Madawaska Settle ment. The Madawaska settlement, which was claimed in the British statement as being actually under British jurisdiction, afforded, said the American definitive statement, no evidence of an intention on the part of the government of New Brunswick prior to the Treaty of Ghent to extend its jurisdiction over the contested territory. The French settlers who made it at first established themselves farther down the St. John. When the British, after the Treaty of 1783, extended their settlements up that river the French settlers removed upward to the mouth of the Madawaska. At that time the true St. Croix was unde termined and the situation of the due-north line was unknown. It was only since the survey of the line in 1817-18 that the exercise of jurisdiction by New Brunswick had been complained of. From 1794 to 1814 that government had granted no land in the contested territory to any one. The British agent under Article V. of the Jay Treaty, who was a distinguished inhabitant and public officer of New Brunswick, admitted in his argument that the due-north line must cross the St. John, an admission which, as agent under Article V. of the Treaty of Ghent, he sought to explain away. The pretension of Great Britain to the contested territory was first made known to the United States at Ghent, when the British plenipotentiaries proposed to vary the boundary so as to secure to Great Britain a direct communication between Quebec and Halifax. The American definitive statement closed with brief discussions of the questions as to the northwesternmost head of Connecticut River and the forty-fifth parallel of north latitude. The second or definitive British statement Second British State- did not follow the controversial form, but in the main presented a supplementary view of ment. the British case. Taking up, as first in order, the question of Intention of the the north west angle of Nova Scotia, the second Treaty of 1783. British statement observed that the claims of the two governments involved a difference of 105 miles on a due-north line and a tract of territory 10,705 square miles in extent. Both parties agreed that, in order to determine the true situation of the point of departure, the highlands intended by the treaty must first be determined. When the peace was concluded a considerable part of the frontier territory was altogether unknown, or at best imperfectly explored. It was impossible for the negotiators of 1783 to describe the boundary throughout its whole extent in such terms as to leave no room for hesitation or dispute, but it was not impossible to show what was the intention of the treaty. The intention of the treaty was: (1) To define exclusively the limits of the United States; (2) to define them peremptorily; (3) to define them in such manner as to promote the "reciprocal advantage and mutual convenience" of both countries. Such being the motives of the contracting parties, it was inconceivable that the British Government could have intended to carry the boundary line to the north of the River St. John, thus incurring not merely the loss of a certain number of square miles, but the surrender of direct communication between Nova Scotia and Canada to the United States. The American statement seemed to recognize the justice of leaving to each party its rivers. This was a principle of the utmost importance, and it could be preserved only by establishing the highlands south of the River St. John. With respect to the question of highlands, it sufficed to quote, as to Mars Hill, the statement of the American surveyor that the south peak was "175 feet higher than the north peak, and about 1,000 feet above the general level of the adjacent country." This description was decisive of the superior height of Mars Hill. The question of the northwest angle of Nova Scotia was subordinate to that of the highlands. The place of that angle was unknown in 1783. The charter of Massachusetts, as the United States interpreted it, would fix it on the right bank of the St. Lawrence. The proclamation of 1763, and the Quebec Act, as interpreted by the United States, would place it on certain highlands south of the rivers that fall into the St. Lawrence. The first proposal of the American negotiators at Paris would place it at the source of the River St. John. The fact was that the northwest angle of Nova Scotia was yet to be formed, and this had been admitted by high American authority. According to the American statement, said Ancient Boundaries. the second British statement, the line due north from the source of the River St. Croix extended 144 miles north of that point. It intersected the main channel of the St. John and several other streams, and terminated at a place destitute of any marked elevation between one of the branches of the Restigouche and the source of a stream falling into the St. Lawrence, and presumed to be the River Metis. The United States had labored to show that this line and the line mentioned in the treaty were identical with the boundaries that subsisted between the British provinces of Nova Scotia, Quebec, and Massachusetts Bay. But this supposed identity was a mere matter of conjecture. The object of the treaty of peace was to settle the boundaries of the United States without regard to British boundaries. If the negotiators of the treaty had intended to adopt a line supposed to have previously existed, they might have satisfied themselves with running the line due north from the St. Croix River to the southern boundary of the province of Quebec; but they resolved not to trust to any such vague and arbitrary line, but to establish peremptorily a new line based on real interests. Had they adhered to the basis of the ancient boundaries, in regard to which there had been many disputes, the negotiations might have been protracted to an indefinite length. Maps from 1763 to 1783. To the allegation in the American statement that the maps comprehending the disputed territory which were known to have been pub lished between 1763 and 1783 carried the boundary line, as described in the royal proclamation of the former year, along the highlands to which the claim of the United States particularly applied, the second British statement replied: (1) That in these maps the highlands were represented