Legislatures
of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Vermont,
met in Hartford and held secret sessions for three weeks. An address was
agreed upon charging the national government with carrying on a policy
injurious to New England. Amendments were proposed to the Constitution,
and a committee was selected to confer with the government at Washington
and to propose that the revenues of New England should be applied to her
own defense. An agreement was made that if their proposed action failed,
and peace was not soon made, the convention should meet again in the
following June. There was open talk of a withdrawal from the Union, and
doubtless grave results would have followed had the war gone on. The
Hartford Convention and the "Blue Lights" of Connecticut gave the final
death-blow to the Federal party.

A TREATY OF PEACE SIGNED.

Despite the progress of the war, peace negotiations had been going on
for a long time. Russia, whose system of government has always been the
exact opposite of ours, has shown us marked friendship in many
instances. As early as 1813 she offered to mediate between Great Britain
and the United States. The President appointed five commissioners, John
Quincy Adams, James A. Bayard, Henry Clay, Jonathan Russell, and Albert
Gallatin, who were sent to Ghent, Belgium, where they were met by Lord
Gambier, Henry Goulburn, and William Adams, the commissioners for Great
Britain. After long negotiations, the commissioners reached an agreement
on the 24th of December, 1814. The treaty did not contain a word about
the search of American vessels for alleged deserters, which was the real
cause of the war, nor was any reference made to the wrongs done our
commerce, and the rights of neutral nations were not defined. The Orders
of Council, however, died of themselves, Great Britain never again
attempting to enforce them. It was agreed that all places captured by
either side during the progress of the war or afterward should be
surrendered, and provisions were made for fixing the boundary between
the United States and Canada.

In those days, when the ocean telegraph was not thought of and there
were no swift-going steamers, news traveled slowly, and it did not reach
Washington until February 4, 1815. Meanwhile, the most important battle
of the war had taken place and several captures were made on the ocean.

The Creek Indians had been so crushed by General Jackson that they ceded
a lar