For the despatches from the United States diplomats at Ghent, see ASP, Foreign Relations, 3:710–26. On 25 June 1814 Monroe issued instructions allowing the American negotiators to set aside the question of impressment: “The United States having resisted by war the practice of impressment, and continued the war until that practice had ceased by a peace in Europe, their object has been essentially obtained for the present.” The british ministers agreed to omit the subject from the treaty ending the War of 1812 on the same practical grounds (ASP, Foreign Relations, 3:704, 725). the lakes: the Great Lakes.

The legal principle of uti possidetis required that the borders of newly independent states be established (or, in the case of the current conflict, reestablished) in accordance with the old administrative boundaries (Black’s Law Dictionary description begins Bryan A. Garner and others, eds., Black’s Law Dictionary, 7th ed., 1999 description ends ). At the Congress of vienna, September 1814–June 1815, representatives from the various European nations redrew boundaries, settled outstanding differences, and promoted international stability in the wake of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars (Connelly, Napoleonic France description begins Owen Connelly and others, eds., Historical Dictionary of Napoleonic France, 1799–1815, 1985 description ends , 486–8). The recently received diplomatic correspondence was submitted to congress on 1 Dec. 1814, not the date of this letter (JHR description begins Journal of the House of Representatives of the United States description ends , 9:559).