 
 of Commons is already frightened at its own success. It has 
 a compunctious terror of having turned Jacobin. The peace 
 establishment of 150,000 men, the annual expenditure of 
 30 millions, pass in spite of all opposition; they suffer the 
 ministers to tell them that by refusing the property tax they 
 have made the debt of 800 millions eternal. All their answer 
 lis, "Borrow more money, borrow on; only don't tax, and 
 I don't touch the sinking fund. The sinking fund pays off 
 : twelve millions of debt a year. Borrow fifteen, but don't 
 touch the sinking fund." And so for this year will it end — 
 an immense war establishment under the name of peace; 
 an increase instead of a diminution of the public debt; and 
 
SSo 
 
 THE WRITINGS OF Ii8i6J 
 
 preachments without end on all sides about retrenchment 
 
 and economy. While such a system can be maintained, I 
 
 shall hold the outcry about distress to be a fable. 
 
 I am etc. 
 
 
 TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE 
 [James Monroe] 
 
 London, 30 March, 18 16. 
 
 Sir: 
 
 A few days since Mr. Del Real, residing here as a deputy 
 from New Granada, called upon me and inquired if I had 
 any knowledge of the arrival at Washington of Mr. Peter • 
 Qual in a similar capacity from that country. I told him. 
 that I had heard generally that there were at Washington! 
 deputies from the South American Provinces but not par-- 
 ticularly the name of that gentleman. Mr. Del Real said 
 he knew of his arrival at New York but had not heard from 
 him at Washington. He then inquired what foundation! 
 there was for a rumor generally circulating here of a rup-^ 
 ture between the United States and Spain. I knew nothing- 
 further than had appeared in the English newspapers. I had , 
 heard of a correspondence in December and January be-' 
 tween the Secretary of State and the Spanish Minister which 
 had been communicated by the President to Congress and 
 the supposed substance of which had been published here. 
 It had further been said that about the 12th of last month i 
 Mr. Onis had left Washington and that all communication! 
 between the American government had been broken off.. 
 Later accounts equally unauthenticated contradicted this> 
 last circumstance but repeated that Mr. Onis had left Wash-- 
 
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 551 
 
 ington much dissatisfied. It was impossible for me to say 
 what the real state of relations between the United States 
 and Spain were but as to the question of peace or war I was 
 persuaded it would depend upon Spain herself. If the de- 
 mands of Mr. Onis had been such as they were represented 
 the American government neither would nor could comply 
 with them. The present course of Spanish policy was in- 
 comprehensible. If such demands were made, it could not 
 but be with a knowledge that they must and would be re- 
 fused. In ordinary cases the very making of such demands 
 would Imply a settled determination of the power advancing 
 them to follow up the refusal of them by immediate war. 
 If such was the Intention of Spain the United States would 
 have no alternative left but to defend themselves. But 
 they had no desire for a war with Spain. As to the South 
 American Provinces struggling for their independence the 
 general sentiment in the United States was certainly in their 
 favor. But the policy of the government, a policy dictated 
 equally by their duty to their own country, by their state of 
 amity with Spain and by their good will to the South Amer- 
 icans themselves, was a strict and impartial neutrality 
 between them and Spain. I said by their good will for the 
 South Americans themselves, because the neutrality of the 
 United States was more advantageous to them, by securing 
 to them the neutrality also of Great Britain, than any sup- 
 port which the United States could give them by declaring 
 In their favor and making common cause with them, the 
 effect of which probably would be to make Great Britain 
 declare against both. He was aware that the popular feeling 
 in this country was now favorable to the South Americans, 
 more so than the dispositions of the present ministry. They 
 complied so far with the prevailing opinion as to observe a 
 neutrality. But the same popular sentiment here, he knew, 
 
