John Quincy Adams in Ghent wrote this letter to James A. Bayard,
Henry Clay and Jonathan Russell on 2 January 1815:
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, 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 effects,
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
precedent in the case of the prior joint mission.
Under that precedent Mr. Gallatin now holds the
whole original papers of communications from the
Russian government, and Mr. 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 contested nor discussed.
Mr. Clay, 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 Department
of State, and a wish to have them with him for his personal
convenience in the Neptune, the subject was discussed;
a variety of opinions were given, but I did not understand
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 by 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
impropriety 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 generally 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 understand 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 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 discretion 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, although 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 compliance with your
request itself I propose to state at a meeting
of the members of the mission remaining here.
In the meantime 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 obligation of my duty will permit
with the wishes of you all and of every one of you.1
The ratified Treaty of Ghent was proclaimed on 18 February 1815.
John Quincy Adams from Paris in a letter to
his mother Abigail Adams on February 21 wrote,
In the autumn of 1812 Madame de Staël was
at St. Petersburg, 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 invitation, 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 distinguished 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 exploit at Washington.2
John Quincy Adams at Paris wrote in a letter to
Secretary of State James Monroe on 23 February 1815:
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 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 presumed, 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 of the
United States upon the treaty of peace and the instructions
of the President 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 irreconcilable right
of mariners 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 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 struggle must be expected to take place on land.
Her system of blockade will doubtless recur, but the practice
of impressment may perhaps not be found necessary.
Should a respectable 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 entering into the
discussion 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
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 commissioners, 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 these articles.
On the other hand the exercise of our fishing 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 negotiate 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
Passamaquoddy 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.3
On 28 February 1815 President James Madison and
Secretary of State James Monroe announced this Commission:
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 matters
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.
Secretary of State James Monroe nominated John Quincy Adams
to be the United States Minister to Britain, and on March 13
Monroe’s detailed instructions included these opening paragraphs:
The restoration of peace having afforded an
opportunity to renew the friendly intercourse with
Great Britain, the President availed himself of it
without delay by the appointment of a Minister
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.
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 we 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 constituted 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 originally captured.
The absurdity 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 this Bay many that were taken from the
estates on its shores, none of whom could be recovered.
It is probable that the same construction will be given
by the British commanders along the coast 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 affair,
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
meantime it is desirable that the British government should
obtain the passage of a similar act by the Parliament.
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.4
On 24 April 1815 John Q. Adams in London wrote in a letter
to his father John Adams on the current situation:
I had indulged a 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 communicated 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 opinion expressed by his Lordship
it appears that the British government are not at this time
inclined to negotiate a treaty of commerce.
It gives me great satisfaction to find your opinion
concurring 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 immediately 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 restored either to her government or people
pacific sentiments towards us.
By an unparalleled concurrence of circumstances
Britain during the year 1814 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 pleasure.
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
as a candid acknowledgment of the truth, but very indiscreet
on the other, as fixing the seal of the deepest degradation
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 a Viceroy
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 violently 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 American ministers
were slighted and most of them were left unanswered.5
On that day J. Q. Adams also wrote to the recent
United States Treasury Secretary George Washington Campbell offering him advice
on how to get loans from Alexander Baring.
Adams summed up his advice in the last paragraph:
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 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 constitute the
whole secret and science of European stock jobbing.
But in the actual state of these communications
I presume the government is constantly many days, and
often weeks and months, behind the public newspaper
in the receipt of all official intelligence from their agents
abroad, as they in their turn are always equally in arrear
in the intelligence which they receive from home.
Whether any better organization of the official
intercourse will be thought expedient must be
determined by the government itself.6
Campbell would return to the United States Senate for the state of Tennessee on
10 October 1815, the day he became the first chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.
The United States Senate confirmed Adams as Minister Plenipotentiary on 7 May 1815.
That year the British Parliament approved the Corn Law
that banned European grain from British ports.
