spective Colonies thus obtained from France and Spain; and so far as the present subject is concerned, it may be enough to say, that the British government, in issuing the proclamation of 1763, defining, describing, and settling the boundaries of the newly acquired Province of Canada or Quebec, asserted as the boundary of Canada a line against which Massachusetts had contended with France during the preceding thirty or forty years. That is to say, the Colony of Massachusetts had insisted that her territory ran to the north bank of the St. Lawrence. She claimed not to the highlands, but over them down to the river. England had never discountenanced this claim of her colony as against France. England, then becoming owner of Canada by conquest and subsequent cession, described its boundaries as she desired to fix them, by the celebrated line of "highlands." According to the proclamation, the line from Lake Nepissing (at the northwest) was to cross the St. Lawrence and Lake Champlain in the 45th degree of north latitude, and thence to proceed along the highlands which divide the rivers that empty themselves into the St. Lawrence from those which fall into the sea.

Massachusetts complained of the proclamation of 1763 as taking into Canada what she had insisted on as matter of her own right. Mr. Borland, the Massachusetts agent, presented it strongly to the British ministry, as an invasion of the territorial rights of that Colony. It happened, however, that in the interior of Maine, near the Kennebec, there was a tract of country to which it was alleged the crown of England had rightful claim. There grew up, therefore, a tacit consent, soon after the peace of 1763, between the crown of England and Massachusetts, that, if the former would forbear to assert any right to this territory, included within the general limits of the Province of Maine, Massachusetts would not press the matter respecting the boundary between that Province and Canada. Well, under these circumstances, when the peace of 1783 was made, the question was to ascertain what was the boundary between Massachusetts and Nova Scotia. The country was a wilderness, and the line was not easily defined. Many historical documents, the proclamation of 1763, and many prior and subsequent proceedings of the governments, were resorted to. Now I suppose that the object of the commissioners of 1783 was to

ascertain what was the existing line, and not to run any new line, as England, being possessor of Canada by conquest from France, claimed under the French, and, acccording to general principles, would be bound by what had been the claims of her grantor. Now it is certain, that whilst the French owned Canada, down to the very day of its cession to Great Britain by the peace of 1763, the French maps, so far as I know, with hardly an exception, if any, represent the divisional line between Massachusetts and Nova Scotia exactly according to the line contended for by us. The French maps which gave another representation were the production of a subsequent epoch. It was fair, therefore, to say to England, "You must claim under your grantors, and according to their claim."

The provisions of the treaty of 1783 undoubtedly meant to ascertain what the line was as it then existed, and so to describe it. In regard to the map now presented, supposing the fact to be as I take it to be, that it was before the commissioners, because it has Mr. Jay's memorandum upon it, and connecting it with the proposition of the British minister of the 8th of October, 1782, several things seem very fairly to be deducible; and an important one is, that the northwest angle of Nova Scotia and the sources of the River St. John are identical according to this map and according to Mr. Oswald's proposition. How comes it, then, the northwestern angle of Nova Scotia and the sources of the St. John being identical in the minds of men of that day, that that idea has not been followed up? And this leads to one of the questions about which it is impossible to say that any one can lay down beforehand any positive rule, or decide fairly, without a full knowledge of the facts of the particular case. The commissioners proceeded upon a conviction of the accuracy and correctness of the geographical delineation upon the paper on their table. Should it afterwards turn out, either that that delineation was in some small degree incorrect, or that it was materially incorrect, or that it was altogether incorrect, what is the rule for such a case, or how far are mutual and common mistakes of this kind to be corrected? On the face of Mitchell's map, (and a copy of that map was before the commissioners, as all admit,) the Madawaska is laid down as a north and south line, or a river running from the north to the south. Mr. Oswald accord ingly says, "beginning at the northwest angle of Nova Scotia,"

and then tracing the boundary to the Mississippi, down that river to latitude thirty-one north, and so to the sea, and along the sea; and then says, the eastern boundary shall be the River St. John, from its source to its mouth. He goes, therefore, on the idea, evidently, that the source of the St. John is at the northwest angle of Nova Scotia; or else he leaves a hiatus in his description. The fact, as stated by you, Sir, is, that this delineation of the Madawaska was erroneous. It is not a north and south river. Errors in the calculation of the longitude had led to giving it a north and south direction on the map, whereas it should have had a northwest and southeast direction; and this error carries it, in order to conform to the fact, from forty to fifty miles farther to the west. Now, of the various questions which we may reasonably suppose to arise in a case of this sort, one would be, whether, in a case of mutual mistake of that kind, founded on a mutual misapprehension, this error was to be corrected, or whether the parties were to be bound by it, let the true course of that river be what it might. These questions are no longer of great importance to us, since the whole matter has been settled; but they may have their influence, and are worthy of consideration in an historical point of view.

