heidlers

 Now that he knew the tell,
it was time to wager everything

In early April 1814, the European alliance led by Great Britain defeated Napoleon Bonaparte and sent him into exile on the Mediterranean island of Elba. It was the first time in a quarter-century that the continent was at peace, and the British people exulted in the victory. However, they also darkly regarded upstart Americans who had declared war on Britain in the summer of 1812 and thus had seemed an undeclared ally of Bonaparte since their distracting war could have thwarted Bonaparte’s defeat. The mood was to punish Americans militarily and then extort a harsh peace with boots on the Yankee throat. American diplomats thus worked from one of the weakest positions U.S. commissioners would ever hold as they gathered in Ghent, Belgium. 

At least they were a talented group. John Quincy Adams, U.S. minister to tsarist Russia, headed the delegation. Former treasury secretary Albert Gallatin was an indispensable addition, especially when it came to keeping the peace between his own countrymen. President James Madison placed Jonathan Russell on the commission because he was the newly appointed minister to Sweden, and everyone at first thought that negotiations would be held in Gothenburg. It would have been a snub not to include the American diplomat on the ground there. The commission also reflected Madison’s desire for bipartisan consensus with the appointment of Delaware Federalist James A. Bayard. (Woodrow Wilson should have done this in 1919.)

For the same reason but from the opposite perspective, Madison placed Speaker of the House Henry Clay on the commission. Clay had always been the most vocal champion of the war with Britain, and his approval of a treaty would ensure its acceptance as an honorable arrangement. Clay’s appointment was fortunate for another reason, though nobody could have predicted that at the outset. 

Unfortunately, the American team assembled in Belgium earlier than the British, which gave the delegates time to get on one another’s nerves. They dined together at 4:00 p.m. every day, but Adams groused about the late hour and how the men lingered at the table to “drink bad wine and smoke cigars.” He decided to dine alone at 1:00, but he kept that schedule only one day. Adams wrote his wife Louisa that Henry Clay had “expressed some regret that I had withdrawn from their table.” The kind gesture touched Adams, though he was careful not to let on. When writing to Louisa, though, Adams was more open. He revealed that inside the stern, unsmiling Puritan lived a man eager for approval and longing for friendship. He assured Louisa that he was getting along splendidly with everyone, and he continued in that vein throughout his time in Ghent, always insisting that he and Mr. Clay were the best of friends. It was a sad lie. Their contrasting temperaments put them at each other’s throats.

Almost from the start, Clay and Adams could barely stand to be in the same room. Clay had always been able to get along with disagreeable men, but he had never found himself with someone so persistently humorless and purse-lipped as John Quincy Adams. Clay was cheerful and optimistic. Adams was pessimistic and gloomy. Adams was well educated, well-read, and well-traveled. Clay had very little formal education, only read when he had to, and craned his neck at exotic sights like the first-time tourist he was. Clay never missed a party and reveled into the wee hours playing cards and drinking. Adams regarded parties a waste of time, thought gambling was squalid, and verged on teetotalism. He retired early and rose before dawn to read dense books, write in his diary, and pore over his paperwork. Clay found documents tedious and turned most of them over to his private secretary. Adams openly disapproved of Clay’s habits as self–indulgent. Clay openly disdained Adams as insufferable and opinionated. And beneath all these differences were similarities: both men were stubborn, were always convinced they were right, and were irritable if told they weren’t.

The British commissioners finally arrived on the evening of August 6, 1814. Admiral James Gambier, 1st Baron Gambier, officially headed the delegation, which included Dr. William Adams, a prominent scholar of maritime law, and Henry Goulburn, Under-secretary for War and the Colonies, who at thirty was the youngest of the three and, as it turned out, the most active. Historians have painted these men as nonentities, which is unfair because they were quite competent. It was their misfortune to be second-tier government officials on a very short Foreign Office leash. They were also burdened by their government’s impossible instructions. London was so confident that it could enforce its will that nothing was negotiable. The British commissioners were to adjust the northern U.S. border in Canada’s favor. They were to insist on the establishment of an Indian buffer state in the Northwest. They were to terminate New England’s fishing rights off eastern Canada.

