United States or Luxembourg ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Madison wrote to a friend, "the case of impressments particularly having been brought to a formal issue, and having been the primary object of an extraordinary mission, a treaty could not be closed which was silent on that subject." The commissioners, therefore, were ordered to renew negotiations.
Four of the horses on arrival were found unfit for service, but, fortunately, General John M. Hernandez was able to furnish ten chicken carts, and the quartermaster was authorized to make impressments for transportation.
Murray took Adam's place in Holland. The president was authorized to appoint two or more agents, one to reside in Great Britain, the others at such points as the executive might choose, to investigate and report concerning all impressments of American seamen by British cruisers.
Although a repeal of the orders susceptible of explanations meeting the views of this Government had taken place before this pacific advance was communicated to that of Great Britain, the advance was declined from an avowed repugnance to a suspension of the practice of impressments during the armistice, and without any intimation that the arrangement proposed with respect to seamen would be accepted.
The treaty was then signed in the old Carthusian Convent at Ghent, on December 24, 1814, as a simple cessation of hostilities and return to the status quo ante as regards conquests. Not a word related to any of the numerous causes of the war. Impressments, blockades, Orders in Council, the Indian relations, the West Indian trade rights, all were abandoned.
Lynching had been frequent and never rebuked, impressments were of daily and nightly occurrence, every foundery and manufactory had been constantly employed by the Rebel authorities, and every citizen had, in some manner, contributed to the insurrection. It was gratifying in the extreme to see the Memphis, of which we at Cairo and St. Louis had heard so much, brought under our control.
More captures, more impressments would swell the list of our wrongs, and the current of our rage. I make no calculation of the arts of those whose employment it has been, on former occasions, to fan the fire; I say nothing of the foreign money and emissaries that might foment the spirit of hostility, because this state of things will naturally run to violence.
When they arrived, on July 16, the envoys drew up a letter, submitting the various changes desired; but conveying also the fixed determination of the President "to decline any arrangement, formal or informal, which does not comprise a provision against impressments from American vessels on the high seas, and which would, notwithstanding, be a bar to legislative measures by Congress for controlling that species of aggression."
In addition, there was to be an Indian territory established under British guarantee west of the old treaty line of 1795, and all American fishing rights were to be terminated. On the other side, the American instructions, while hinting that England would do well to cede Canada, made the abandonment of the alleged right of impressments by England a sine quâ non.
And now another impossible task was laid upon him. He was instructed to demand not only disavowal and reparation for the attack on the Chesapeake and the restoration of the American seamen, but also as "an indispensable part of the satisfaction" "an entire abolition of impressments."
Word Of The Day