as claimed by the United States. Lord Ashburton
and Mr. Webster readily agreed that a treaty must
come from mutual conciliation and compromise; but,
after a good deal of correspondence, it became apparent
that the Maine commissioners and the English envoy
could not be brought to an agreement. A dead-lock
and consequent loss of the treaty were imminent.
Mr. Webster then had a long interview with Lord Ashburton.
By a process of give and take they agreed on a conventional
line and on the concession of certain rights, which
made a fair bargain, but unluckily the loss was suffered
by Maine and Massachusetts, while the benefits received
by the United States accrued to New York, Vermont,
and New Hampshire. This brought the negotiators
to the point at which they had already been forced
to halt so many times before. Mr. Webster now
cut the knot by proposing that the United States should
indemnify Maine and Massachusetts in money for the
loss they were to suffer in territory, and by his
dexterous management the commissioners of the two
States were persuaded to assent to this arrangement,
while Lord Ashburton was induced to admit the agreement
into a clause of the treaty. This disposed of
the chief question in dispute, but two other subjects
were included in the treaty besides the boundary.
The first related to the right of search claimed by
England for the suppression of the slave-trade.
This was met by what was called the “Cruising
Convention,” a clause which stipulated that
each nation should keep its own squadron on the coast
of Africa, to enforce separately its own laws against
the slave-trade, but in mutual cooeperation.
The other subject of agreement grew out of the Creole
case. England supposed that we sought the return
of the negroes because they were slaves, but Mr. Webster
argued that they were demanded as mutineers and murderers.
The result was an article which, while it carefully
avoided even the appearance of an attempt to bind England
to return fugitive slaves, provided amply for the
extradition of criminals. The case of the Caroline
was disposed of by a formal admission of the inviolability
of national territory and by an apology for the burning
of the steamboat. As to the action in regard
to the slaves on the Creole, Mr. Webster could only
obtain the assurance that there should be “no
officious interference with American vessels driven
by accident or violence into British ports,”
and with this he was content to let the matter drop.
On the subject of impressment, the old casus belli
of 1812, Mr. Webster wrote a forcible letter to Lord
Ashburton. In it he said that, in future, “in
every regularly-documented American merchant vessel,
the crew who navigate it will find their protection
in the flag which is over them.” In other
words, if you take sailors out of our vessels, we
shall fight; and this simple statement of fact ended
the whole matter and was quite as binding on England
as any treaty could have been.