GHENT, Treaty of (24 Dec. 1814), the treaty which closed the War of 1812. The British advantage was enormous; the war had been discreditable and rather disastrous to America on land, half paralyzed as that country was by incompetent administration and dissen sions among the States, while even the fleet had not maintained its early triumphs; the over throw of Napoleon had let loose a mighty army, and had Great Britain persevered she might almost have exacted her own terms. But the British were tired of the burdens of a 20-years war, and the ministers were anxious to have done with fighting and settle down to peace; and American privateers and the American navy were playing havoc with their commerce. To our good fortune, also, the British sent third-rate negotiators to Ghent — Lord Gambier, Henry Goulburn and William Adams. Amer ica, on the other hand, sent some of the strong est men in the country: John Quincy Adams, James A. Bayard, Henry Clay, Jonathan Rus sell and Albert Gallatin.
In 1813, when Russia offered mediation, Bayard and Gallatin went to Saint Petersburg to negotiate, but England at that time refused the offer. Their instructions had included an article against impressment; but as it was notorious that the Napoleonic wars alone made this a practical question, and those were now ended, the government allowed them to waive that point. The British claims at first set up were extravagant and untenable: the establish ment of the boundary fixed by the Indian Treaty of Greenville in 1795 (see GREENVILLE, TREATY or), as a permanent line beyond which neither party should acquire territory, thus cut ting off the entire Northwest from the United States; the cession of the mouth of the Niagara and Sackett's Harbor, in New York, prohibit..
ing the United States from keeping land or naval forces on the Lakes; and allowing free navigation of the Mississippi to England. Finally the prolonged negotiations of the entire autumn and early winter ended in this treaty, which was scarcely more than an agreement to cease hostilities and settle the disputed questions at some other time. The questions of impress ment, on which the war had been opened; of the extent of the right of blockade; of the American right to fish in British waters; of the British navigation of the Mississippi; and trade with the Indians; of the armaments on the Lakes; of the American claim for British spo liations — all were silently passed over. The treaty, as ratified 17 Feb. 1815, and proclaimed on the 18th, restored the status quo of terri torial possessions except some islands in Pas samaquoddy Bay; public or private property in the surrendered places not to be destroyed or removed; a commission was appointed to decide on the ownership of the islands above, the matter to be referred to arbitration if they failed to agree; and other commissions to settle the boundaries provided in the Treaty of Paris (1783) — from the Saint Croix to the Saint Lawrence at lat. 45° N., thence to Lake Su perior, and from Saint Mary's River to the Lake of the Woods. The last article binds both parties to use their best endeavors to suppress the slave trade. The centenary of the signing of tie Treaty of Ghent was the occasion of representative gatherings and of mutual felicita tions on the part of the United States and Great Britain and Canada. .Consult Adams, H., The United States' (Vol. VII, chaps. 4 and 14, 1891).