“The substance of the question is,” said Castlereagh, “Are we prepared to continue the war for territorial arrangements? And if not, is this the best time to make our peace, saving all our rights, and claiming the fisheries, which they do not appear to question? In which case the territorial questions might be reserved for ulterior discussion. Or is it desirable to take the chance of the campaign, and then to be governed by circumstances?... If we thought an immediate peace desirable, as they are ready to waive all the abstract questions, perhaps they might be prepared to sign a provisional article of Indian peace as distinct from limits, and relinquish their pretensions to the islands in Passamaquoddy Bay, and possibly to admit minor adjustments of frontier, including a right of communication from Quebec to Halifax across their territory. But while I state this, I feel the difficulty of so much letting down the question under present circumstances.” At the same time Castlereagh wrote to Goulburn, directing him to wait at Ghent for new instructions from London.[31] Lord Liverpool shared his disapproval of the manner in which the British commissioners had managed the case, and replied to Castlereagh, September 2, that the Cabinet had already acted in the sense he wished:[32]-- “Our commissioners had certainly taken a very erroneous view of our policy. If the negotiation had been allowed to break off upon the two notes already presented, or upon such an answer as they were disposed to return, I am satisfied that the war would have become quite popular in America.” The idea that the war might become popular in America was founded chiefly on the impossibility of an Englishman’s conceiving the contrary; but in truth the Ministry most feared that the war might become unpopular in England. “It is very material to throw the rupture of the negotiation, if it is to take place, upon the Americans,” wrote Liverpool, the same day, to the Duke of Wellington;[33] “and not to allow them to say that we have brought forward points as ultimata which were only brought forward for discussion, and at the desire of the American commissioners themselves. The American note is a most impudent one, and, as to all its reasoning, capable of an irresistible answer.” New instructions were accordingly approved in Cabinet.[34] Drawn by Bathurst, and dated September 1, they contained what Liverpool considered an “irresistible answer” to the American note of August 24; but their force of logic was weakened by the admission that the previous British demands, though certainly stated as a _sine qua non_, were in reality not to be regarded as such. In private this retreat was covered by the pretext that it was intended only to keep the negotiation alive until better terms could be exacted.