GHENT, TREATY OF. A treaty between the United States and Great Britain, which ended the war between the two countries known as the 'War of 1812.' The American negotiators were John Quincy Adams, James A. Bayard, Henry Clay, Jonathan Russell, and Albert Gallatin. Of these Bayard and Gallatin had been sent to Saint Petersburg in 1813, to join Adams in action upon Russia's offer of mediation, under express instructions to secure a stipulation against impressment. Russia's good offices were declined by England, while the termination of the Napoleonic wars so altered conditions that the American commissioners were given less stringent instructions both as to impressment and as to the fisheries. The British representa tives were Lord Gambier, Henry Goulburn, and William Adams. After prolonged negotiations the treaty was signed by the respective commis sioners on December 24, 1814, was ratified by the United States Senate on February 17, 1815, and was formally proclaimed by President Madi son on the following day. Its main provisions were: (1) Restoration of all territory, places, and possessions taken by either party from the other during the war, except certain islands; (2) Article IV. provided for the appointment of a commission to decide to which of the two powers, according to the boundary stated in the Treaty of 1783, certain islands in and near Passama quoddy Bay belonged; and the commission failing to come to a decision, the subject was to be re ferred to some friendly sovereign or State; (3) Articles V.-VIII. provided for commissions to set
tle the line of boundary as described in the Treaty of 1783—the commission to settle the line from the River Saint Croix to where the forty-fifth parallel cuts the River Saint Law rence (called the Iroquois or Cataraqua in the treaty) ; another to determine the middle of the water communications from that noint to Lake Superior; and a third to adjust the limits from the water communications between Lakes Huron and Superior to the most northwestern point of the Lake of the Woods; and (4) Article IX. bound both parties to use their best endeavors to abolish the slave trade, as being 'irreconcilable with the principles of humanity and justice.' The treaty failed, however, to speak of the impress ment of American seamen, the chief cause of the war, or of the claims of the United States to participate in the Newfoundland fisheries, recog nized in the Treaty of 1783, or of the question as to British and American naval forces on the northern lakes, or the rights of neutrals. All these questions, especially that as to the fisheries, became the subjects of much subsequent negotia tion.