Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 1).djvu/312

300 years of fruitless negotiation, the matter had been referred to the Emperor Alexander of Russia. He decided in favor of the claim. But the British government raised new objections, and a second negotiation followed. Great Britain finally agreed to pay a lump sum for the value of the slaves, and payment was made in 1827. Thus the administration of John Quincy Adams achieved, diplomatically, one of its most decided successes in a matter in which its sympathies were least enlisted. But a kindred question turned up in another form still more unsympathetic. On May 10, 1828, the House of Representatives passed a resolution asking the President to open negotiations with the British government concerning the surrender of slaves taking refuge in Canada. Clay accordingly instructed Gallatin to propose to the British government a stipulation, first, “for the mutual surrender of deserters from the military and naval service and from the merchant service of the two countries;” and, second, “for a mutual surrender of all persons held to service or labor under the laws of one party who escape into the territories of the other.” The first proposition was evidently to serve only as a prop to the second; for, as the instruction argued, while Great Britain had little interest in the mutual surrender of fugitive slaves, she had much interest in the mutual surrender of military or naval deserters. The British government, however, as was to be expected, replied promptly that it “was utterly impossible for them