Adams left Paris on May 16 and reached London nine days later.
On June 22 Adams wrote this in his Memoirs:
Shortly after rising this morning I received a note
from Lord Castlereagh’s office, announcing the splendid
and complete victory of the Duke of Wellington and
Marshal Blücher over the French army commanded
by Bonaparte in person on Sunday last, the 18th.
In the course of the day I received from the same office
two copies of the Gazette Extraordinary, containing
the Duke of Wellington’s dispatch of the 19th.7
The next day Adams wrote a report to Secretary of State Monroe about his meeting
with the British Foreign Affairs Secretary Lord Castlereagh. Adams wrote in the letter:
At the meeting with Lord Castlereagh I had some
loose observations with him on the subjects mentioned
in your instructions of 13 March, and on some others
which had arisen from certain occurrences here.
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 authorized 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 disposition 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 message,
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 adhere to the right of naturalization for which we
contended, 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 of the American
government or nation to apply the force of arms
to the maintenance of any mere abstract principle.
But it was not the disposition 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 to this government….
I mentioned the earnest desire of the American
government 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 convenient
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 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
erroneous, and which I presumed this government would
likewise so consider; that a reference to the original draft
of the British project, and to an alteration proposed by us
and assented 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
communicated to me what had passed between
them and this government 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. Robinson, 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.8
On 3 July 1815 John Quincy Adams signed the commercial convention with the
British that showed the Americans being equal to the British on an international document.
The British agreed to open their East Indies to American ships.
Volume III of the Adams Memoirs has Chapter XI “The Mission to Great Britain”
which goes from 16 May 1815 to 16 June 1817 in 367 pages.
J. Q. Adams in London on July 25 wrote this letter to
the physician and Minister William Eustis at The Hague:
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 presidential 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 approximating
their views or much affecting their relative 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 the objects of the war.
The events of the last three years have been
marked with the ordinary vicissitudes of war.
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 vigor,
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 sovereignty.
You tell me they are ashamed of it themselves.
I rejoice to hear it.
As a true New England man and American
I feel the infection of their shame, while I abhor
the acts by which they have brought it upon us.9
On 9 August 1815 Adams wrote in a letter to Castlereagh that begins:
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 American 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
correspondence on this subject which has passed
between the Secretary of State of the United States
and Mr. Baker, it will be unnecessary for me to repeat
the demonstration that the carrying away of these
slaves is incompatible with the terms of the treaty.
But as a reference to the documents of the negotiation
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 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 project of the treaty of Ghent was offered
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.10
John Quincy Adams wrote this short letter to
Secretary of State James Monroe on August 15:
I have received a letter from Mr. Robert Montgomery
of Alicant, dated 11th 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 excited.
The restoration of the Algerine ships of war and prisoners
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.
Having 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 the Mediterranean than the faith of a
Dey of Algiers to observe a treaty without a tribute.11
Then on 16 August 1815 Adams wrote eight pages in his Memoirs.
Here is the first portion of that:
I was obliged to attend Lord Liverpool
at Fife House at two o’clock.
I was immediately introduced into his cabinet and
stated to him the subjects upon which I had been
desirous of having this interview with him; observing
that the Lord Castlereagh, at the time of his departure,
had referred me to him and Lord Bathurst upon the
subjects belonging to the Foreign Department.
My first object was to ascertain what was the
understanding of the Government with regard to the
fifth article of the commercial convention lately signed.
I was informed by merchants that an extra duty of
two-pence per pound upon cotton imported in
American vessels, which had not commenced until
a day or two after the signature of the convention,
was now levied; and as the convention was not published,
I was asked when its operation was to commence.
I had brought a copy of the fifth article with me,
and my own opinion was that although the convention
would not be binding upon the parties until the exchange
of ratifications, its operation upon that event would
be retrospective from the date of the signature.
