ing 1812 and 1813, accordingly, newspapers and
ministerial speakers, when they referred to the contest, generally
spoke of the necessity of {237} chastising an impudent and presumptuous
antagonist. A friendly party such as had defended the colonists during
the Revolution no longer existed, for the Whigs, however antagonistic
to the Liverpool Ministry, were fully as firmly committed to
maintaining British naval and commercial supremacy.

England's chief continental ally, however, the Tsar Alexander,
considered the American war an unfortunate blunder; and, as early as
September, 1812, he offered his mediation through young John Quincy
Adams, Minister at St. Petersburg. The news reached America in March,
1813, and Madison revealed his willingness to withdraw from a contest
already shown to be unprofitable by immediately accepting and
nominating Adams, with Bayard and Gallatin, to serve as peace
commissioners. Without waiting to hear from England, these envoys
started for Russia, but reached there only to meet an official refusal
on the part of England, dated July 5, 1813. The Liverpool Ministry did
not wish to have the American war brought within the range of European
consideration, since its settlement under such circumstances might
raise questions of neutral rights which would be safer out of the hands
of a Tsar whose predecessors had framed armed neutralities in 1780 and
1801. Accordingly, the British government intimated politely that
{238} it would be willing to deal directly with the United States, and
thus waved the unwelcome Russian mediation aside. Madison accepted
this offer in March, 1814; but, although the American commissioners
endeavoured through Alexander Baring, their friend and defender in
Parliament, to get the British government to appoint a time and place
for meeting, they encountered continued delays.

A considerable element in the Tory party felt that the time had come to
inflict a severe punishment upon the United States, and newspapers and
speakers of that connection announced freely that only by large
concessions of territory could the contemptible republic purchase
peace. When the Ministry finally sent commissioners to Ghent, on
August 8, 1814, it was not with any expectation of coming to a prompt
agreement, but merely to engage the Americans while the various
expeditions then under way took Washington and Baltimore, occupied
northern New York, and captured New Orleans. It was generally e