INTRODUCTION. 11 
to maintain and consolidate peace in America. And 
conferences, like those of Vienna, of Aix-la-Chapelle, 
‘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 Gtey 
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.dound to succeed. Their 
reputations, not less than the honor of their respective 
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, competent 
