POLITICS AND ADVENTURES.•
Tun Treaty of Ghent, which was signed a hundred years ago last Christmas Eve, was mainly the work of Albert Gallatin, a Genevese who went to the United States in 1780, at the age of nineteen, was elected to Congress fifteen years later, and was successively Secretary to the Treasury and American Minister in Paris and London. The Treaty which was to secure a century's peace between Great Britain and the United States had its origin in an offer of mediation made by the Emperor Alexander. President Madison thereupon decided to send a Commission to St. Petersburg, and put Albert Gallatin at the head of it. He took with him as his secretary his eldest eon James, then a boy of sixteen, who, besides being a political critic of unusual intelligence, was also a very close observer of the social life to which he was thus introduced. A Great Peacemaker is mainly a pretty minute account of his life in three capitals, with occasional letters extracted from Ms father's correspondence while the negotiations were going on. In the first instance the English Government rejected the offer of mediation, and so a year was lost. When the negotiations were resumed Gallatin wished them to be carried on in London, where he would then be "in direct touch with Lord Castlereagh "; but his fellow-Commissioners would not consent to this, giving as their reason that they were "plain Americans, and that in England they would only be snubbed and treated as Colonists." Gallatin's only hope of success lay in the Tsar, who arrived in London on June 10th, and on the 18th gave Gallatin a private audience But Alexander, though most gracious, was very discouraging. He had, he said, made three attempts during the week he had been in England, but had found the British Government determined not to admit a third party to interfere between them and the United States. Ghent was in the end chosen as the place of the Conference, and there on August 10th the British and American Commission held its first meeting. Gallatin thought poorly of the English Commissioners, as being but" the puppets of Lord Castlereagh." Their first demand was that a territory embracing the States of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illinois, together with four-fifths of Indiana and a third of Ohio, should be erected into an Indian sovereignty under a British guarantee. This was at once rejected, and by August 20th Gallatin was preparing to leave Ghent. Great Britain, be tells the American Secretary of State, "wants war in order to cripple us." When Castlereagh stopped at Ghent OD his way to Vienna things began to look a little brighter, • d Gnat Panceetaker the Diary et Amos Gallatin. London W. Helm. main. 110.. seta
but it was not till three months later that Gallatin heard from the Duke of Wellington that peace was at last in view. Goulburn, one of the British Commissioners, had " made grave errors," and Castlereagh had "read him a sharp lesson." Only one more month was needed to bring the controversy to an end.
This is the main subject of the graver pages of this volume. A much larger space is given to James Gallatin's account of his own adventures while serving as his father's secretary. Of these we will give one example. He had while in Paris several times noticed a young woman who did not seem to mind his rather bold way of staring at her. Taking her for a grisette, he wrote a note asking for a rendezvous and dropped it aa she passed. "I saw her pick it up. She did not look at me, but shortly after a man handed me a note making an appointment at a house in the Rue St. Honore for 10.30 in the evening." When he got there he was met at the door by an old woman, who putting her finger to her lip, took him up to the second floor
" There she threw open the door, and to my amazement there was my grisette with a child of about two years on her lap and one a year or two older standing by her side. AU were beautifully dressed, and sitting by a little table was a man. He rose and with a bow said, Monsieur, you are most welcome to our humble home. My wife has kept the children out of bed expressly for you to see them.' Imagine my deep mortification. She is Mademoiselle It. of the Theitre Fmncisie."
Besides what happened to himself when be was off duty, he describes everything he sees with much point, and was fortu- nate enough to be present at some scenes of exceptional interest He saw Napoleon enter Paris after his escape from Elba. He attended the gala performance at the Opera a week later, and noted that the Emperor looked "very dull, tired, and bored." He was in London on Waterloo Day, when he writes " Consols have fallen terribly. I have never seen greater depression ; every one seems frightened" ; and also when the news of the great victory came, and "London went mad and I with it." His father's unwilling consent to be the American Minister to the restored Monarchy brought the whole family to Paris. James found the Attaches of the English Embassy (in 1817) disposed to shun the Gallatins as if the two countries were still at war. On the other hand, " nobody could be more gracious than the Duke of Wellington." The Duke's time at Paris was by no means a pleasant one. The Royal Family treated him with persistent rudeness, but " he never shows the slightest displeasure, and is always dignified and courtesy itself." James was all but present at the assassination of the Duo de Berri. He had left the theatre at the end of the opera, and was standing by the Royal exit when the Duke appeared supported on one side by the Duchess and on the other by her Lady-in-Waiting. " I could see the dagger sticking in his breast, but he was talking in a low voice to his wife. She was wonderfully calm, bat tears were running down her cheeks. . . . It was all the more tragic as I could hear the muaio of the ballet which was still going on." The Duke was taken into the Royal salon, and tried to pull the knife out of his breast. He was unable to do this, and when the Lady-in-Waiting pulled it out for him, "both she and the Duchess were deluged in blood." When all was over "a horrible thing happened. The Duchesee do Berri again commenced to scream, calling Monsieur Demme 'Assassin! Assasein I '" When she had been quieted tho Royal procession passed out headed by the King, supporting the Duchess, who was holding the hand of Mademoiselle—. her little daughter. So ended, as it proved, the hopes of the Bourbons of the elder branch. We have merely given a sample or two of this diary, but there is enough of the same varied quality to make A Great Peacemaker a very interesting and amusing book.
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