an State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 704.
Author's italics. This was the result of a Cabinet meeting held the same
day. "June 27, 1814. In consequence of letters from Bayard and Gallatin
of May 6-7, and other accounts from Europe of the ascendancy and views
of Great Britain, and the dispositions of the great Continental Powers,
the question was put to the Cabinet: 'Shall a treaty of peace, silent on
the subject of impressment, be authorized?' Agreed to by Monroe,
Campbell, Armstrong, and Jones. Rush absent. Our minister to be
instructed, besides trying other conditions, to make a previous trial to
insert or annex some declaration, or protest, against any inference,
from the silence of the Treaty on the subject of impressment, that the
British claim was admitted or that of the United States abandoned."
(Works of Madison, vol. iii. p. 408.)

[261] Niles' Register, vol. vii. p. 190.

[262] Navy Department MSS.

[263] For Porter's and Perry's correspondence on this subject see
Captains' Letters, Navy Department MSS., Oct. 14 and 25, Nov. 29, Dec.
2, 9, and 25, 1814; Jan. 9, 1815.

[264] Porter to Secretary, Feb. 8, 1815. Captains' Letters.

[265] Benton's Abridgment of Debates in Congress, vol. v. p. 359, note.

CHAPTER XV

THE NIAGARA CAMPAIGN, AND EVENTS ON THE GREAT LAKES, IN
1814

Active operations in the field for the winter of 1813-14 came to an
end with the successful incursion of the British army upon the
territory of the State of New York, before narrated.[266] This had
resulted in the capture of Fort Niagara and in the wasting of the
frontier, with the destruction of the villages of Lewiston,
Manchester, Buffalo, and others, in retaliation for the American
burning of Newark. Holding now the forts on both banks of the Niagara,
at its entrance into Lake Ontario, the British controlled the harbor
of refuge which its mouth afforded; and to this important accession of
strength for naval operations was added an increased security for
passing troops, at will and secretly, from side to side of the river.
From a military standpoint each work was a bridge-head, assuring
freedom of movement across in either direction; that such transit was
by boats, instead of by a permanent structure, was merely an
inconvenient detail, not a disability. The command of the two forts,
and of a third called Mississaga, on the Canadian side, immediately
overlooking the lake, appears to have been vested in a single