by a line of visible elevation contrary to the true character of the country, as since ascertained; (2) that in some of them the line of visible elevation was made to intersect waters of the St. John, or of the St. Lawrence, or of both, thus disproving any intention of its having been traced upon the principle of dividing those waters; (3) that no maps were to be received as authority but Mitchell's map and the map A; (4) that the old maps were copied from one another, so that no additional evidence could be drawn from their coincidence; and (5) that the selection by the negotiators of Mitchell's map, which was published before the proc lamation of 1763, materially contributed to show that the line found on the later maps was not that on which the boundary, as defined in the treaty, was meant to be established. The second British statement laid great stress on the prejudice which would be occasioned to the British provinces by allowing the American claim. In respect of the question of the northwesternmost head of Connecticut River, the second British statement added nothing material to what was set forth in the first. Forty-fifth Parallel of North Latitude. As to the forty-fifth parallel of north latitude, the second British statement said that Great Britain did not deny that the old line between New York and Quebec was considered accurate in the year 1774, when it was finished. But it was capable of proof that, long before the conclusion of the Treaty of Ghent, both governments had received information which must have altered their opinions respecting the correct execution of the line. The State of Vermont seemed to have been the first to suspect the accuracy of the line. In 1806 the government of that State engaged Dr. Williams, the historian and philosopher of Vermont, to ascertain the correctness of its northern boundary. He reported that the line as drawn deviated to the southward of the true parallel, and that it cut off in its eastern prolongation more than 600 square miles of Vermont's territory. No reluctance was shown on the part of the United States to the establishment of the true line till some time after it was known that the changes produced by the operation would be mainly against their interests, principally by the loss of the fortifications at Rouses Point.' On the 10th of January 1831 the arbitrator rendered the following award: trator. "Nous, GUILLAUME, par la grace de Dieu, Award of the Arbi- Roi des Pays-Bas, Prince d'Orange-Nassau, Grand Duc de Luxembourg, &c. &c. &c. "Ayant accepté les fonctions d'arbitrateur, qui Nous ont été conférées par la note du Chargé d'Affaires des Etats Unis d'Amérique, et par celle de l'Ambassadeur extraordinaire et plenipotentiaire de la Grand Bretagne, à Notre Ministre des Affaires Etrangères, en date du 12 Janvier 1829, d'après l'art: V. du traité de Gand, du 24 Décembre 1814, et l'art: I. de la convention conclue entre ces Puissances à Londres le 29 "When at Ghent it was not known to me, and I believe my colleagues to have been also unacquainted with the fact, that the boundary-line between the then provinces of New York and Quebec had been officially surveyed, with the sanction of the Crown and by the competent provincial anthorities. The treaty accordingly assumes and declares as a fact what was not really true, that no part of the line from the source of the river St. Croix to the river St. Lawrence had been surveyed. I perceive no other circumstance on which to ground our claim to the old line; and the argument, founded rather on equitable considerations, is far from being conclusive. I need hardly add that the pretension drawn from the geocentric latitude is altogether untenable, and that it is a matter of regret that it ever was advanced." (Mr. Gallatin to Mr. Van Ness, March 22, 1829, Adams's Writings of Gallatin, II. 406.) Septembre 1827, dans le différend, qui s'est élevé entre Elles au sujet des limites de leur possessions respectives. "Animés du desir sincère de répondre par une décision scrupuleuse, et impartiale à la confiance, qu'Elles Nous ont témoignée, et de leur donner ainsi un nouveau gage du haut prix que Nous y attachons. "Ayant à cet effet dûment examiné, et mûrement pesé le con✩ tentu du premier exposé, ainsi que de l'exposé definitif du dit différend, que Nous ont respectivement remis le premier Avril de l'année 1830 l'Envoyé extraordinaire et Ministre plénipotentiaire des Etats Unis d'Amérique, et l'Ambassadeur extraordinaire et plenipotentiaire de sa Majesté Britannique, avec toutes les pièces, qui y ont été jointes à l'appui: "Voulant accomplir aujourd'hui les obligations, que nous ve nons de contracter par l'acceptation des fonctions d'arbitrateur dans le susdit différend, en portant à la connaissance des deux hautes parties intéressées le résultat de Notre examen, et Notre opinion sur les troi points, dans lesquels se divise de leur commun accord la contestation. CONSIDÉRANT, "que les trois points précités doivent être jugés d'après les traités, actes et conventions conclus entre les deux Puissances, savoir le traité de paix de 1783, le traité d'amitié, de commerce et de navigation de 1794, la déclaration relative à la rivière St. Croix de 1798, le traité de paix signé à Gand en 1814, la convention du 29 Septembre 1827, et la carte de Mitchell, et la carte A citées dans cette convention: "DÉCLARONS, QUE "Quant au premier point, savoir la question, quel est l'endroit désigné dans les traités, comme l'Angle Nord-Ouest de la Nonvelle Ecosse, et quels sont les highlands séparant les rivières, qui se déchargent dans le fleuve St. Laurent, de celles tombant dans l'Océan Atlantique, le long desquels doit être tirée la ligne de limites depuis cet Angle jusqu'à la source Nord-Ouest de la rivière Connecticut. "CONSIDÉRANT: "que les hautes parties intéressées réclamant respectivement cette ligne de limites au midi et au nord de la rivière St. John, et ont indiqué chacune sur la carte A la ligne, qu'elles de mandent. "CONSIDÉRANT: "que selon les exemples allégués, le terme highlands s'applique non seulement à un pays montueux, ou élevé, mais encore à un terrain, qui, sans être montueux, sépare des eaux coulant dans une direction différente, et qu'ainsi le caractère plus ou moins montueux, et élevé du pays, à travers lequel sont tirées les |