truly intended under the name of the River Saint Croix mentioned in the treaty of Peace between His Majesty and the United States, and forming a part of the boundary therein described.'

"DECLARATION.

"We, the said Commissioners, having been sworn 'impartially to examine and decide the said question, according to such evidence as should respectively be laid before us, on the part of the British Government, and of the United States,' and having heard the evidence which hath been laid before us, by the Agent of His Majesty, and the Agent of the United States, respectively appointed and authorized to manage the business on behalf of the respective Governments, have decided, and hereby do decide, the River, hereinafter particularly described and mentioned, to be the River truly intended under the name of the River Saint Croix, in the said Treaty of Peace, and forming a part of the boundary therein described; that is to say, the mouth of the said river is in Passamaquoddy Bay, at a point of land called Joe's Point,' about one mile northward from the northern part of Saint Andrew's Island, and in the latitude of forty-five degrees five minutes and five seconds north, and in the longitude of sixty-seven degrees twelve minutes and thirty seconds west, from the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, in Great Britain, and three degrees fifty-four minutes and fifteen seconds east from Harvard College, in the University of Cambridge, in the State of Massachusetts, and the course of the said river up from its said mouth, is northerly to a point of land called the Devil's Head, then turning the said point, is westerly to where it divides into two streams, the one coming from the westward, and the other coming from the northward, having the Indian name of Chiputnaticook or Chibuit cook, as the same may be variously spelt, then up the said stream, so coming from the northward to its source, which is at a stake near a Yellow Birch Tree, hooped with iron, and marked S. T. and J. H. 1797, by Samuel Titcomb and John Harris, the Surveyors employed to survey the above-mentioned stream, coming from the northward. And the said River is designated on the Map hereunto annexed, and hereby referred to as farther descriptive of it, by the letters A B C D E F G HIK and L, the letter A being at its said mouth, and the letter L being at its said source; and the course and distance of the said source from the Island, at the confluence of the above-mentioned two streams, is, as laid down on the said map, north five degrees. and about fifteen minutes west, by the magnet, about forty-eight miles and one quarter.

"In testimony whereof, we have hereunto set our hands and seals, at Providence, in the State of Rhode Island, the twenty

This is "Ive's Point" in some of the copies of the award, but in the original it is properly given as Joe's Point.

fifth day of October, in the year one thousand seven hundred

and ninety-eight.

"Witness, ED. WINSLOW,

"Secretary to the Commissioners."

Report of the American Agent.

On the day on which the declaration was executed, Mr. Sullivan made the following report of his agency:1

"PROVIDENCE 25th Octr. 1798. "SIR: The decisive declaration of the Commissioners is now executed and delivered to me fixing the river Schoodiac as St. Croix and the most remote water of the Chaputnaticook or north branch for its source. I shall forward it with eight volumes containing the journals and arguments in the cause. I shall also forward at the same time the accounts vouchers and the books you procured for me. I should go on myself but my health is so much affected with toil and anxiety that I could not endure the journey. I hope my son will undertake it for me. The enclosed schedule will show you what the expenses have amounted to and to which there is yet some items to be added before the Commissioners separate. By this you will see that I have paid and there has been allowed...

I am ordered to pay....

Making in whole.....

$15, 559.33

4, 244.59

19, 803. 92

"There is my private account yet to be added for advances in obtaining evidence assistance in copying maps, arguments&c. "I shall therefore pursuant to your directions in your last letter draw on you for five or six thousand dollars and procure the money at the bank.2

MSS. Dept. of State. In a letter to Mr. Sullivan of June 22, 1796, Mr. Pickering said that Mr. Hazard, of Philadelphia, had mentioned some French books relating to the contestation of the St. Croix between the English and the French in 1750-1753, when Governor Shirley, of Massachusetts, went to Paris as one of the commissioners. The books were entitled "Memoires des Commissaires du Roi et de ceux de sa Majesté Britannique sur les possessions et les droits respectifs des deux couronnes en Amérique, avec les actes publics et pièces justificatives." (MS. Dom. Let. IX. 174.) June 25, Mr. Pickering wrote again, saying that the books, on examination, appeared to relate chiefly to "Acadie, according to its ancient Limits." (Id. 186.) July 23, 1796, he sent the books to Mr. Sullivan, together with "a memoir of Dr. William Smith concerning the River St. Croix." (Id. 228.)

2

Congress by an act of March 19, 1798 (1 Stats. at L. 545), appropriated $12,000 to defray "the extraordinary expenses of ascertaining the River St. Croix." By an act of March 2, 1799, the sum of $25,000 was appropriated for "further expenses" in carrying the treaty into effect. (1 Stats. at L. 723.)

"I have much regretted that this was not settled by negociation in order to save expense; but am now convinced that no negociation could have brought the English Government east of the west lake of the Scoodiac south branch. The expenses could not have been lessened otherwise than by omitting the survey of the Megaguadavit but that would have been the giving up a cause or rather a point in the cause in which the Government of Massachusetts has been perseveringly zealThe expense attending that survey is not an object, and indeed the whole expense is not more than has usually hap pened in the controversy of Provincial or State lines.

ous.

"I have the honor to be with all respect, your most humble serv1,

"Honble. Mr. PICKERING,

"Secretary of State."

"JAS. SULLIVAN.

(P. S.) "There is yet perhaps a matter not compleatly settled. By the treaty the United States are bounded east on the river St. Croix. The commissioners have fixed the mouth of the river at St. Andrews point. If the bay of Passamaquoddy is not considered as sea a negociation may be yet necessary. You will see in the journal when it reaches you that I filed a memorial urging the Commissioners to fix the mouth between Deer & Moose Islands or between Deer Island and State point in the Bay of Fundy, but they declined it under an idea that unless Passamaquoddy was a section of the bay of Fundy the St. Croix had no mouth in that Bay."

Report of Mr.
Benson.

Mr. Benson made an elaborate report to the President of the United States, a copy of which. is printed as Appendix XXXVI. to the definitive statement of Messrs. Gallatin and Preble, submitted to the King of the Netherlands as arbitrator under the convention between the United States and Great Britain of September 29, 1827. Subsequently Mr. Benson presented a copy of his report, somewhat revised, to the Massachusetts Historical Society, in whose records (October, 1887) it is published, with cominents by Mr. Justin Winsor, who brought it to the society's attention. But while the report is in some respects improved by the revision, one interesting passage in the original, showing the principle on which Benson adopted the compromise as to the source of the St. Croix, is omitted. The present reprint is from a duplicate original among the papers presented by the editor of the correspondence of Thomas Barclay to the Maine Historical Society.