and the latter is word for word the same with the description of the eastern boundary of the United States in the same treaty. Moreover, a northwest angle has been assigned to the Province of New Brunswick by British authority, which, did it involve no dereliction of principle, might without sensible loss be accepted on the part of the United States.

IV.-HIGHLANDS OF THE TREATY OF 1783.

The highlands of the treaty of 1783 are described as those "which divide those rivers that empty themselves into the river St. Lawrence from those which fall into the Atlantic Ocean." It has been uniformly and consistently maintained on the part of the United States that by the term "highlands" was intended what is in another form of the same words called the height of land. The line of highlands in this sense was to be sought by following the rivers described in the treaty to their source and drawing lines between these sources in such manner as to divide the surface waters. It was believed that the sources of such rivers as the Connecticut and the St. John must lie in a country sufficiently elevated to be entitled to the epithet of highlands, although it should appear on reaching it that it had the appearance of a plain. Nay, it was even concluded, although, as now appears, incorrectly-and it was not feared that the conclusion would weaken the American argument-that the line from the northwest angle of Nova Scotia, at least as far as the sources of Tuladi, did pass through a country of that description. Opposite ground was taken in the argument of Great Britain by her agent, but however acute and ingenious were the processes of reasoning by which this argument was supported, it remained in his hands without application, for the line claimed by him on the part of his Government was one having the same physical basis for its delineation as that claimed by the agent of the United States, namely, one joining the culminating points of the valleys in which streams running in opposite directions took their rise. The argument appears to have been drawn while he hoped to be able to include Katahdin and the other great mountains in that neighborhood in his claimed boundary, and he does not appear to have become aware how inapplicable it was in every sense to the line by which he was, for want of a better, compelled to abide. The British Government, however, virtually abandoned the construction of their agent in the convention signed in London the 27th September, 1827.*

In this it was stipulated that Mitchell's and Map A should be admitted to the exclusion of all others "as the only maps that shall be considered as evidence" of the topography of the country, and in the latter of these maps, constructed under the joint direction of the British and American negotiators by the astronomer of the British Government, it was agreed that nothing but the water courses should be represented. Finally, it was admitted in the report of Messrs. Featherstonhaughand Mudge that the terms highlands and height of land are identical. The decision of the King of the Netherlands, to which Great Britain gave her assent in the first instance, recognizes the correctness of the views entertained in the American statements.† All discussion on this subject is, however, rendered unnecessary by the knowledge which the undersigned have obtained of the country. The line surveyed by them not only divides rivers, but possesses in a preeminent degree the character by which in the British argument highlands are required to be distinguished.

It is sufficient for the present argument that the identity of the lines pointed out by the proclamation of 1763 and the act of 1774 with the boundary of the treaty of 1783 be admitted. Such has been the uniform claim of the Government of the United States and the State of Massachusetts, and such is the deliberate verdict of the British commissioners. The words of the proclamation of 1763 have already been cited. By reference to them it will be seen that the origin of "the highlands" is to be sought on the north shore of the Bay of Chaleurs. If they are not to be found there, a gap exists in the boundary of the proclamation, which it is evident could not have been intended. It has been thought by some that the gap did actually exist, but this idea was founded on an imperfect knowledge of the country. The Bay of Chaleurs seems, in fact, to have been better known to the framers of the proclamation of 1763 and the act of 1774 than to any subsequent authorities, whether British or American. Researches made in the year 1840 show that at the head of the tide of the Bay of Chaleurs a mountain rises immediately on the northern bank, which from its imposing appearance has been called by the Scotch settlers at its foot Ben Lomond. This, indeed, has by measurement been found to be no more than 1,024 feet in height, but no one can deny its title to the name of a highland. From this a continuous chain of heights has been ascertained to exist, bounding in the first instance the valley of the Matapediac to the sources of that stream, which they separate from those of the Metis. The height of land then passes between the waters of Metis and Restigouche, and, bending around the sources of the latter to the sources of the Rimouski, begins there to separate waters which fall into the St. Lawrence from those which fall into the St. John, which they continue to do as far as the point where they merge in the line admitted by both parties.

