the one side, and sent down the supplies of water for the rivers upon the Atlantic on the other. Where these highlands were, it was not absolutely essential for the framers of the Treaty to specify, nor is it likely that they themselves exactly knew. But they knew that water, if on a level, would not flow; they knew that water in this region, which they were describing, did flow both towards the St. Lawrence and towards the Atlantic, and that was enough for them to be certain of the existence of rising ground, which made it flow in these opposite directions. If there were no such ground, why could not the St. Lawrence break through its southern bank in a period of inundation, and find its way into the St. John and the Bay of Fundy? or why could not the Atlantic streams, in their turn, retrace their course and fall into the St. Lawrence? The only obstacle to this was the barrier created by the hand of nature; and it was upon this barrier, far more immoveable than any device that man can frame, the negotiators of the Treaty drew the line of separation between the countries.

Notwithstanding all this, the British Government has undertaken to resist this plain construction of the Treaty. It has assumed the privilege of explaining away every part of this description, excepting the north line, and even that the Commissioners of the late survey have also done. And, in the course of this proceeding, it has multiplied objections and heaped up difficulties, in a manner calculated rather to confuse than to convince the mind of the best disposed inquirer after truth. Your Committee are inclined to believe, that the American Government has, in its over-earnest desire to refute every argument advanced on the other side, even such as are on their face preposterous, contributed something to the same resulf. The consequence is, that the question is needlessly complicate, and a justification follows for delay and doubt, which works practically in favour of the British position. In elaborate controversies between nations, this evil is, perhaps, inevitable; for a case may not be deemed to be fully made out, unless a satisfactory reply is made to every possible objection thet ingenuity can devise. But the effect is, to strengthen the feeble side by wearying the patience, and confusing the judgment, of those most inclined to do it justice.

Your Committee would then be understood to plant themselves upon the words of the Treaty, as the only definite and certain ground. They would not, for a moment, admit the supposition, that these are susceptible of the smallest misconstruction, or contain the least ambiguity. Where rivers are mentioned, a doubt might properly arise, as to which of the branches they divided into are be considered the sources intended. But, in the present case, that doubt, as it respects the St. Croix, has been dispelled, and nothing remains but to find the desired lines and the angle. Can it be credited, that the British Government have undertaken heretofore to declare, that they can nowhere be found? The position is, that there is no such angle, and no line as is described, and, hence, there can be no performance of the terms of the Treaty.

But your Committee propose to confine themselves to the arguments of the British Commissioners of Survey. They now maintain the opposite of what has been heretofore advanced by their Government. They affirm, that the terms of the Treaty may be complied with, provided only that those terms are construed in the following novel and original manner :

"1. "A line from the source of the St. Croix, directly north,' means northwest.

"2. 'The Highlands, which divide the rivers that fall into the Atlantic Ocean from those which fall into the River St. Lawrence,' means the axis of maximum elevation,' ranging at a distance of more than 100 miles from the lastnamed streams, and dividing no rivers of any kind, unless it is the tributaries of the Penobscot from those of the St. John, neither of which rivers fall into the St. Lawrence.

"3. "The north-west angle of Nova-Scotia,' means no angle at all."

And, in order that they may establish such extraordinary propositions, they go into an historical review of the ancient titles, and argue upon them as if there were no Treaty in the way to overrule their authority; and conclude, by offering a line upon their map, which can as little be made to correspond with their own most sophistical argument as with the plain and straightforward requisitions of the Treaty.

The law of nations, as applied to the mode of reading treaties, is little more than the law of common sense, as daily applied in ordinary life to all language whatsoever. It is, that, when the meaning is obvious, and leads to nothing absurd, there is no justification to go beyond it in quest of conjectures, that may restrain, or elude, or extinguish it. Your Committee cannot admit the right of Great Britain, or the propriety of going into the evidence of ancient records, in order to prove that the Treaty of 1783 was intended to signify directly the reverse of what appears on its face. They would never admit any authorities whatsoever, excepting as subordinate to the great end which all parties ought equally to have at heart, of explaining more fully, or confirming, the intent which its framers must have had in using the language which they did use. This limit falls very far short of any attempt utterly to deny its natural signification. There may be, and doubtless are, some variations from former deeds and papers; but, in all these cases, it is far more natural and just to suppose that the negotiators on the respective sides designedly adopted them, than that they did not understand the force of the language they were using, or the nature of the change they were making, and more than all, that they meant to say the direct opposite to what they did say.

