not of principle, as the American commissioners
have endeavored to make it. It does not follow, because, in the year
1783, the two States, not perhaps very justly, took a common boundary,
thereby assuming a sort of sovereignty over the Indians, that they may
not mutually recede from that boundary, if a frontier conterminous
with that of the Indians is preferable to one with each other."[491]

However plausible reasoning based upon such premises might seem to the
party advancing it, it could not qualify the fact that it required
from the United States a large cession of territory, to be
surrendered to the Indians under British guarantee. Such a demand was
a dangerous diplomatic weapon to put within reach of a commission, of
which Adams and Gallatin were members. In presenting it, also, the
British representatives went beyond the letter of their instructions,
issued by Castlereagh on July 28, and enlarged August 14. Not only was
the inclusion of the Indians in the peace to be a _sine qua non_, but
they wrote, "_It is equally necessary_" that a definite boundary be
assigned, and the integrity of their possessions mutually
guaranteed.[492] This paper was submitted to Castlereagh as he passed
through Ghent to Paris, on his way to the Vienna Conference. "Had I
been to prepare the note given in on our part, I should have been less
peremptory;" but, like many superiors, he hesitated to fetter the men
in immediate charge, and "acquiesced in the expression, 'It is equally
necessary, etc.,' which is very strong."[493] The prime minister was
still more deprecatory. He wrote Castlereagh, "Our commissioners had
certainly taken a very erroneous view of our policy. If the
negotiations had been allowed to break off upon the two notes already
presented, ... I am satisfied the war would have become popular in
America."[494]

The American commissioners could see this also, and were quick to use
the advantage given by the wording of the paper before them, to
improve the status of the United States in the negotiation; for one of
the great weaknesses, on which Great Britain reckoned, was the
disunion of American sentiment on the subject of the war. Of their
reply, dated August 24, Castlereagh wrote, "It is extremely material
to answer the American note, as it is evidently intended to rouse the
people upon the question of their independence."[495] Besides the
Indian proposition, the British note of August 19 had conveyed also
the explicit v