READJUSTMENT AFTER WAR 9 



troit and Washington and Chrystler s Farm was 

 lost to sight entirely, and the belief hardened 

 into century-long tradition that in a second war 

 for independence the Americans had won as 

 decisive a triumph as that which was crowned 

 at Yorktown. 



In Great Britain, meanwhile, the conclusion 

 of peace with the United States was scarcely 

 noted, and the very fact that there had been a 

 war was forgotten. The news that the Treaty 

 of Ghent had been ratified reached London 

 almost simultaneously with the report that 

 Napoleon had returned from Elba. Already 

 for months the progress of affairs at the Con 

 gress of Vienna had enlisted the anxious atten 

 tion of all Europe. Lord Castlereagh, the Brit 

 ish foreign secretary, on his way to Vienna 

 with a train of twenty coaches, as John Quincy 

 Adams casually noted, had stopped at Ghent 

 long enough, in August, 1814, to give the Brit 

 ish negotiators the instructions that made the 

 conclusion of the treaty possible. The con 

 flicting interests and cross-purposes that were 

 in play at Vienna had made a renewal of wide 

 spread war among the great European powers 

 not unlikely; the astonishing reception of Na 

 poleon in France made it practically certain. 