Yet to such an extent as is here described does the reasoning of Her Majesty's Commissioners of Survey in substance go. It would appear from the beginning of their Report, that, not content with performing the specific duty assigned to them of an exploration of the territory, they have engaged in a work of supererogation called "A Review of the Documentary and other Evidence bearing on the Question of Boundary." It is this review to which your Committee now propose to direct their particular attention, a review which, however great may be the authority which it will acquire in Her Majesty's dominions, they feel constrained to declare, not only does not weaken in the slightest degree the confidence they feel in the perfect soundness of the American position, but, on the contrary, does something incidentally to establish it more firmly than ever. The reasons for this assertion will be fully explained in the sequel.

On the 9th of July, 1839, Messrs. Featherstonhaugh and Mudge received written instructions from Lord Palmerston to repair to Her Majesty's Province of New Brunswick for the purpose, as it is stated in the Report, "of making investigations respecting the nature and configuration of the territory in dispute, and to report which of the three following lines presents the best defined continuity of Highland range:

"First. The line claimed by the British Commissioners, from the source of the Chaudière to Mars' Hill.

"Secondly. The line from the source of the Chaudière to the point at which a line drawn from that source to the western extremity of the Bay of Chaleurs, intercepts the due north line.

"Thirdly. The line claimed by the Americans, from the source of the Chaudière to the point at which they make the due north line end."

In obedience to these instructions, the gentlemen proceeded immediately to their work, the result of which was a Report, dated on the 16th of April, 1840. If your Committee deduct from the period of nine months, embraced between the dates of the instructions and of the Report, the time it must have required for them to get from Great Britain to the scene of their investigations, and also the entire season of winter, during which, in that cold climate, surveying operations are not practicable, scarcely three months are left in which the survey could have been carried on,-a length of time by no means sufficient for the full examination of three several lines, extending as they do over so great a surface of territory. It does not appear from the Report and the accompanying Map, that the Commissioners did examine with care more thon one of those lines, and that is the one which they affirm to be in accordance with the 2nd Article of the Treaty. For their delinquency in respect to the other two, they endeavour to atone by an argument respecting the evidence of ancient boundaries, to make which does not seem to have been one of the duties enjoined upon them in their instructions. The effect of this course upon the Report has been, that whilst thirty-five of its folio pages have been devoted to a purpose which they were not called upon to fulfil, only thirteen pages and an appendix were devoted to the supply of the information required. So that it has been justly remarked of the production, that what was called the Appendix, should properly have made the

body of the Report, and two-thirds of what was styled the Report, should have been put, if anywhere, into the Appendix.

It is with great regret that your Committee feel themselves compelled to declare, that this review of the documentary evidence is utterly wanting in every quality which should recommend it to the confidence of the British Government. It is by no means certain that Her Majesty's Ministers have, thus far, given to it their santion. Neither will they, as your Committee firmly believe, if they ever gain the means of thoroughly understanding its nature. They would then feel at once that a cause is injured by the resort to disingenuous arts in order to sustain it—and that it would be more creditable to abandon it altogether, if it can be supported by no other means, than to succeed by the use of them.

The review begins with a historical notice of the settlement of Acadia, Nova Scotia, or New Brunswick, as the territory adjoining the State of Maine has been successively called. The first European grant of it on record, was made by Henry IV. of France, in 1603, to the Sieur de Monts. This was a grant of a country called "Acadie," and described as being between the fortieth and forty-sixth parallels of north latitude, in North America. It was made in the loose and indefinite manner at that time customary among the sovereigns of the old world, who appear to have carved out kingdoms by parallels of latitude upon the American continent, with as much indifference as they performed the commonest act of life. De Monts made but a single attempt to settle upon the northern portion of this granted land, and finding it not to his mind, he removed to Port Royal, on the peninsula now called Nova Scotia, to the south of his former position. It does not appear that he, or any one under him, ever attempted again to avail himself of the grant of this northern territory. Neither does it appear as if so loose a description as is given of it could be of much effect upon the discussion of the terms of the Treaty of 1783; yet, strange to say, it appears to constitute one of the strong points of the British Commissioners. It happens that the forty-sixth parallel of latitude, being the northern limit of the grant, corresponds in part with that "axis of maximum elevation," as they describe it, which they insist upon as the line of boundary marked out in the Treaty. This is quite enough for them to base upon it an assertion that the jurisdiotion of French Acadia did not extend beyond this line, and all to the north of it made part of the Province of Quebec.

