The American commissioners seem to have been startled out of their composure by this sine qua non. They had no instructions on this latter point nor on the fisheries; they could only ask for a more specific statement. What had His Majesty's Government in mind when it referred to an Indian territory? With evident reluctance the British commissioners admitted that the proposed Indian territory was to serve as a buffer state between the United States and Canada. Pressed for more details, they intimated that this area thus neutralized might include the entire Northwest.
A second conference only served to show the want of any common basis for negotiation. The Americans had come to Ghent to settle two outstanding problems--blockades and indemnities for attacks on neutral commerce--and to insist on the abandonment of impressments as a sine qua non. Both commissions then agreed to appeal to their respective Governments for further instructions. Within a week, Lord Castlereagh sent precise instructions which confirmed the worst fears of the Americans. The Indian boundary line was to follow the line of the Treaty of Greenville and beyond it neither nation was to acquire land. The United States was asked, in short, to set apart for the Indians in perpetuity an area which comprised the present States of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illinois, four-fifths of Indiana, and a third of Ohio. But, remonstrated Gallatin, this area included States and Territories settled by more than a hundred thousand American citizens. What was to be done with them? "They must look after themselves," was the blunt answer.
In comparison with this astounding proposal, Lord Castlereagh's further suggestion of a "rectification" of the frontier by the cession of Fort Niagara and Sackett's Harbor and by the exclusion of the Americans from the Lakes, seemed of little importance. The purpose of His Majesty's Government, the commissioners hastened to add, was not aggrandizement but the protection of the North American provinces. In view of the avowed aim of the United States to conquer Canada, the control of the Lakes must rest with Great Britain. Indeed, taking the weakness of Canada into account, His Majesty's Government might have reasonably demanded the cession of the lands adjacent to the Lakes; and should these moderate terms not be accepted, His Majesty's Government would feel itself at liberty to enlarge its demands, if the war continued to favor British arms. The American commissioners asked if these proposals relating to the control of the Lakes were also a sine qua non. "We have given you one sine qua non already," was the reply, "and we should suppose one sine qua non at a time was enough."