In 1814, President James Madison appointed John Quincy Adams to head up a five person delegation to negotiate a peaceful end to the War of 1812. It was a welcome assignment for Adams, who had been the minister to Russia living in very cold St. Petersburg. Adams, along with Secretary of Treasury Albert Gallatin, Senator James Bayard, Speaker Henry Clay and Minister Jonathan Russel spent five long months in negotiating with Great Britain. After the treaty, John Quincy Adams stayed in Great Britain as the U.S. Minister. It was a welcome change, bringing him just a bit closer to home and allowing him to reunite his family. As Minister to Great Britain, John Quincy Adams continued to participate in the negotiations of trade and military disarmament with Great Britain following the end of the war. One such area that needed disarming was the Great Lakes. During the war, both Great Britain and the United States had built fleets of ships and forts on Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. Maintaining this force was expensive for both countries, and now that Britain and the Untied States were becoming valuable trading partners, Adams proposed disarmament of the lakes to British Foreign Secretary Viscount Castlereagh. The British government responded favorably, and Charles Bagot, the British Minister to the U.S. was directed to begin talks with then acting Secretary of State of the United States Richard Rush. An agreement was quickly reached that limited military navigation to just one military vessel on Lake Ontario and Lake Champlain, while the remaining lakes were limited to two military vessels each.
The treaty was presented to President James Monroe, and he used his State of the Union address present what is known as the Rush-Bagot Treaty or the Rush-Bagot Disarmament for ratification. Monroe explained that this arrangement eliminated wasteful spending on both sides and more importantly removed the chance of "danger of collision between armed vessels in those inland water". President Monroe knew that anything that could put open trade with Great Britain at risk, had to be removed.
"I have the satisfaction to inform you that an arrangement which had been commenced by my predecessor with the British Government for the reduction of the naval force by Great Britain and the United States on the Lakes has been concluded, by which it is provided that neither party shall keep in service on Lake Champlain more than one vessel, on Lake Ontario more than one, and on Lake Erie and the upper lakes more than two, to be armed each with one cannon only, and that all the other armed vessels of both parties, of which an exact list is interchanged, shall be dismantled. It is also agreed that the force retained shall be restricted in its duty to the internal purposes of each party, and that the arrangement shall remain in force until six months shall have expired after notice given by one of the parties to the other of its desire that it should terminate. By this arrangement useless expense on both sides and, what is of still greater importance, the danger of collision between armed vessels in those inland waters, which was great, is prevented."The U.S. Senate ratified the Rush-Bagot Treaty on April 16, 1818 (according to wikipedia). According to history.state.gov, it was April 28, 1818.
http://millercenter.org/president/biography/jqadams-life-before-the-presidency
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rush%E2%80%93Bagot_Treaty
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1801-1829/rush-bagot
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/f0/Charles_Bagot.jpg/822px-Charles_Bagot.jpg
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