66

"the river, to the River St. George, the boundary of New England." Just after the treaty of Paris, 1712, the French king offered numerous concessions if the English would give him back Acadia, and “in this case his Majesty would consent that the River of St. George should be "the limit of Acadia, as England desired." In 1720, Col. Philipps, Governor of Nova Scotia, complained that "the bounds between the "government of Nova Scotia and New England are not declared,” and enclosed to the Lords of Trade a petition from persons who had lands between the Kennebec and St. George, for confirmation of title. In 1762, Governor Bernard, of Massachusetts, and Governor Belcher, of Nova Scotia, had a correspondence which was ended by Mr. Belcher as follows: "I must, nevertheless, with much satisfaction, accept the assu66 rance you give me that you shall not make any grants of any of the "lands westward of the River St. Croix * * * and I shall on my part not consent to any further grants from this Province until the question is determined at home." It was not determined until settled by treaty with the rebellious colonies, now the United States, and then the St. Croix was made the boundary. From all which it is clearly to be seen that the stronger British colonies, backed up by the stronger British power, forced back the weaker French from one boundary to another; from about Cape Cod to the Kennebec, from the Kennebec to the St. George, from the St. George to the Penobscot. While at the establishment of their independence they further encroached upon the territory of the parent country, from the Penobscot to the St. Croix.

66

In the interior of the continent, the French explorers had a magnificent field before them, which they cultivated with equal bravery and energy. The Edict of 1712, establishing Louisiana as a Lieut-Governorship, dependent upon that of Quebec, recites that in 1683 the King had ordered the exploration of the regions between New France and New Mexico; that La Salle had sufficiently succeeded in the enterprise to make it certain that communication could be maintained between the St. Lawrence and the Gulf of Mexico by way of important rivers; that immediately after the peace of Ryswick, His Majesty had sent out a colony, but that in consequence of the wars he had done nothing more;' that now, however, he had decided to authorise the Sieur Crozart to trade in the country bounded by the English settlements in Carolina on one hand, and by New Mexico on the other, and principally in the port and harbor of Ile Dauphine, in the valleys of the Mississippi from the sea to the Illinois, of the Missouri, and of the Wabash. The first serious attempt to interfere with the French in this part of the continent was made in 1749, when a company, called the Ohio Company, was chartered,

'By an arrêt of 1690, the King endows Sieurs de la Forest and Touty, with the establishment made at St. Louis by de la Salle.

and obtained from the British Crown a grant of 600,000 acres on the River Ohio. In 1750 the French heard of this, and the Governor of Canada wrote to the Governors of Pennsylvania and New York to complain, but complaints being useless they seized, in 1751, some American traders found West of the Ohio, and built two forts, one on the south side of Lake Erie and one on Beef River. In 1753, Major (afterwards the celebrated General) Washington was sent by Virginia to M. de Coutrecoeur, the French Governor of these two forts, to summon him to retire, who replied "that the country belonged to the King of France, "and that therefore he would according to orders, seize and send "prisoner to Canada every Englishman that should attempt to trade "upon the Ohio or any of its branches." In 1754, a battle took place in that vicinity, and Washington, attacked in his entrenchments at Fort Necessity, capitulated.

66

The course taken by Canada and Nova Scotia during the American Revolutionary war is a matter of general history, which we need not dilate upon in this place. Suffice it to remark, that their loyalty deserved a better reward than the indifference subsequently shewn by Britain in the fixing of their boundaries. Young remarks, in his "North American Colonies," that: "Language cannot be found too condensed and too severe to characterize the terms of the first Provincial Treaty of "Peace in 1782. Mr. Oswald, our Plenipotentiary, who adjusted it with "Franklin and Jay, after his return to England, when waited upon by "the Merchants of London, that they might inform him of the conces“sions and sacrifices he had made, both confessed his ignorance and “wept, it is said, over his own simplicity." Lord Stormont, in the year of the Treaty, spoke of Mr. Oswald as "that,extraordinary Geographer," and said on the other hand of the American Commissioners, in language of which we now, on close acquaintance with such agents, can fully recognize the biting truth, that "they have enriched the English Dic"tionary with new terms and phrases - reciprocal advantage, for "instance, means the advantage of one of the parties; and a regulation "of boundaries, accession of territory."

