York, in the United States of America, this twenty-fourth day of November, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hun dred and seventeen. "[SEAL] "[SEAL] "Witness: "JAMES T. AUSTIN, Agt. U. S. A. "ANTH: BARCLAY, Sec'y." 1 JOHN. HOLMES THO. BARCLAY." President Monroe, in his annual message of Announcement of December 2, 1817, expressed "satisfaction" Award to Congress. that the commissioners "to whom it was referred to decide to which party the several islands in the Bay of Passamaquoddy belonged" had "agreed on a report, by which all the islands in the possession of each party before the late war have been decreed to it;" but he did not expressly refer to the Island of Grand Menan, a circumstance which led the British commissioner to surmise that the President "felt sore on the point." The British commissioner undoubtedly exhibited much ability and skill in his negotiations with Mr. Holmes. "You know," said Mr. Webster, "we think that Grand Menan should have been assigned to us." 3 2 Boundary. Though the ownership of the islands was Marking of the Water thus determined, no step was taken to mark the water boundary till 1891. On the 22d of July 1892 a treaty was concluded between the United States and Great Britain, by Article II. of which the high contracting parties agreed to appoint two commissioners, one to be named 1 This decision is printed in the volume of Treaties and Conventions of the United States, and in the Am. State Papers, For. Rel. IV. 171. See, also, Hertslet's Br. & For. State Papers, IV. 805; V. 198. The memorials, argnments, and exhibits are in the Department of State. Among the papers are eight manuscript volumes, as follows: (1) Memorial of American Claim, Part I., devoted to showing that the islands were part of Massachusetts; (2) Memorial of American Claim, Part II., devoted to an examination of the extent and limits of Nova Scotia, for the purpose of showing that the islands were not within that province; (3) Appendix to American Memorial; (4) Map accompanying American Memorial; (5) Memorial of British Claim; (6) American Reply to British Memorial; (7) British Reply to American Memorial; (8) Appendix to British Reply. The memorials and replies are elaborate and exhaustive. Rives's Correspondence of Thomas Barclay, 399. 3 Mr. Webster to Mr. Gray, May 11, 1841, Webster's Private Correspondence, II. 103. by each party, "to determine upon a method of more accurately marking the boundary line between the two countries in the waters of Passamaquoddy Bay in front of and adjacent to Eastport, in the State of Maine, and to place buoys or fix such other boundary marks as they may determine to be necessary." "Each government," the article also provides, "shall pay the expenses of its own commissioner, and [the] cost of marking the boundary in such manner as shall be determined upon shall be defrayed by the High Contracting Parties in equal moieties." CHAPTER III. THE NORTHEASTERN BOUNDARY: COMMISSION UNDER ARTICLE V. OF THE TREATY OF GHENT. The decision of the commissioners under Line in Dispute. Article IV. of the Treaty of Ghent, the history of which is narrated in the preceding chapter, marked little actual progress in the determination of the boundary line which the treaty of peace of 1783 had estab lished. By that treaty the boundaries of the United States were, as we have seen,' declared to run: "From the northwest angle of Nova Scotia, viz. that angle which is formed by a line drawn due north from the source of Saint Croix River to the Highlands; along the said Highlands which divide those rivers that empty themselves into the river St. Lawrence, from those which fall into the Atlantic Ocean, to the northwesternmost head of Connecticut River; thence down along the middle of that river, to the forty-fifth degree of north latitude; from thence, by a line due west on said latitude, until it strikes the river Iroquois or Cataraquy; * East, by a line to be drawn along the middle of the river St. Croix, from its mouth in the Bay of Fundy to its source, and from its source directly north to the aforesaid Highlands, which divide the rivers that fall into the Atlantic Ocean from those which fall into the river St. Lawrence." The line thus defined comprises that section of the boundary which was involved in what came to be known as the Northeastern Boundary Question-a dispute which, first arising as to what constituted the "northwest angle of Nova Scotia" and the "Highlands," spread from point to point till it embraced substantially the whole of the line. from the source of the St. Croix River, as determined by the commissioners under Article V. of the Jay Treaty, to the point 'Chapter I. 65 where the forty-fifth parallel of north latitude