552 
 
 THE WRITINGS OF [1816 
 
 was very strong against the North Americans, and if the 
 United States were openly to join the cause of South America, 
 and consequently be engaged in a war with Spain, the British 
 people would immediately consider them as the principals 
 in the contest, all their jealousies and national antipathies 
 would be enlisted against the common American cause; and 
 as they were even now tormented with an uneasy hankering 
 for war which they think would relieve them from their em- 
 barrassments, then ministers would take advantage of these 
 passions and engage this nation upon the side of Spain, 
 merely because the United States would be on the other side. 
 He said he was perfectly convinced of the justice of these 
 observations. I asked him if he had any knowledge of an 
 Order in Council lately issued here, prohibiting all British 
 subjects from supplying arms, ammunition and warlike stores 
 to the South Americans. He said he had not. That the 
 professed system of this government had always been and 
 continued to be neutrality. That they allowed a free inter- 
 course between Jamaica and the South American continent, 
 and had given orders to their Admiral on the station not to 
 molest the independent flag, and had refused to deliver up 
 vessels bearing it which had entered their ports. But when- 
 ever applied to for an acknowledgment of the independent 
 governments, they had declined upon the ground of their 
 engagements with Spain. I had shortly before had some 
 conversation upon these subjects with Count Fernan Nunez, 
 the Spanish Ambassador at this court, who spoke to me 
 with some courteous expressions of concern of this abrupt 
 departure of Mr. Onis from Washington, which he said was 
 altogether unexpected to him, though he supposed Onis 
 could not have acted without orders. He then referred to 
 the points which had been mentioned in the summary pub- 
 lished here of your correspondence with Onis. He thought 
 
I 
 
 1816] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 553 
 
 the expeditions from Kentucky and Tennessee might justly 
 be considered by the Spanish as offensive, and that after the 
 surrender of Carthagena there was no insurgent government, 
 and that all vessels under its pretended flag were to be con- 
 sidered and treated as pirates. I said that I had no knowl- 
 edge what the alleged expeditions from Kentucky and Ten- 
 nessee were, but was very sure that they had no countenance 
 from the government of the United States. The President's 
 proclamation had on the contrary warned all the citizens of 
 the United States against engaging in any enterprise hostile 
 to Spain. He said that the proceedings complained of were 
 subsequent to the proclamation. I replied that if any illegal 
 combination for such a purpose had been formed at a dis- 
 tance from the seat of government, it was to be considered 
 that the government of the United States had not the same 
 means of immediate or of complete control over them as in 
 similar cases were possessed by European governments. 
 They had an open country. No barrier of fortified cities to 
 stop persons intending to pass the frontier. No army or 
 corps of gendarmerie to support and give efficacy to meas- 
 ures of police, and no authority to arrest individuals or dis- 
 perse assemblages, until possessed of proof that they have 
 committed acts, or are in the process of committing acts in 
 violation of the law. With these considerations I was very 
 sure that if any such expeditions had been undertaken, they 
 had neither been sanctioned nor connived at by the Ameri- 
 can government. That they would on the contrary In the 
 manner and according to the forms allowed by our Constitu- 
 tions be ultimately and effectually prevented, unless this 
 impatience and heat of Mr. Onis should precipitate the two 
 countries into a state of hostility which we sincerely dep- 
 recated. That as to commercial Intercourse with the In- 
 dependents and the admission of their flags into our ports, 
 
554 THE WRITINGS OF I1816 
 
 this he knew was conformable to the received usages of 
 nations. It was practised in this case by Great Britain, the 
 closest ally of Spain, and no one knew better than he that 
 she had refused either to interdict the commerce with the 
 insurgents to her subjects, or to exclude their flag from her 
 ports. He at first nodded assent to these remarks, and I 
 observed that if his colleague, Onis, was ordered to demand 
 his passports for causes such as these, I should expect to 
 hear that he, Fernan Nunez, had also left this court without 
 taking leave, as the causes of offence to Spain were the same 
 here as had been alleged by him at Washington. The Count 
 said he did not know what Onis' orders were, and in truth 
 it was not his concern; but for himself he was pretty well 
 satisfied with what he had lately obtained here against the 
 insurgents. By which I understood him to allude to the 
 recent Order in Council which I mentioned to Mr. Del Real, 
 but of which he had not heard. Fernan Nunez is a man of 
 great softness of manners and politeness of demeanor, and 
 throughout the whole of this conversation preserved the 
 most perfect good humor. 
 