These highlands have all the characteristics necessary to constitute them the highlands of the treaty. Throughout their whole northern and western slopes flow streams which empty themselves into the St. Lawrence. Beginning at the Bay of Chaleurs, they in the first place divide, as it is necessary they should, waters which fall into that bay; they next separate the waters of Restigouche from those of Metis; they then make a great detour to the south and inclose the valley of Rimouski, separating its waters from those of Matapediac and Restigouche, the Green River of St. John and Tuladi; they next perform a circuit around Lake Temiscouata, separating its basin from those of the Otty and Trois Pistoles, until they reach the Temiscouata portage at Mount Paradis. This portage they cross five times, and finally, bending backward to the north, inclose the stream of the St. Francis, whose waters they divide from those of Trois Pistoles, Du Loup, and the Green River of the St. Lawrence. Leaving the Temiscouata portage at the sixteenth milepost, a region positively mountainous is entered, which character continues to the sources of the Etchemin. It there assumes for a short space the character of a rolling country, no point in which, however, is less than 1,200 feet above the level of the sea. It speedily resumes a mountainous character, which continues unaltered to the sources of the Connecticut.

Now it is maintained that all the streams and waters which have been named as flowing from the southern and eastern sides of this line are in the intended sense of the treaty of 1783 rivers which empty themselves into the Atlantic. The first argument adduced in support of this position is that the framers of that treaty, having, as is admitted, Mitchell's map before them, speak only of two classes of rivers-those which discharge themselves into the St. Lawrence River and those which fall into the Atlantic Ocean; yet upon this map were distinctly seen the St. John and the Restigouche. The latter, indeed, figures twice-once as a tributary to the Bay of Miramichi and once as flowing to the Bay of Chaleurs.* It can not reasonably be pretended that men honestly engaged in framing an article to prevent "all disputes which might arise in future" should have intentionally passed over and left undefined these important rivers, when by the simplest phraseology they might have described them had they believed that in any future time a question could have arisen whether they were included in one or the other of the two classes of rivers they named. Had it been intended that the due north line should have stopped short of the St. John, the highlands must have been described as those which divide rivers * See Note XI, p. 2002,

which fall into the St. Lawrence and the St. John from those which fall into the Atlantic Ocean. The mouth of the St. Lawrence had been defined in the procla mation of 1763 by a line drawn from the river St. John (on the Labrador coast) to Cape Rozier. If, then, it had been intended that the meridian line should not have crossed the Restigouche, the phraseology must have been highlands which divide rivers which fall into the river and Gulf of St. Lawrence from those which fall into the Atlantic Ocean. Where such obvious modes of expressing either of these intentions existed, it is not to be believed that they would have been omitted; but had they been proposed to be introduced the American negotiators would have been compelled by their instructions to refuse them. Such expressions would have prescribed a boundary different not only in fact, but in terms, from that of the proclamation of 1763 and the contemporaneous commission to Governor Wilmot. Either, then, the British plenipotentiaries admitted the American claim to its utmost extent or they fraudulently assented to terms with the intention of founding upon them a claim to territory which if they had openly asked for must have been denied them. The character of the British ministry under whose directions that treaty was made forbids the belief of the latter having been intended. The members of that ministry had been when in opposition the constant advocates of an accommodation with the colonies or of an honorable peace after all hopes of retaining them in their allegiance had ceased. They showed on coming into power a laudable anxiety to put an end to the profitless effusion of human blood, and they wisely saw that it would be of more profit to their country to convert the new nation into friends by the free grant of terms which sooner or later must have been yielded than to widen the breach of kindred ties by an irritating delay. The debates which ensued in the British Parliament when the terms of the treaty were made known show the view which the party that had conducted the war entertained of this question. The giving up of the very territory now in dispute was one of the charges made by them against their successors, and that it had been given up by the treaty was not denied. Nay, the effect of this admission was such as to leave the administration in a minority in the House of Commons, and thus became at least one of the causes of the resignation of the ministry* by which the treaty had been made. At this very moment more maps than one were published in London which exhibit the construction then put upon the treaty by the British public. The boundary exhibited upon these maps is identical with that which the United States now claim and have always claimed.

