The British cabinet reluctantly agreed and the treaty was signed on Christmas Eve.

British prospects for a decisive victory were not propitious and the war was very expensive. After that, Duke Wellington advised the British government to drop any claims for territory and negotiate a settlement. Two thousand soldiers besieged in Fort Erie broke out and pushed the British back 20 miles. defended Baltimore (its 3rd largest city) and won the battle of Plattsburgh in New York. Then, in one week in September 1814, the U.S. They had captured Fort Niagara, occupied 100 miles of the coast of Maine, and burned Washington. The British negotiating position at Ghent was to create an Indian buffer state north of the Ohio River, take about half of Maine, and demilitarize the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain.

However, American armies had lost battle after battle with little potential to accomplish the nation’s war goals. The United States had declared war on Great Britain in 1812 because the British were seizing American merchant ships and cargoes, taking crewmen into the Royal Navy involuntarily, and providing arms to Native Americans on the frontier. The British demands in mid-1814 were fierce and would have reduced the United States in size and limited its potential for expansion.

Navy and army in war of 1812