Now your Committee admit, that the northerly limit of the grant to De Monts was declared to be the forty-sixth parallel, but inasmuch as no settlement was made in the territory thus bounded, they do not exactly nnderstand how any jurisdiction could have been either exercised or limited. The present attempt to give to a grant, worded in the most general manner, the force of a specific demarcation, appears to them to be idle; and the endeavour to place under the jurisdiction of Quebec, what was not at the time under any definite authority whatsoever, is quite of a piece with it. But, in addition to the general argument against this grant as a specific definition of boundary, there is a particular one drawn from another portion of the deed itself-for authority was therein conferred, not merely within the limits specified, but to extend settlements in the neighbourhood of them as far as possible. The words of the original are as follows:

"Surtout, peupler, cultiver et faire habités les dites terres, le plus promptement, soigneusement ex dextrement, que le temps, les lieux, et commodités le pourront permettre, en faire ou faire faire à cette fin la découverte et recognoissans en l'étendue de côtes maritimes et autres contrées de la terre ferme, que vous ordonnerez et prescrirez en l'espace susdit du quarantième degré jusqu'au quarante-sixième, ou autrement, tant et si avant qu'il se pourra, le long des dites côtes et en la terre ferme," &c.

Which your Committee would render by the following words :

"Moreover, to people, to cultivate and cause to be settled the said lands,' as quickly, carefully, and dexterously, as the time, the places, and convenience will allow; to make, or cause to be made, to this end, any discovery and examination in the extent of maritime coast, and of other countries on the main land, which you shall order and prescribe within the aforementioned space, extending from the fortieth to the forty-sixth degree, or otherwise as much and

M

as far forward as possible in the length of the said coasts, and into the main land."

It is believed, that De Monts had a trading station at Quebec, but whether under this general grant, or under a special one subsequent to it of far less extent and authority, your Committee will not now decide. It is enough for the present purpose to show, by its very terms, which are in no way noticed or alluded to by Her Majesty's Commissioners, that this grant was obviously intended to carry no such specific limitation of boundaries as they insist upon, but to confer a general power to make settlements in a direction corresponding to certain parallels of latitude in North America.

Yet, in order to fortify this argument, by which it is attempted to bring the northern limit of Nova Scotia or Acadie, so conveniently down to "the axis of maximum elevation," which figures in the Report and upon the map as the true boundary line, one old French grant of a fief on the north of this line made by the Governor of Quebec is adduced in proof that the jurisdiction of that Government extended to this line. There is no doubt that the Governor, holding the joint authority over Canada and Acadia, did, in the years 1683 and 1684, grant some such fiefs in the territory near Lake Temisquata, and the upper part of the St. John's. And it is a little remarkable, that Her Majesty's Commissioners, who had several to select from, should have selected one in which no mention at all is made of the power over Acadia vested in the Governor, and should have noticed that fact nowhere else themselves. Neither did they notice the fact that such grants generally appear in the same instrument with other grants of more consequence, decidedly within the limits of the Province of Quebec, and are, therefore, very naturally placed upon its records.

But your Committee would not be understood as attaching the slightest importance to this evidence. They have gone into it only to show that even in such trifling particulars, Her Majesty's Commissioners have not thought it beneath them to be guilty of partial suppressions. The real truth is, that there was nothing like a settled jurisdiction over any of the territories now in question during the seventeenth century; and this your Committee understand the Report to admit (p. 12). For it expressly states, that, what with English and French occupation, according to the fortune of war, and what with the confusion. occasioned by French grants overlapping one another, the jurisdiction was fluctuating and wholly irregular. Indeed, how could it have been otherwise? And yet the British Commissioners, with the aid of a grossly imperfect map, which they have dragged out of the dust of the British Museum, have the assurance to pretend, that, "the Government of Quebec, when possessed by France, had jurisdiction (by that evidently intending a settled authority) as far south as the forty-sixth parallel." A most unjustifiable inference from such partial premises.

But now comes the grand discovery of the Report. This relates to the first English grant of Acadia made by James the First to Sir William Alexander in 1621, and is expressed in the following terms :

"It will be seen from this examination that reasonable grounds exist for supposing, that a singular perversion of the terms usee in the description of that boundary has long existed, and that the line of boundary intended by the grant of Nova Scotia, is so much at variance with that which has usually appeared on the greater number of maps, as entirely to change the nature of the Northern Boundary of the United States, from that which has hitherto been understood to be its direction."

