Penobscot. Large forces of Wellington's hardy veterans crossed
the ocean, sixteen thousand to Canada, four thousand to aid in
harrying the Atlantic coast, and later nine thousand to seize the
mouth of the Mississippi. Yet, strangely, these hosts fared
worse, because of hard fortune and poor leadership, than the
handful of militia and regulars who had borne the brunt of the
war in the first two years. Under Ross they captured Washington
and burned the official buildings; but under Prevost they failed
at Plattsburg; and under Pakenham, in January, 1815, they failed
against Andrew Jackson's sharpshooters at New Orleans.

Before the last-named fight occurred, peace had been made. Both
sides were weary of the war, which had now, by the seeming end of
the struggle between England and Napoleon in which it was an
incident, lost whatever it formerly had of reason. Though
Napoleon was still in Elba, Europe was far from being at rest,
and the British Ministers, backed by Wellington's advice, were
keen to end the war. They showed their contempt for the issues at
stake by sending to the peace conference at Ghent three
commissioners as incompetent as ever represented a great power,
Gambier, Goulburn, and Adams. To face these the United States had
sent John Quincy Adams, Albert Gallatin, Henry Clay, James
Bayard, and Jonathan Russell, as able and astute a group of
players for great stakes as ever gathered round a table. In these
circumstances the British representatives were lucky to secure
peace on the basis of the status quo ante. Canada had hoped that
sufficient of the unsettled Maine wilderness would be retained to
link up New Brunswick with the inland colony of Quebec, but this
proposal was soon abandoned. In the treaty not one of the
ostensible causes of the war was even mentioned.