In the first meeting between the Americans and British, Henry Goulburn dryly and methodically read these terms. Listening to the list, the Americans sat stunned and silent. Goulburn’s every word was unacceptable to the United States. Talks over the next two days only made disagreements worse. The British said the Indian buffer was not negotiable. For good measure, they demanded complete military control of the Great Lakes, the continued right to navigate the Mississippi River, and territory in Maine to facilitate communication between Nova Scotia and Quebec. Britain also intended to keep American islands off New England they had seized during the war. This incredible list of demands came with a flatly stated warning that the Americans should not keep London hanging while awaiting instructions from Washington. After a few weeks, the terms might not be so generous. The observation was delivered with enough menace to make it a threat.

It was during this dark time that Henry Clay’s talent proved indispensable. He knew instinctively and from experience how men behave in games of chance, whether they are playing high-stakes card games or sitting at diplomatic conference tables. Something made him suspect that the British were bluffing, but he couldn’t quite figure why, which made him uneasy. Gambier and Company seemed serious about their deadline, especially as the British army, no longer distracted by Napoleon, was turning its full attention to North America. The whole world was confident that the veterans of a quarter-century war in Europe would make quick work of the American job without even breaking a sweat. And sure enough, awful news from the United States was soon on its way to Ghent. When it arrived in early October, it all but shattered the morale of the U.S. delegates. 

Henry Clay wasn’t even in Ghent at the time. Because talks had seemed hopelessly mired, he was touring Brussels when the American delegation learned that a British army had captured and burned Washington, D.C., on August 24. Insufferable Henry Goulburn relished the opportunity of telling Clay about this disaster, so he pretended to be thoughtful by sending Clay newspapers that detailed the destruction of the American capital. 

Already overbearing, British behavior in negotiations became unbearably arrogant, and the Americans finally exploded. British imperiousness achieved something truly remarkable: it forced John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay to get along with each other. Clay wanted to draft the American response to the British position, and Adams, fuming over British impertinence, agreed. Given a free hand, Clay was audacious: there would be no treaty unless the British abandoned all of their demands. 

It was strong medicine, and on its surface, it was empty bluster. But Clay was something more than riled up; he had the nagging feeling that somebody somewhere on the other side was wavering, weighing the odds, and waiting for a chance at conciliation. The British public was tired of war. The British government was eager to structure a permanent European peace. And news from America about the military situation there spoke of British setbacks at Baltimore and Plattsburgh. (Clay sent Goulburn the newspapers.) 

In the end, the somebody somewhere on the other side having second thoughts turned out to be the Duke of Wellington, the hero of the war against Napoleon and commander of allied forces occupying France. He bluntly advised his government to make peace with the United States. That was the evolving situation in London as the British commissioners read through the American draft treaty on November 10.

The British commissioners abruptly dropped all their demands except for keeping the islands off Maine and navigation of the Mississippi River. The two commissions met on December 1 for the first time since August. And though the meeting went long and seemed unproductive, Clay sensed something different. He discerned what gamblers call a “tell,” a gesture that reveals hidden intent and divulges hidden meanings. The tell, in this case, was the unexpected willingness of the British to make concessions. Clay concluded they wanted a treaty, at least as much and perhaps more than the Americans did. Convinced of this, he resisted his colleagues when they pushed him to meet the British more than halfway on Mississippi navigation. He referred to a popular card game in which pretense mattered as much as the strength of one’s hand, insisting that the British “had been playing brag with us throughout the entire negotiation.” Now that he knew the tell, it was time to bluff and wager everything in the balance. 

He did. The British blinked.

On December 22, the Americans received a message agreeing to a treaty that deferred the Canadian border to arbitration after the war, did not mention any demands the Americans had found disagreeable, and accepted status quo ante bellum (“the situation before the war”) as the basis for the peace. Forty-eight hours later, everyone assembled at the quarters of the British commission to sign multiple copies of the final document. After arranging for the treaty’s dispatch to London and Washington, the eight diplomats sat down for Christmas dinner, a celebration of the Prince of Peace, and raised glasses in civil regard, if not goodwill. 

Peace on earth was not an insignificant gift to the world, and certainly not to one’s country that just months before was reeling under defeat, its capital a smoldering ruin, its government in humiliating flight. Little wonder that Mr. Clay enjoyed the party immensely. Across the table, as he raised the wine glass to his lips, Mr. Adams caught Clay’s eye. They smiled.