the cabinet
felt itself compelled to withdraw from its extreme ground. He accepted
his defeat and acknowledged it.

The Americans meanwhile arranged a draft of a treaty. The articles on
impressment and other maritime rights, absolutely rejected by the
British, were set aside. There only remained the question of the
boundaries, the fisheries, and the navigation of the Mississippi. Here
Mr. Gallatin had as much difficulty in maintaining harmony between Adams
and Clay as in obtaining a peace from Liverpool and Bathurst. Adams was
determined to save the fisheries; Clay would not hear of opening the
Mississippi to British vessels. A compromise was effected by which it
was agreed that no allusion should be made to either subject. Mr.
Gallatin terminated the dispute by adding a declaration that the
commissioners were willing to sign a treaty applying the principle of
the _status quo ante bellum_ to _all_ the subjects of difference. This
was in strict conformity with the instructions from the home government.
On November 10 the American draft was sent in. On the 25th the British
replied with a counter-draft which made no allusion to the fisheries,
but stipulated for the free navigation of the Mississippi. The Americans
replied that they would give up the navigation of the river for a
surrender of the fisheries. This proposal was at once refused by the
British. The matter was settled by an offer of the Americans to
negotiate under a distinct reservation of all American rights. All
stipulations on either subject were in the end omitted, the British
government on December 22 withdrawing the article referring to these
points. In the course of the negotiation Mr. Gallatin proposed that in
case of a future war both nations should engage never to employ the
savages as auxiliaries, but this article does not appear. To the credit
of civilization, however, the last article contained a mutual engagement
to put an end to the trade in slaves. An agreement entered into in
perfect faith, but which the jealousy of the exercise of search in any
form rendered nugatory for half a century. On Christmas day the treaty
was signed. Mr. Henry Adams[19] justly says, "Far more than
contemporaries ever supposed, or than is now imagined, the Treaty of
Ghent was the special work and the peculiar triumph of Mr. Gallatin."
His own correspondence shows how admirably he was constituted for the
nice work of diplomatic negotiation. In the self-poise which he
ma