strikes that part of the St. Lawrence which was called by the Indians the Iroquois or Cataraquy. An attentive examination of the clauses The "Highlands." above quoted will show that, in running the line in question, the basal fact to be determined was the position of the highlands. The northwest angle of Nova Scotia is said to be formed by a line "drawn due north from the source of the Saint Croix River to the Highlands," and it is along these highlands that the line to the northwesternmost head of the Connecticut River is to run. On Mitchell's map no such range of highlands as the treaty contemplates appears, but the negotiators apparently assumed that a continuous or practically continuous ridge of ground would be found to divide the rivers emptying themselves into the River St. Lawrence from those falling into the Atlantic Ocean. van. On a map published in 1795 in a work by Views of Mr. Sulli- James Sullivan,' who subsequently acted as agent for the United States under Article V. of the Jay Treaty, there is a continuous ridge of mountainous territory running almost in a straight line along the River St. Lawrence, and marked "High Lands being the boundary line between the United States and the British Province of Quebec.” But, in his argument before the commissioners under the Jay Treaty, Mr. Sullivan declared that the question of the highlands was "yet resting on the wing of imagination," and that the "point of locality of the northwest angle" was "to be the investigation of the next century"-a prophecy remarkably fulfilled. In 1802 Mr. Sullivan returned to the subject in a letter to Mr. Madison, who, as Secretary of State, was then contemplating a negotiation with Great Britain for the settlement of the boundaries. The line north from the source of the St. Croix crossed the St. John, said Mr. Sullivan, a great way south of any place which could be supposed to be the highlands; but, where the line would come to the northwest angle of Nova Scotia and find its termination, it was not easy to discover. The boundary between Nova Scotia and Canada was described in the King's proclamation in the same manner as in 1 History of the District of Maine. 2 May 20, 1802, Am. State Papers, For. Rel. II. 587. the treaty of peace,' but the commissioners who were appointed to settle that line had traversed the country in vain to find the highlands designated as a boundary. "I have seen one of them," continued Mr. Sullivan, "who agrees with the account I have had from the natives and others, that there are no mountains or highlands on the southerly side of the St. Lawrence, and northeastward of the river Chaudière. That, from the mouth of the St. Lawrence to that river, there is a vast extent of high flat country, * being a morass of millions of acres. * That the rivers originating in this elevated swamp pass each other wide asunder, many miles in opposite courses, some to the St. Lawrence and some to the Atlantic Sea. Should this description be founded in fact, nothing can be effectively done, as to a Canada line, without a commission to ascertain and settle the place of the northwest angle of Nova Scotia, wherever that may be agreed to be: if there is no mountain or natural monument, an artificial one may be raised. From thence, the line westward to Connecticut river may be established by artificial monuments erected at certain distances from each other; * Though there is no such chain of mountains as the plans or maps of the country represent under the appellation of the highlands, yet there are eminences from whence an horizon may be made to fix the latitude from common quadrant observations.” Instructions of Mr. It was in the sense of this letter that Mr. Madison on the 8th of June 1802 instructed Rufus King, then minister of the United States at London, to enter upon negotiations for the adjustment of the boundaries. In fixing the terminus of the line to be run due north it had been found, said Mr. Madison, that the "highlands" had no definite existence; and he therefore sug gested the appointment of a commission similar to that under Article V. of the Jay Treaty, "to determine on a point most proper to be substituted for the description in the second Mr. Sullivan refers to the royal proclamation of October 7, 1763, in relation to the countries ceded by France to Great Britain by the Treaty of Paris of that year. By that proclamation the province of Quebec was bounded on the south by a line which, "crossing the River St. Lawrence, and the Lake Champlain in forty-five degrees of north latitude, passes along the highlands, which divide the rivers that empty themselves into the River St. Lawrence, from those which fall into the sea." Am. State Papers, For. Rel. II. 585. |