ages and to make
an exchange of prisoners, the American government relinquishing its
pretensions to retaliate for the prisoners sent to England for legal
trial as traitors to their country. This convention was ratified in
July, at Champlain, near the lines; but, whether by previous agreement
or tacit understanding, the traitors, we believe, escaped the just
punishment of their crime.

The remaining events of the war in Canada during the campaigns of 1812,
13 and 14, do not fall within the scope of this memoir. Some we might
chronicle with pride, but a few we could not record without shame; and,
on the whole, we cannot but think that the same withering influence,
which bound the hands and repressed the energies of "him who undoubtedly
was the best officer that headed our troops throughout the war,"[130]
was visible to the termination of the contest--a contest in which we are
satisfied the result would have been very different, "if a man of
military genius, courage, quickness, and decision, had held the supreme
command."[131] Indeed, when we reflect upon the management of that
eventful war, we are often forcibly reminded, in the fatal loss of Sir
Isaac Brock, of the pathetic lament of the gallant highlander, who,
contrasting the irresolution of his present general with the deeds of
his former chief, the renowned Grahame,[132] Viscount Dundee, mournfully
exclaimed:

Oh! for one hour of Dundee!

During the progress of the war, the British government made several
overtures for a reconciliation; and at length, when Napoleon's disasters
commenced, and the Eastern States were threatening to dissolve the
union, Madison expressed a wish to treat with England, even at the end
of 1813. The negotiations were commenced in earnest at Ghent, in August,
1814, at a time when Great Britain, being at peace with the remainder of
the world, was in a condition to prosecute the contest with all her
energies; but her people wished for repose after the long and arduous
struggle in which they had been engaged; and a treaty of peace, signed
at Ghent on the 24th of December, was ratified by the two governments,
the plenipotentiaries on both sides waiving every question at issue
before the war, and restoring every acquisition of territory during its
progress. Thus the Americans had only the Canadian and defenceless side
of the Detroit to give in exchange for their fortress of Niagara and
their key possession of Michilimakinack.

Early in 18