Lord Liverpool said that was unusual; which I admitted,
observing that the article was drawn up in words
deviating from the usual form, and that the deviation
was the proposal of the British Plenipotentiaries,
our project having proposed that the treaty should take
effect as usual from the exchange of the ratifications.
He asked me if I had spoken on the subject to
Mr. Robinson, the Vice-President of the Board of Trade.
I said I had, some weeks since,
but he had not formed a decisive opinion upon it.
I said that we had understood that an Order of Council
would have issued immediately to arrest the levying
of the extra duty upon cotton imported in American vessels,
and that it would not have been levied at all.
This was our impression at the time when
the convention was negotiated, and from
what was said by the British Plenipotentiaries.
At all events, however, it was material to know that
the construction of the article by the Government would be,
as the operation in either case must be reciprocal.
If it was understood here that the revocation of
discriminating duties would commence only from
the exchange of ratifications, the same principle
must be observed in the United States;
but there, when the convention should be ratified,
any individual affected by it might claim the
benefit of its construction by judicial authority.
He said it was the same here; that the construction
must of course be the same on both sides;
that they had taken an act of Parliament to enable the
King in Council to regulate the trade with America until
the meeting of Parliament, as had been done for some
years after the Peace of 1783, and an Order of Council
was to have been made out conformably to the Treaty.
It had been for some time accidentally delayed, but perhaps
it might be ready to be signed at the Council tomorrow.
As it was the disposition here to put all the amicable
and conciliatory arrangements in operation as soon
as possible, the discriminating duties might be
immediately removed, in the confidence that the same
measure would be adopted on the part of the United States.
I said that Great Britain had already a pledge of that
reciprocity by the act of Congress passed at the last session,
of which I had brought with me a copy.
I left both the copies with him.12
John Quincy Adams wrote in a 10-page letter on
22 August 1815 to Secretary of State James Monroe.
Here is the first portion of the letter and the last paragraph:
The subjects upon which I was induced to request an
interview 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 government 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 imported 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 opinion, 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 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 project having
proposed that the convention should take effect
as usual from the exchange of the ratifications.
They had chosen to say that though binding only when
the ratifications 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 ratified 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 government would
be as the operation in either case must be reciprocal.
If it was understood here that the revocation of the
discriminating duties would commence only from the
exchange of the ratifications, the same principle must be
observed in the United States, with which he fully agreed.
He 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 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 measures
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 convention 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
convention was signed, and the measure itself would not be
extended 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 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 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 Britain had declined ratifying
that convention upon the ground of the modification
to it proposed by the American government.
He had thought best to give me notice of it….
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 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 governments.
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 Parliamentary 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.13
After Russia defeated the massive invasion by Napoleon’s French army,
he was also overcome by an alliance of European nations organized by
Prince Metternich of Austria at Vienna from September 1814 to 15 June 1815.
Adams in London on 29 August 1815 sent
this letter to Secretary of State James Monroe:
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
correspondence 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.
I have hesitated some time whether I ought not
to make an immediate demand that he should
be punished for the conduct 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 instruction
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 inconvenience 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
procession 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 in many single vessels—foreigners who had
been taken serving in our armies sent here from
Canada and Nova Scotia, and liberated here or sent
back to Germany and Switzerland, 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 without pensions,
who come not only for passages but for protections.
A great portion of my time is occupied in listening 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 descriptions for which the laws have provided.
Since beginning this letter I have had the honor
of receiving yours of the 21st ultimo with a new copy
of the instructions of 13th March and several other
enclosures relating 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 writing to Lord Castlereagh,
and in a personal interview to Lord Liverpool,
respecting the delay to restore the post of Michillimackinac,
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 Liverpool’s manner and deportment were not only
temperate and calm, but even amicable and conciliatory.
But you will observe in the newspapers which I have
enclosed that the cabinet have determined,
not only to maintain, but to increase, 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 occupation both
to the military and diplomatic departments.
You must be prepared for the time
when the fate of France will be settled.14
John Quincy Adams from London sent this report to
Secretary of State James Monroe on 5 September 1815:
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 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 enticed 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 Liverpool resorted.
