It is not necessary to trace their early careers, except to point out that they fairly represented the United States in the critical year of 1814. Adams of Massachusetts was a New Englander. Clay, though born in Virginia, removed to Kentucky, at the age of twenty, to begin the practice of law. He thus represented the West as well as the South. Gallatin, born in Geneva, Switzerland, came to America, a boy of nineteen years, and passed through remarkable experiences in Massachusetts, Maine, Pennsylvania and Virginia, settling finally in New York City, a man of fame and wealth. During the War of 1812, these three men were in public service as follows: John Quincy Adams was United States Minister to Russia; Henry Clay was Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Albert Gallatin was rounding out his twelfth year as Secretary of the Treasury. When Czar Alexander offered to end the war by mediation, President Madison took the proposal very seriously. He appointed Clay and Gallatin as commissioners to join Minister Adams in the negotiations. The two resigned their important positions to accept the new duty. When they arrived at St. Petersburg, it was learned that Great Britain had declined the Czar's offer of mediation. There followed months of weary waiting. The victories over Napoleon relieved the pressure on Great Britain, but she finally made the proposal for commissioners of the two powers to meet in a neutral port. Ghent was chosen and the United States added James A. Bayard and Jonathan Russell to their commission. The long and tedious record of the negotiation reveals many a discord between the two sides but, much more unfortunate, it also reveals many clashes between Adams and Clay within the American commission. Adams insisted on protecting the fishing rights off British American shores and Clay wanted to deprive England from the use of the Mississippi River. Clay even tried to stop negotiations at the last moment. Adams says: "Gallatin and Bayard, who appeared not to know where it was that Clay's shoe pinched him, were astonished at what they heard, and Gallatin showed some impatience at what he thought mere unseasonable trifling."[217] Yet Gallatin surely did know where the shoe pinched and he was determined that the larger interests should not be jeopardized. His biographer says: "Far more than contemporaries ever supposed, or than is now imagined, the Treaty of Ghent was the special work and the peculiar triumph of Mr. Gallatin."[218] The biographer of Clay also refers to Gallatin's resources as a peacemaker, adding: "At the very last, just before separating, Adams and Clay quarreled about the custody of the papers, in language bordering upon the unparliamentary. But for the consummate tact and the authority of Gallatin the commission would not seldom have been in danger of breaking up in heated controversy."[219]