erms at all honorable. It is a material consideration, likewise,
that if we shall be disposed for the sake of peace to give up
something of our just pretensions, we can do this more creditably
through him than through any other person."[517] Liverpool voiced the
conclusions of the Cabinet, and it would be difficult for words to
manifest more forcibly anxiety to escape from a situation. Wellington
himself drew attention to this. "Does it not occur to your lordship
that, by appointing me to go to America at this moment, you give
ground for belief, all over Europe, that your affairs there are in a
much worse situation than they really are? and will not my nomination
at this moment be a triumph to the Americans, and their friends here
and elsewhere?"[518] Conditions were alarming, but the action
resembled panic.

The offer, which was really a request, brought Wellington by a side
wind into the American negotiations, and enabled him to give the
Government the weight of his name and authority in concluding a peace
otherwise than on their "just pretensions." The war, he said, has been
honorable to Great Britain; meaning doubtless that, considering the
huge physical mass and the proximity of the United States, it was well
done to have escaped injury, as it was militarily disgraceful to the
American Government, with such superiority, to have been so impotent.
But, he continued, neither I nor any one else can achieve success, in
the way of conquests, unless you have naval superiority on the lakes.
That was what was needed; "not a general, nor general officers and
troops. Till that superiority is acquired, it is impossible, according
to my notion, to maintain an army in such a situation as to keep the
enemy out of the whole frontier, much less to make any conquest from
the enemy, which, with those superior means, might, with reasonable
hopes of success, be undertaken.... The question is, whether we can
obtain this naval superiority on the lakes. If we cannot, I shall do
you but little good in America; and I shall go there only to prove the
truth of Prevost's defence, and to sign a peace which might as well be
signed now." This endorsed not only Prevost's retreat, but also the
importance of Macdonough's victory. The Duke then added frankly that,
in the state of the war, they had no right to demand any concession of
territory. He brushed contemptuously aside the claim of occupying the
country east of the Penobscot, on the ground of