 I have the honor to inclose copies of a note which I have 
 received from Lord Castlereagh with a report from Sir George 
 Cockburn to the Secretary of the Admiralty, Mr. Croker, 
 concerning the taking and carrying away of Mr. Downman's 
 slaves. You will not fail to perceive that the admiral, like 
 Captain Barrie, disclaims all knowledge of the transaction 
 whatever, and that the effort and tendency of both their 
 letters is to excite doubts with regard to the truth of Mr. 
 Downman's statement In his memorial to the President. 
 I have no doubt It will be easy and beg leave to suggest it 
 may be very important for Mr. Downman to furnish addi- 
 tional evidence of the facts and particulars which may lead 
 to the disclosure how and why the transportation in broad 
 
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS .• 555 
 
 day of eleven slaves to the British squadron, and by them 
 to Bermuda, could be effected without the knowledge of 
 either of the British commanding officers. Lord Castle- 
 reagh has not yet replied to any other of my late notes. You 
 may however consider it as certain that the proposal to dis- 
 arm upon the lakes will not be accepted. In all the late 
 debates in Parliament upon what they call their military 
 and naval peace establishments, the prospect of a new war 
 with the United States has been distinctly held up by the 
 ministers and admitted by the opposition as a solid reason 
 for enormous and unparalleled expenditure and preparation 
 in Canada and Nova Scotia. We hear nothing now about 
 the five frigates and the bits of striped bunting. The strain 
 is in a higher mood. Lord Castlereagh talks of the great 
 and growing military power of the United States. The 
 Marquis of Lansdowne, an opposition leader and one of the 
 loudest trumpets for retrenchment and economy, still com- 
 mends the ministers for having been beaten into the policy 
 of having a naval superiority upon the lakes. And one of 
 the Lords of the Admiralty told the House of Commons last 
 Monday, that bumboat expeditions and pinchback admin- 
 istrations would no longer do for Canada. That English- 
 men must lay their account for fighting battles in fleets of 
 three deckers on the North American lakes. All this is upon 
 the principle of preserving peace by being prepared for war. 
 But it shows to demonstration what will be the fate of the 
 proposal for disarming. I had last week my first private 
 audience of the Queen. I beg leave to observe that in the 
 case of a new appointment to this court it would be expedient 
 to furnish the minister with a letter to her Majesty. It is 
 a usual compliment, to the omission of which she is not in- 
 sensible. I am etc. 
 
556 WRITINGS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS [1816 
 
 TO HENRY JACKSON 
 
 Ealing, 31st March, 18 16. 
 My Dear Sir: 
 
 I have received your obliging favor of the 22nd instant, 
 inclosing Massena's pamphlet,^ for which I pray you to ac- 
 cept my thanks. I regret to learn that Mr. Lee has got in- 
 volved In such unpleasant contests at Bordeaux. The situa- 
 tion of all the consuls of the United States In France must 
 undoubtedly be such, as to require the exercise on their part 
 of the greatest prudence and forbearance. Their own offi- 
 cial rights, and the rights of our countrymen as foreigners 
 of a friendly nation, must doubtless be maintained with 
 temperate firmness. But in asserting them, the real situa- 
 tion of the French government must be duly considered in 
 the way of allowance, while every offensive allusion to it 
 should be avoided In the way of discussion. If any of our 
 countrymen suffer wrong, the remonstrances against It 
 should be made in a tone of calmness, of moderation, and of 
 respect, at least as strongly marked as would have been 
 suitable in the most triumphant period of the reign of Napo- 
 leon. That your own situation should be disagreeable I 
 lament, though readily perceiving that it cannot be other- 
 wise. 
 
 • • • • • • • 
 
 ^ Memoire sur Us Evenements en Provence, Mars et Avril, 1815. Paris, 1816. 
 
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