What precisely the Convention will do, it would be presumption in any one to predict.... But from our personal knowledge of the gentlemen composing the Convention, it will not be difficult to pronounce with certainty what they will not do. They have been selected from the most respectable men in New England, distinguished for their prudence, for their wisdom, for their firmness.... We may be justified in saying this respectable body, with such a president [George Cabot] at their head, will not do anything rash or precipitate or violent; they will not take any step but what every man of sound principles, every friend to social order throughout the Union, will approve.... While they are bent on preserving the rights that are reserved to the States or the people, from usurpation and abuse, they will take care not to trench upon those powers which are delegated to the United States by the Constitution. The vessel at present _wears_ well, and while there is room to believe that she will _go safe about_, and there is sea-room enough to do it in, why should they attempt to throw her _in stays_? The vessel did come safe about. When six weeks later the news of the treaty of Ghent reached New York late at night, the city was thrown into such jubilation by the mere ending of the conflict that no one stopped to inquire the terms. But Coleman and the other local Federalist leaders, as they watched the crowds surging up and down Broadway crying--“A peace! A peace!” knew that the Democrats had nothing to boast. After a calm Sunday, the editor presented his views on Monday morning. He would stake his reputation that when the terms became known, “it will be found that the government have not by the negotiation obtained one single avowed object, for which they involved the country in this bloody and expensive war.” He enumerated these objects--the stoppage of impressments, the conquest of Canada, and the abolition of commercial restrictions. He catalogued the loss of life, the suffering on every frontier, and the waste of $150,000,000 in treasure. The one gain that Mr. Madison had obtained was a second term at $25,000 a year in a marble executive mansion, gorgeously refurnished. But, he concluded, “let the nation rejoice--we have escaped ruin.”