“On their admitting this to be the basis on which they are ready to negotiate, but not before they have admitted it, you will proceed to state the mutual accommodations which may be entered into in conformity with this basis. The British occupy Fort Michillimackinaw, Fort Niagara, and all the country east of the Penobscot. On the other hand the forces of the United States occupy Fort Erie and Fort Amherstburg [Malden]. On the government of the United States consenting to restore these two forts, Great Britain is ready to restore the forts of Castine and Machias, retaining Fort Niagara and Fort Michillimackinaw.” Thus the British demand, which had till then been intended to include half of Maine and the whole south bank of the St. Lawrence River from Plattsburg to Sackett’s Harbor, suddenly fell to a demand for Moose Island, a right of way across the northern angle of Maine, Fort Niagara with five miles circuit, and the Island of Mackinaw. The reason for the new spirit of moderation was not far to seek. On the afternoon of October 17, while the British Cabinet was still deliberating on the basis of _uti possidetis_, news reached London that the British invasion of northern New York, from which so much had been expected, had totally failed, and that Prevost’s large army had precipitately retreated into Canada. The London “Times” of October 19 was frank in its expressions of disappointment:-- “This is a lamentable event to the civilized world.... The subversion of that system of fraud and malignity which constitutes the whole policy of the Jeffersonian school ... was an event to which we should have bent and yet must bend all our energies. The present American government must be displaced, or it will sooner or later plant its poisoned dagger in the heart of the parent State.” The failure of the attempt on Baltimore and Drummond’s bloody repulse at Fort Erie became known at the same time, and coming together at a critical moment threw confusion into the Ministry and their agents in the press and the diplomatic service throughout Europe. The “Courier” of October 25 declared that “peace with America is neither practicable nor desirable till we have wiped away this late disaster;” but the “Morning Chronicle” of October 21–24 openly intimated that the game of war was at an end. October 31, the Paris correspondent of the London “Times” told of the cheers that rose from the crowds in the Palais Royal gardens at each recital of the Plattsburg defeat; and October 21 Goulburn wrote from Ghent to Bathurst,[46]-- “The news from America is very far from satisfactory. Even our brilliant success at Baltimore, as it did not terminate in the capture of the town, will be considered by the Americans as a victory and not as an escape.... If it were not for the want of fuel in Boston, I should be quite in despair.”