The full avowal that the boundary of the treaty of 1783 and of the proclamation of 1763 and act of 1774 are identical greatly simplifies the second argument. It has been heretofore maintained on the part of Great Britain that the word "sea" of the two latter-named instruments was not changed in the first to "Atlantic Ocean" without an obvious meaning. All discussion on this point is obviated by the admission. But it is still maintained that the Bay of Fundy is not a part of the Atlantic Ocean because it happens to be named in reference to the St. Croix in the same article of the treaty. To show the extent to which such an argument, founded on a mere verbal quibble, may be carried, let it be supposed that at some future period two nations on the continent of North America shall agree on a boundary in the following terms: By a line drawn through the Mississippi from its mouth in the Gulf of Mexico to its source; thence a parallel of latitude until it meet the highlands which divide the waters that empty themselves into the Pacific Ocean from those which fall into the Atlantic. Could it be pretended that because the mouth of the Mississippi is said to be in the Gulf of Mexico the boundary must be transferred from the Rocky Mountains to the Alleghanies? Yet this would be as reasonable as the pretensions so long set up by the British agents and commissioners.

It can not be denied that the line claimed by the United States fulfills at least one * Hansard's Parliamentary Register for 1783.

of the conditions. The streams which flow from one side of it fall without exсерtion into the river St. Lawrence. The adverse line claimed by Great Britain in the reference to the King of the Netherlands divides until within a few miles of Mars Hill waters which fall into the St. John from those of the Penobscot and Kennebec. The latter do not discharge their waters directly into the ocean, but Sagadahock and Penobscot bays intervene, and the former falls into the Bay of Fundy; hence, according to the argument in respect to the Bay of Fundy, this line fulfills neither condition.

The line of Messrs. Featherstonhaugh and Mudge is even less in conformity to the terms of the treaty. In order to find mountains to form a part of it they are compelled to go south of the source of branches of the Penobscot; thence from mountains long well known, at the sources of the Alleguash, well laid down on the rejected map of Mr. Johnson, it becomes entangled in the stream of the Aroostook, which it crosses more than once. In neither part does it divide waters at all. It then, as if to make its discrepancy with the line defined in the proclamation of 1763 apparent, crosses the St. John and extends to the south shore of the Bay of Chaleurs, although that instrument fixes the boundary of the Province of Quebec on the north shore of the bay. In this part of its course it divides waters which fall into the said bay from those which fall into the St. John. But the proclamation with whose terms this line is said to be identical directs that the highlands shall divide waters which fall into the St. Lawrence from those which fall into the sea. If the branches of the Bay of Chaleurs fulfill the first condition, which, however, is denied, the St. John must fulfill the latter. It therefore falls into the Atlantic Ocean, and as the identity of the boundary of the treaty with that of the proclamation of 1763 and act of 1774 is admitted, then is the St. John an Atlantic river, and the line claimed by the United States fulfills both conditions, and is the only line to the west of the meridian of the St. Croix which can possibly do so.

The choice of a line different from that presented to the choice of the King of the Netherlands is no new instance of the uncertainty which has affected all the forms in which Great Britain has urged her claim.