And this great change, which is at one blow to put an end to the American claim, is to be effected by the simple means of putting a comma into an old parchment, where no comma was before. But, in order to explain this, reference must be had to the original, which contains the following description of boundary :

"Omnes et singulas terras continentis, ac insulas situatas et jacentes in Americâ intra caput seu promontorium communiter Cap de Sable appellat. Jacen. prope latitudinem quadraginta trium graduum aut eo circa ab equinoctiali lineâ versus septentrionem, a quo promontorio versus littus maris tenden ad

Et

occidentem ad stationem Sanctæ Mariæ navium vulgo Sanct mareis Bey. deinceps, versus septentrionem per directam lineam introitum sive ostium magnæ illius stationis navium trajicien. quæ excurrit in terræ orientialem plagam inter regiones Suriquorum et Etcheminorum vulgo Suriquois et Etchemines ad fluvium vulgo nomine Sanctæ Crucis appellat. Et ad scaturiginem remotissimam sive fontem ex occidentali parte ejusdem qui se primum predicto fluvio immiscet. Unde per imaginiariam directam lineam quæ pergere per terram seu currere versus septentrionem concipietur ad proximam navium stationem, fluvium vel scaturiginem in magno fluvio de Canada se exonerantem. Et ab eo pergendo versus orientem per maris oris littorales ejusdem fluvii de Canada ad fluvium, stationem navium, portum aut littus communiter nomine de Gathepe vel Gaspee notum et appellatum."

Which Her Majesty's Commissioners desire to translate thus:

"All and each of the lands of the continent, and the islands situated and lying in America within the headland or promontory, commonly called Cape Sable, lying near the forty-third degree of latitude from the equinoctial line or thereabouts. From which promontory stretching westwardly, towards the north, by the sea-shore, to the naval station of St. Mary, commonly called St. Mary's Bay, From thence, passing towards the north by a straight line, the entrance or mouth of that great naval station, which penetrates the interior of the eastern shore betwixt the countries of the Souriquois and the Etchemines, to the river commonly called the St. Croix. And to the most remote source or spring of the same on the western side, which first mingles itself with the aforesaid river. From whence, by an imaginary straight line, which may be supposed to advance into the country, or to run towards the north to the nearest naval station, river, or spring, discharging itself into the great river of Canada. And from thence advancing towards the east by the Gulf shores of the said river of Canada, to the river, naval station, port, or shore, commonly known or called by the name of Gathepe or Gaspê."

Her Majesty's Commissioners of Survey, being well versed in Latin, maintain that a comma should be put before the words "versus septentrionem," and not after it, although it appeers after it in their own Report. The effect of this little transposition is really wonderful. It is neither more nor less than to make the words which now stand in the translation, "towards the north," signify "more west than north." And this being once established, the consequence seems to be, according to them, that the words in the Treaty "due north," and "directly north," must have been intended to mean about north

west.

Now your Committee do not deem it necessary to go into any critical examination of the rendering of this old Latin charter. It is enough for them to know, that under this grant, such as it is, the line has always been laid down in the English maps, and as they think justly, as a due north line, and that all the deeds and commissions of the British Government upon record, define it as such. And against this uniform construction of the grant, it is not for Her Majesty's Commissioners to come in at this late hour, with a nice question of punctuation, and attempt to overthrow the unequivocal language of a treaty solemnly made between two independenl nations.

But the gentlemen, not content with raising a doubt upon the construction of this instrument to fortify their case against the American claims, have actually gone so far as to insinuate that the Government of the United States * has knowingly sanctioned mistranslations of particular passages of the said instrument, for the sake of counteracting the force of the natural meaning. This is a serious charge, and should have been well considered before it was given to the world. If true, it ought to constitute, in the minds of all honourable men, a strong argument against our claim, that it should have been thought to need support from so miserable and so gross a device. But if, on the other hand, it has no foundation whatsoever, and was made with the knowledge that it had none, what must be thought of the spirit of justice and impartiality of those who advance it? Your Committee hope to establish, beyond the possibility of contradiction, the fact not only that the charge is not true, but that it must have been known not to be so by the Commissioners when they made it.

* [Not the Government of the United States.]