Yet the prospect of obtaining either restoration
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 expected 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 conjectural estimate of their value.
I have made the offer under the full conviction
that it will not be accepted.
But if indemnity 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 various considerations
to delay it for a short time.
One of them is a hope that the account of the
delivery of the post of Michillimackinac 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 Mississippi, and those respecting the extraordinary
conduct of Colonel Nicolls which you transmitted to
Mr. Baker, have 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
Michillimackinac, 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 continent.
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 dismember France,
as the only effectual means of securing
themselves by perpetuating her impotence.
They have hitherto experienced 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
prevail 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
accomplished we may consider the hostile disposition
of this cabinet towards the United States to depend.
While they have full occupation in Europe,
we shall have frequent and unequivocal 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 renewal 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 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 circumstance 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 opposition, Sir John Newport, who
discovered the most earnest zeal for the exclusion
of the American people from the American 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 occurred 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.15
J. Q. Adams in London on 19 September 1815
wrote a 12-page letter to Secretary of State Monroe.
Here are some highlights:
The question of right had not been discussed
at the negotiation of Ghent.
The British plenipotentiaries had given a notice
that the British government did not intend hereafter
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 American 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 clarification of the right, no part of which
did they consider at 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 annulled
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 condition upon 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 whole coast of
North America was among the most important 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,
notwithstanding the war that had intervened.
The American plenipotentiaries, to remove all
future discussion 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 concerning 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 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
ultimately to determine how far this
reasoning was to be admitted 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
no effort which might possibly have an influence
in promoting friendly sentiments between the two nations,
or in guarding against the excitement of others.
These fisheries afforded the means of subsistence
to multitudes of people who were destitute of any other.
They also afforded the means of remittance
to Great Britain in payment for articles
of her manufactures exported to America.
It was well understood to be the policy of Great Britain
that no unnecessary stimulus should be given
to the manufactures in the United States which would
diminish the importation of those from 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 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 suggest,
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 thought best,
speaking to him to urge every consideration which
might influence a party having other views in
that respect to avoid coming to a collision 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
a 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
instructions 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 followed by bad consequences.
It happened that our fishermen 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 preoccupied.
This had often given rise to disputes and quarrels 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 complaints
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 American fishermen was limited to unsettled and
uninhabited places, unless they could in the others
obtain the consent and agreement of the inhabitants….
I asked Mr. Morier if he had received
my letter to Lord Castlereagh with the list
of the negroes carried away by Admiral Cockburn.
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 different 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 an association 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, humiliation, 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 instant, 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 absolute government.
This is suitable to the views of the allies,
because it will rivet the dependence of the French
government 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.16
Tsar Alexander I at Paris on 26 September 1815 persuaded Prussians
and Austrians to form the Holy Alliance based on Christian principles.
John Quincy Adams recognized that they were pledged,
Both in the administration of their respective states
and in their political relation with every other
government to take for their sole guide the
precepts of that Holy Religion, namely, the
precepts of justice, Christian charity, and peace.
European rulers signed this Grand Alliance with the exception of the Pope Pius VII,
the Muslim Sultan of Turkey Mahmud II, and the British Prince Regent
who would become George IV in 1820.
This Alliance would be joined by France and Britain to become the Quintuple Alliance
at the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle in October 1818.
Adams in London on September 30 wrote in a
quarterly report to Secretary of State Monroe:
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 de 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 Portuguese 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 recolonization
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
prohibit 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 laboring to rebuild the shattered
fabric of social order upon the moldering ruins of
colonial, feudal, Jesuitical, and papal institutions.17
In another letter Adams wrote to Secretary of State James Monroe on October 7:
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 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 legislative 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 doubtless 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 tranquility shall be
established in that quarter, and then to return
leaving the command with Admiral Penrose.
A packet from Malta just arrived left Admiral Penrose
in the Queen, and also the American squadron
about the middle of September at Messina.