The provisional arrangement made by Mr. Oswald was that the eastern boundary of the States should run along the St. John river, from its source to its mouth in the Bay of Fundy, and that the northern boundary should be a line drawn from the northwest angle of Nova Scotia, along the highlands which divide these rivers that empty themselves into the River St. Lawrence from those which fall into the Atlantic, to the northwesternmost head of Connecticut river; thence down along the middle of that river to the 45th degree of north latitude, and thence due west to the north-westernmost side of the River St. Lawrence; thence straight to the Lake Nipissing, and thence straight to the River Mississippi.

This agreement was too absurd to be made part of the Definitive Treaty, for it would have given up nearly half of New Brunswick, and almost all of Upper Canada. The Treaty itself (1783) was, however, sufficiently disgraceful in its terms. It established the boundary in the following language:

Art. II. And that all disputes which might arise in future on the subject of the boundaries of the said United States may be prevented, it is hereby agreed and declared that the following shall be their boundaries, viz.: from the north-west angle of Nova Scotia, viz.: that angle which is formed by a line drawn due north from the source of the St. 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 north-westernmost head of Connecticut river; thence down along the middle of that river to the 45th degree of north latitude; from thence by a line due west on said latitude, until it strikes the River Iroquois or Catarquy; thence along the middle of said river into Lake Ontario, through the middle of said lake until it strikes the communication by water between that lake and Lake Erie; thence along the middle of said communication into Lake Erie, through the middle of said lake until it arrives at the water communication between that lake and Lake Huron; thence along the middle of said water communication into the Lake Huron; thence through the middle of said lake to the water communication between that lake and Lake Superior; thence through Lake Superior northward of the Isles Royal and Phelipeaux to the Long Lake; thence through the middle of said Long Lake and the water communication between it and the Lake of the Woods to the said Lake of the Woods; thence through the said lake to the most north-western point thereof, and from thence on a due west course to the River Mississippi;

*

Now the region between the sources of the St. Croix and the Connecticut rivers, as well as that to the westward of Lake Superior, were then uninhabited, and the physical features of the interior of the continent were but imperfectly known. Some ambiguity in the terms of the treaty might on these accounts have been expected, yet not so much as actually existed. British statesmen, usually slow to impute improper motives to any public men, have therefore not hesitated to say that the American plenipotentiaries contrived to have the wording of the treaty as loose as possible. Its ambiguity consisted chiefly in these points: The proprietorship of the islands in the Bay of Fundy was not defined; the position of the north-west angle of Nova Scotia was not fixed; the islands in the St. Lawrence were not apportioned, or those in the Detroit river.

Difficulties arose almost at once on all these points. It was even attempted to envelop in mist the River St. Croix itself, and when Commissioners met at St. Andrews, in 1796, to decide the matter, the Americans claimed the Maguadavic to be the St. Croix, and an adjournment

1

for a year was the result. This point was finally settled in 1798; but the north-west angle was destined to remain undecided for another generation.

At the Treaty of Ghent, 1814, the other boundary questions were dealt with one by one, and we will follow them in order. Our southeastern boundary is settled by Art. IV, as follows:

Whereas it was stipulated by the second article in the treaty of Peace of 1783, * * * that the boundary of the United States should comprehend all islands within twenty leagues of any part of the shores of the United States, and lying between lines to be drawn due east from the point where the aforesaid boundaries between Nova Scotia on the one part and East Florida on the other, shall respectively touch the Bay of Fundy and the Atlantic Ocean, excepting such islands as now are, or heretofore have been, within the limits of Nova Scotia; and whereas the several islands in the Bay of Passamaquoddy, which is part of the Bay of Fundy, and the Island of Grand Menan, in the said Bay of Fundy, are claimed by the United States as being comprehended within their aforesaid boundaries, which said islands are claimed as belonging to His Britannic Majesty, as having been at the time of and previons to the aforesaid Treaty of 1783 within the limits of the Province of Nova Scotia; in order, therefore, finally to decide upon these claims, it is agreed that they shall be referred to two Commissioners, to be appointed in the following manner, viz: one Commissioner shall be appointed by His Britannic Majesty, and one by the President of the United States by and with the advice and consent of the Senate thereof, and the said two Commissioners so appointed shall be sworn impartially to examine and decide upon the said claims, according to such evidence as shall be laid before them on the part of His Britannic Majesty, and of the United States respectively. The said Commissioners shall meet at St. Andrews, in the Province of New Brunswick, and shall have power to adjourn to such other place or places, as they shall think fit. The said Commissioners shall, by a declaration or report under their hands and seals, decide to which of the two contracting parties the several islands aforesaid do respectively belong, in conformity with the true intent of the said Treaty of Peace of 1783. And if the said Commissioners shall agree in their decision, both parties shall consider such decision as final and conclusive. It is further agreed, that in the event of the two Commissioners differing upon all or any of the matters so referred to them, or in the event of both or either of the said Commissioners refusing or declining or wilfully omitting to act as such, they shall make jointly or separately a report or reports, as well to the Government of His Britannic Majesty as to that of the United States, stating in detail the points on which they differ, and the grounds upon which their respective opinions have been formed, or the grounds upon which they or either of them have so refused, declined or omitted to act. His Britannic Majesty, and the Government of the United States, hereby agree to refer the report or reports of the said Commissioners to some friendly Sovereign or State, to be then named for that purpose, and who shall be requested to decide on the differences which may be stated in the said report or reports, or upon the report of one Commissioner, together with the grounds upon which the other Commissioner shall have refused, declined or omitted to act, as the case may be. And if

And

the Commissioner so refusing, declining or omitting to act shall also wilfully omit to state the grounds upon which he has so done, in such manner that the said statement may be referred to such friendly Sovereign or State, together with the report of such other Commissioner, then such Sovereign or State shall decide ex parte upon the said report alone. And His Britannic Majesty and the Government of the United States engage to consider the decision of such friendly Sovereign or State to be final and conclusive on all the matters so referred.

The decision of the Commissioners in this case was given as follows,

in 1817:

By Thomas Barclay and John Holmes, Esquires, Commissioners, &c., &c.

*

We * * decide that Moose Island, Dudley Island and Frederick Island in the Bay of Passamaquoddy, which is part of the Bay of Fundy, do, and each of them does, belong to the United States of America, and we have also decided and do decide that all the other Islands, and each and every of them, in the said Bay of Passamaquoddy, which is part of the Bay of Fundy, and the Island of Grand Menan, in the said Bay of Fundy, do belong to His Britannic Majesty, in conformity with the true interest' of the second article of the Treaty of

1783.

The next question dealt with by the Treaty of Ghent, was the boundary between the St. Croix and the St. Lawrence. This was sought to be settled by Art. V. which declares that:

Whereas neither that point of the highlands lying due north from the source of the River St. Croix, and designated in the former Treaty of Peace between the two powers as the north-west angle of Nova Scotia, nor the north-westernmost head of Connecticut river has yet been ascertained; and whereas that part of the boundary line between the dominions of the two powers which extends from the source of the river St. Croix directly north to the above mentioned north-west angle of Nova Scotia, thence along the said highlands which divide these rivers that empty themselves into the River St. Lawrence, from these which fall into the Atlantic Ocean, to the north-westernmost head of Connecticut river, thence down along the middle of that river to the 45th degree of north latitude, until it strikes the River Iroquois or Cataraquy, has not been surveyed; it is agreed, that for these several purposes, two Commissioners shall be appointed, sworn, and authorized to act exactly in the manner directed, with respect to these mentioned in the next preceding article.

*

*

Commissioners were duly appointed under this article. They met. A due north line was run with care, throughout the disputed tract, to find out where the highlands really were, but to no purpose. Britain was too incurious as to colonial matters, and the States were too astute to press for any immediate arbitration, and it was not until 1829 that the contemplated documents were placed in the hands of the King of Holland, the selected arbitrator. The merits of the controversy are

'So quoted; should be "intent." - [P.