After rejecting American proposals to broker peace negotiations, Britain reversed course in 1814. With the defeat of Napoleon, the main British goals of stopping American trade with France and impressment of sailors from American ships were dead letters. President Madison informed Congress that the United States could no longer demand an end to impressment from the British, and he formally dropped the demand from the peace process. Despite the British no longer needing to impress sailors, its maritime rights were not infringed, a key goal also maintained at the Treaty of Vienna. Negotiations began in Ghent, Netherlands, in August 1814. The Americans sent five commissioners: John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, James A. Bayard, Sr., Jonathan Russell, and Albert Gallatin. All were senior political leaders except Russell; Adams was in charge. The British sent minor officials, who kept in close touch with their superiors in London. The British government's main diplomatic focus in 1814 was not ending the war in North America but the European balance of power after the apparent defeat of Napoleonic France and the return to power in Paris of the pro-British Bourbons.