The British commissioners only appeared on August 6.

They were Lord Gambier, Henry Goulburn, and William Adams, all second-rate men, but for this reason suited to the part they had to play.

After the overturn of Napoleon the British cabinet had no desire for peace, or at least not until they had secured by war some material advantages in the United States, which a treaty would confirm.

The business of their representatives at Ghent was to make exorbitant demands of the Americans and delay negotiations pending the military operations in progress.
In June Gallatin was satisfied of the general hostile spirit of Great Britain and of its wish to inflict serious injury on the United States.
He notified Monroe of his opinion and warned him that the most favorable terms to be expected were the _status ante bellum_, and not certainly that, unless the American people were united and the country able to stand the shock of the campaign.

Mr.Madison's administration had already humbled itself to an abandonment, or at least to an adjournment, of the principle to establish which they had resorted to arms.