INTRODUCTION. H 



to maintain and consolidate peace in America. And 

 conferences, like tliose of Vienna, of Aix-la-Cbapelle, 

 of Paris, may have embraced the representation and 

 settled the interests of a larger number of nations; but 

 they did not consist of higher personages, nor did 

 they treat of larger matters than did the conference 

 of Washington. 



On the part of the United States were five persons, 

 — Hamilton Fish, Robert C. Schenck, Samuel Nelson, 

 Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar, and George H.Williams, — 

 eminently fit representatives of the diplomacy, the 

 bench, the bar, and the legislature * of the United 

 States : on the part of Great Britain, Earl De Grey 

 and Ripon, President of the Queen's Council ; Sir Staf- 

 ford Northcote, ex-Minister and actual Member of the 

 House of Commons ; Sir Edward Thornton, the uni- 

 versally respected British Minister at Washington ; 

 Sir John Macdonald, the able and eloquent Premier of 

 the Canadian Dominion ; and, in revival of the good 

 old time, when learning was equal to any other title 

 of public honor, the Universities in the person of 

 Professor Mountague Bernard. 



With persons of such distinction and character, it 

 was morally impossible that the negotiation should 

 fail : the negotiators were hound to succeed. Their 

 reputations, not less than the honor of their resj^ective 

 countries, were at stake. The circumstances involved 

 moral coercion, more potent than physical force. The 

 issues of peace and of war were in the hands of those 

 ten personages. They were to illustrate the eternal 

 truth that, out of the differences of nations, comj)etent 



