It was midsummer when the Neptune dropped anchor in the harbor of Kronstadt. There Gallatin and Bayard were joined by John Quincy Adams, Minister to Russia, who had been appointed the third member of the commission. Here was a pureblooded American by all the accepted canons. John Quincy Adams was the son of his father and gloried secretly in his lineage: a Puritan of the Puritans in his outlook upon human life and destiny. Something of the rigid quality of rock-bound New England entered into his composition. He was a foe to all compromise--even with himself; to him Duty was the stern daughter of the voice of God, who admonished him daily and hourly of his obligations. No character in American public life has unbosomed himself so completely as this son of Massachusetts in the pages of his diary. There are no half tones in the pictures which he has drawn of himself, no winsome graces of mind or heart, only the rigid outlines of a soul buffeted by Destiny. Gallatin--the urbane, cosmopolitan Gallatin--must have derived much quiet amusement from his association with this robust New Englander who took himself so seriously. Two natures could not have been more unlike, yet the superior flexibility of Gallatin's temperament made their association not only possible but exceedingly profitable. We may not call their intimacy a friendship--Adams had few, if any friendships; but it contained the essential foundation for friendship--complete mutual confidence.
Adams brought disheartening news to the travel-weary passengers on the Neptune: England had declined the offer of mediation. Yes; he had the information from the lips of Count Roumanzoff, the Chancellor and Minister of Foreign Affairs. Apparently, said Adams with pursed lips, England regarded the differences with America as a sort of family quarrel in which it would not allow an outside neutral nation to interfere. Roumanzoff, however, had renewed the offer of mediation. What the motives of the Count were, he would not presume to say: Russian diplomacy was unfathomable.
The American commissioners were in a most embarrassing position. Courtesy required that they should make no move until they knew what response the second offer of mediation would evoke. The Czar was their only friend in all Europe, so far as they knew, and they were none too sure of him. They were condemned to anxious inactivity, while in middle Europe the fortunes of the Czar rose and fell. In August the combined armies of Russia, Austria, and Prussia were beaten by the fresh levies of Napoleon; in September, the fighting favored the allies; in October, Napoleon was brought to bay on the plains of Leipzig. Yet the imminent fall of the Napoleonic Empire only deepened the anxiety of the forlorn American envoys, for it was likely to multiply the difficulties of securing reasonable terms from his conqueror.