2 READJUSTMENT AFTER WAR 



It is not likely that a conscientious search of 

 his heart, such as Mr. Adams was wont to en 

 gage in at times, would have revealed any very 

 large measure of the confidence that his formal 

 words had implied. Neither in the course of 

 the negotiations nor in their result could the 

 most sanguine observer have found assurance 

 of even the lesser degree of permanence that 

 had been piously suggested. Actual war be 

 tween English-speaking peoples the treaty did 

 indeed bring to an end; the causes of the war 

 it did not make the subject of even a remote 

 allusion. 



By all the canons of judgment that were war 

 ranted by history and by the conditions of the 

 times, the peace made at Ghent could be merely 

 a truce. Great Britain in 1815 stood on the 

 pinnacle of fame as the mightiest political power 

 on earth. Her population of 19,000,000 was 

 not large, relatively speaking, but it was com 

 pact. Included in it were some 5,000,000 Irish 

 men, who, though perpetually troublesome in 

 some respects, could always be depended upon 

 to furnish a goodly quota of both brains and 

 brawn in war. Her navy had established an 

 undisputed control of all the seas. Her army, 

 under Wellington, had given the final blow to 