In fact, nothing shows more conclusively the weakness of the ground on which the British claim rests than the continual changes which it has been necessary to make in order to found any feasible argument upon it.* In the discussion of 1798 it was maintained on the part of Great Britain that the meridian line must cross the St. John River; in the argument before the commissioners under the fifth article of the treaty of Ghent it was denied that it ever could have been the intention of the framers of the treaty of 1783 that it should. Yet the mouthpiece by which both arguments were delivered was one and the same person. The same agent chose as the termination of what he attempted to represent as a continuous range of hills an isolated mountain, Mars Hill; and the commissioners whose report is under consideration place a range of abraded highlands, "the maximum axis of elevation," in a region over which British engineers have proposed to carry a railroad as the most level and lowest line which exists between St. Andrews and Quebec.†

On the other hand, the American claim, based on the only practicable interpretation of the treaty of 1783, has been consistent throughout: "Let the meridian line be extended until it meets the southern boundary of the Province of Quebec, as defined by the proclamation of 1763 and the act of Parliament of 1774."

No argument can be drawn against the American claim from the secret instructions of Congress dated August, 1779. All that is shown by these instructions is the willingness to accept a more convenient boundary-one defined by a great natural feature, and which would have rendered the difficult operation of tracing the line of highlands and that of determining the meridian of the St. Croix by astronomic methods unnecessary. The words of the instructions are:

"And east by a line to be drawn along the middle of the St. John from its source to its mouth in the Bay of Fundy, or by a line to be settled and adjusted between that part of the State of Massachusetts Bay formerly called the Province of Maine and the colony of Nova Scotia, agreeably to their respective rights, comprehending all islands within 20 leagues of the shores of the United States and lying between lines to be drawn due east from the points where the aforesaid boundaries between Nova Scotia on the one part and East Florida on the other part shall respectively touch the Bay of Fundy and the Atlantic Ocean."

The proposal in the first alternative was to appearance a perfectly fair one. From an estimate made by Dr. Tiarks, the astronomer of Great Britain under the fifth article of the treaty of Ghent, in conformity with directions from Colonel Barclay, the British commissioner, it was ascertained that the whole disputed territory contained 10,705 square miles; that the territory bounded by the St. John to its mouth contained 707 square miles less, or 9,998 square miles. The difference at the time was probably believed to be insensible. The first alternative was, however, rejected by Great Britain, and obviously on grounds connected with a difference in supposed advantage between the two propositions. The American commissioners were satisfied that they could urge no legal claim along the coast beyond the river St. Croix; they therefore treated on the other alternative in their instructions-the admitted limits between Massachusetts and Nova Scotia. Even in the former alternative, Nova Scotia would still have had a northwest angle, for the very use of the term shows that by the St. John its northwestern and not the southwestern branch was intended.

At that moment, when the interior of the country was unknown, the adoption of the St. John as the boundary, even admitting that the Walloostook, its southwestern branch, is the main stream, would have given to the United States a territory of more immediate value than that they now claim. For this very reason the proposition was instantly rejected by Great Britain, and the State of Massachusetts was forced to be contented with the distant region now in debate-a region then believed to be almost inaccessible and hardly fit for human habitation.

Even now, were there not vested private rights on both sides which might render such a plan difficult of application, the undersigned would not hesitate to recommend that this line should be accepted in lieu of the one which is claimed under the treaty of 1783.

It is finally obvious, from the most cursory inspection of any of the maps of the territory in question, that the line claimed for Great Britain in the argument before the King of the Netherlands fulfills no more than one of the two conditions, while that of Messrs. Featherstonhaugh and Mudge fulfills neither; and as the line claimed on the part of the United States is denied to be capable of meeting the terms of the treaty of 1783 by Great Britain, there is no line that, in conformity with the British argument, can be drawn within the disputed territory or its vicinity that will comply with either of the conditions. This is as well and as distinctly shown in the map of Mitchell as in the map of the British commission. It would therefore appear, if these views be correct, that the framers of the treaty of 1783 went through the solemn farce of binding their respective Governments to a boundary which they well knew did not and could not exist.

V.-NORTHWEST HEAD OF CONNECTICUT RIVER.

The true mode of determining the most northwesterly of any two given points need no longer be a matter of discussion. It has already been a matter adjudicated and assented to by both Governments, in the case of the Lake of the Woods. The point to be considered as most to the northwest is that which a ruler laid on a map