Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 1).djvu/113

Rh 1813, when the new Congress met. He had again done all he could to “fire the national heart,” this time by a resolution to inquire into certain acts of barbarous brutality committed by the British and their savage allies during the winter and spring. But when the President urged upon him a place in the peace commission, he accepted. His subsequent conduct permits the guess that his motive in accepting it was his anxious desire to prevent a humiliating peace. On January 14, 1814, he resigned the speakership of the House of Representatives, and soon afterward he set out on one of the strangest diplomatic missions of our time.