Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 1).djvu/134

122 all the little influence and talent I could command to make the war. The war was made. It is terminated. And I declare, with perfect sincerity, if it had been permitted to me to lift the veil of futurity, and to foresee the precise series of events which has occurred, my vote would have been unchanged. We had been insulted, and outraged, and spoliated upon by almost all Europe, — by Great Britain, by France, Spain, Denmark, Naples, and, to cap the climax, by the little contemptible power of Algiers. We had submitted too long and too much. We had become the scorn of foreign powers, and the derision of our own citizens. What have we gained by the war? Let any man look at the degraded condition of this country before the war, the scorn of the universe, the contempt of ourselves; and tell me if we have gained nothing by the war? What is our situation now? Respectability and character abroad, security and confidence at home.”

All this was true; but he was very far from foreseeing such happy results at the time when he put his name to the treaty of peace. To him it seemed then a “damned bad treaty,” and his mind was restless with dark forebodings as to its effect upon the character of his country and his own standing as a public man.

But the sojourn in Ghent was after all by no means all gloom to his buoyant nature. He had found things to enjoy. The American commissioners were most hospitably received by the authorities and the polite burghers of Ghent. Public and private entertainments in their honor crowded one another, and they enjoyed them. Even Mr.