Even so, by the time of the British attack on Washington in August 1814, when the president’s house and the Capitol were both put to the torch, the nation no longer understood what the war was meant to accomplish. Canada was not to be taken. Little, indeed, was to be gained. In Europe, American negotiators John Quincy Adams, Albert Gallatin, and yes, the war hawk Henry Clay, fought tooth and nail to secure a just peace along with a return to status quo ante bellum (the state that existed before the war). The treaty signed on December 24, 1814, was, in effect, an indefinite end to an indefinite war.