Why are there so many delays in sending a team to talk peace? Tall and congenial, Henry Clay was a hail-fellow-well-met sort of man who liked his liquor. He could walk into a roomful of strangers and depart with new friends, even if, as a demon cardplayer, he had managed to take some of their money. Now, in Ghent, those same gambling instincts put Minister Clay on edge. He could smell risk when he encountered it, and he had come to think the British were slow to open the treaty talks for a reason: With a large force from Great Britain attacking the United States, mustn’t the odds favor the
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