The conflict of these maps is undoubtedly a pretty remarkable circumstance. The great mass of contemporaneous maps are favorable to the claims of the United States, and the remarks read by the President of the Society are most cogent to evince this. The treaty negotiated in Paris by Mr. Oswald, on the part of the British government, met with great opposition in Parliament. It was opposed on the very ground that it made a line of boundary "exceedingly inconvenient to Great Britain"; or, as a leading member of Parliament said, that it made the United States masters both of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick; and maps were published exhibiting this line exactly as claimed by the United States. These maps accompanied the Parliamentary papers and debates. Now, it is very extraordinary, it would be deemed almost incredible, that, if these maps, thus making out a case on which so much stress had been laid against the British ministry and their negotiation, had been erroneous, nobody in the Foreign Office, nor the minister, nor Mr. Oswald himself, should have one word to suggest against the accuracy of these maps. They defended the treaty and boun

1

dary as presented on the maps, not going on the ground at all that those maps exhibited any erroneous presentation. Nevertheless, it is a matter of historical notoriety, that, from the time of the conclusion of that treaty till our day, it had been impossible to bring the two governments to any agreement on the matter. That on the words of the treaty, on the fair and necessary import of the words of the treaty, the case is, and has always been, with the United States, I very much doubt if any intelligent Englishman at this day would be found ready to deny. The argument has been, not that it is possible to show the line anywhere else, not that it is possible to bring the northwest angle of Nova Scotia this side of all the waters that run into the St. John, I suppose no man of sense and common candor would undertake to maintain seriously such a proposition as that, but the argument always has been that which was successfully pressed upon the king of Holland, that there is a difficulty in ascertaining the meaning of these words, when we look to localities, the highlands, the streams, and face of the country; and that difficulty led his Majesty, as difficulties of a similar character in other cases lead referees and arbitrators, into the notion of "splitting the difference," or compromising the claim, and drawing a line between that claimed by us, on the one hand, and that claimed by the British government, on the other. The English government, therefore, has always proceeded less upon the terms of the treaty themselves, than on those external considerations, and especially upon that of the great inconvenience of such a line of demarcation; and has founded upon that, as its natural result, another inference, the great improbability that England would have agreed to a line, unnecessarily, which separated her own provinces from one another, and made the communication between them dependent on the will and pleasure of a foreign power. The treaty of Washington, and the negotiations which preceded it, were entered into in a spirit of compromise and settlement.

When the present administration came into power, it determined, that, as an arbitration conducted with the greatest diligence, ability, and learning, on the part of the United States, had failed, and, as the matter was likely at all events to terminate in compromise at last, it might be quite as wise for the parties to attempt to compromise it themselves, on such con

siderations as they might see fit to adopt. Rather wiser this, indeed, you must surely admit, than to refer it to the consideration of a third power. It was upon that principle and in that spirit that the negotiations of 1842 were entered into. It was altogether in that amicable and rational spirit in which one neighbor says to another, according to the Scripture, "Let us agree with our adversary while we are in the way with him." Or as one might suppose two landed proprietors would have done, whose contiguous estates had projecting corners, and irregular lines, producing inconvenience in the management of plantations and farms. These things, in private life, are adjusted, not on the principle that one shall get all he can and grant nothing, or yield every thing and get nothing, but on the principle that the arrangement shall be for the mutual convenience and advantage of both parties, if the terms can be made fair, and equal, and honorable to both.

I believe, or at least I trust with great humility, that the judg ment of the country will ultimately be, that the arrangement in this case was not an objectionable one. In the first place, I am willing to maintain everywhere, that the States of Massachusetts and Maine are better off this day than if Lord Ashburton had not signed the treaty, but had signed, in behalf of his government, a relinquishment of the claim of England to every square foot of the territory in dispute, and gone home. These States get more by the opening of the navigation of the rivers, and by the other benefits obtained through the treaty, than all the territory north of the St. John is worth, according to any estimate any one has yet been pleased to make of it. And as to the United States, if we can trust the highest military judgment in the country, if we can trust the general sense of intelligent persons acquainted with the subject, if we can trust our own common sense on looking to the map, an object of great importance has been attained for the United States and the State of New York, by the settlement of the question relative to the forty-fifth degree of north latitude, from Vermont to the St. Lawrence across the outlet of Lake Champlain. At the same time that these are gains or advantages, it does not follow, because this whole arrangement is highly advantageous to the States of Massachusetts and Maine, of great importance to the United States, and particularly useful to the States of New