I have heretofore intimated to you certain indications
of the turn which the political opinions of the party
in opposition to the ministry are taking 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 notwithstanding 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 embroiled in a new quarrel with America,
and at the same time they wish to recommend themselves
to that feeling of antipathy against the Americans which
prevails throughout this nation, and which their
dissatisfaction, both with the conduct and the
termination of the late war, has greatly aggravated.
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 themselves
by opposing to it our exclusion from the coast fisheries.
There is on the other hand in the Morning Chronicle
of 21 September an article respecting the Floridas,
certainly not from the same pen as the
commentaries upon the convention, 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 enclose 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.18
In October 1815 John Quincy Adams was testing a pistol for his sons
when it exploded in his hand and affected his eyes.
For a time he could not read or write.
Adams in London on November 29 wrote to the writer William Shaler:
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
dispatch 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 anything 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 witnessing as virtuous
an indignation against the oppressions and cruelty of the
Barbary pirates, and as earnest and evident a zeal for their
abolition in this land of liberty, humanity, 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 characterize 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 tranquility reposing altogether upon the establishment
in substance of martial law throughout France, and the
armies of all Europe are the conservators of the peace.19
Adams in London on 6 December 1815 wrote in a letter to Alexander Hill Everett
about the French abbé St. Pierre who wrote and
promoted a plan for a permanent peace in Europe:
There was nearly a century ago a poor French abbé
named St. Pierre who published in three volumes a project
for perpetual 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 oublié,
Monsieur pour article préliminaire de commencer par
envoyer une troupe de missionaires pour disposer
le Coeur et l’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 Abbé’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 missionaries 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
recognized as obligatory by all those who exhibited
the practical comment upon it in the field of Waterloo.
It is most emphatically 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
promise you very speedy success in the laudable purpose
of eradicating 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 satisfaction 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
or 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
reconsider 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 coming into life.
It would be a sort of murder of the innocents
that would out-Herod Herod.20
John Quincy Adams wrote in a short letter to
Secretary of State Monroe on 14 December 1815:
I have had numerous applications from citizens of the
United States for my official interposition to obtain from
the British government restitution or indemnity for
losses or injuries sustained during the late war upon
various occasions, and several of them precisely 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, requesting his authority to the correspondents
of the American owners here to enter an appeal from
the sentence 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, Captain 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 to Buenos Aires.
The Spanish Ambassador declined authorizing
an appeal in his 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 Aires 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 satisfaction to the sufferers 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 chance of standing alone,
and addressed merely to the sense of equity or of humanity
of this government, of being listened 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.21
Notes
1. Writings of John Quincy Adams, ed. Worthington Chauncey Ford,
Volume V 1814-1816, p. 258-260.
2. Ibid., p. 279-280.
3. Ibid., p. 281-284.
4. Ibid., p. 276-277.
5. Ibid., p. 286-288.
6. Ibid., p. 305-307.
7. Ibid., p. 311-312.
8. Memoirs by John Quincy Adams, Volume III, June 22, 1815.
9. Writings of John Quincy Adams, Volume V, 319-321, 322-323.
10. Ibid., p. 328-329.
11. Ibid., p. 334-335.
12. Ibid., p. 339-340.
13. Memoirs by John Quincy Adams, Volume III, p. 252-254. August 16, 1815.
14. Writings of John Quincy Adams, Volume V, p. 343-346, 352-353.
15. Ibid., p. 357-360.
16. Ibid., p. 367-371.
17. Ibid., p. 380-384, 387-388.
18. John Quincy Adams: A Man for the Whole People by Randall Woods, p. 386.
19. Writings of John Quincy Adams, Volume V, p. 395.
20. Ibid., p. 404-406.
21. Ibid., p. 427-428.
22. Ibid., p. 437-438.
23. Ibid., p. 439-441.
This work has not yet been published as a book;
all the chapters are free in this website.