extradition of criminals, were severely criticised. But, in spite of this opposition, the Senate on the 20th of August gave its advice and consent to the exchange of the ratifications by a vote of 39 to 9. In England the treaty was assailed as the "Ashburton capitulation."" Lord Palmerston even went so far as to make the fact that Ashburton had an American wife a ground of attack on the negotiations.*

3

Provisions of the
Treaty.

Nevertheless, the treaty was duly carried Execution of the into effect. On the 28th of June 1847 Col. J. Bucknall Estcourt and Mr. Albert Smith, respectively the British and American commnissioners to run the line described in the first article of the treaty, signed at Washington their final report, at the conclu sion of which they say "that the most perfect harmony has subsisted between the two commissioners from first to last, and that no differences have arisen between the undersigned in the execution of the duties entrusted to them."

The "Red Line"
Мар.

6

Any history of the settlement of the northeastern boundary dispute would be incomplete which omitted to mention the question that arose as to maps. As has been seen, the map used by the negotiators of 1782-83 was Mitchell's, but no copy with the lines marked on it was annexed to the treaty. When the conclusion of the provisional articles of peace became known, Count Vergennes, the French minister for foreign affairs, sent to Franklin a copy of a map, with the request that he would mark the boundaries of the United States upon it. By whom the map was made does not appear, nor whether the maker

1 Webster's Private Correspondence, II. 146. After his return to the Senate, Mr. Webster, on April 6 and 7, 1846, made an elaborate defense of the treaty. (Webster's Works, V. 78.)

2 Lord Ashburton to Mr. Webster, January 2, 1843, Webster's Private Correspondence, II. 162.

3 Lord Ashburton married a Miss Bingham, of Philadelphia.

4 Sanders's Life of Lord Palmerston, 91; Francis's Opinions and Policy of Lord Palmerston, 443; Lord Palmerston on the Treaty of Washington (a collection of articles published in the London Morning Chronicle from Sept. 19, to Oct. 3, 1842, the authorship of which was popularly ascribed to Lord Palmerston). See Bulwer's Life of Lord Palmerston, III. 61, 113, 118. See, also, as to the reception of the treaty in England, Curtis's Life of Webster, II. 147, 150-152, 155–162.

5 Br. and For. State Papers, LVII. 823, 832; XXXIII. 763-806; Curtis's Life of Webster, II. 204-205.

6 Wharton's Dip. Cor. Am. Rev. VI. 131, 133.

1

was of English, French, or other nationality. On the 6th of December 1782 Franklin returned the map after having, as he said, marked the limits of the United States "with a strong red line." Early in 1842 Jared Sparks, while pursuing his researches among the papers relating to the American Revolution in the archives of the French department of foreign affairs, discovered Franklin's letter to Vergennes. Immediately instituting a search, he found among the 60,000 maps in the archives a small map of North America by D'Anville dated 1746, with a red line upon it apparently drawn with a hair pencil or a pen with a blunt point, and apparently intended to indicate the boundaries of the United States.2 Besides this line there was nothing whatever to identify the map with the map marked by Franklin. In reality, it made the northeastern boundary run even below the line claimed by Great Britain westward from Mars Hill.3 Sparks however at once sent a copy of the map to Mr. Webster, who, after inspecting it, instructed Mr. Everett to "forbear to press the search after maps in England or elsewhere."4 Mr. Webster retained the copy in his possession, but exhibited it only to the Maine. commissioners and later to the Senate. That it bore any relation to the negotiations of 1782 and 1783 is more than doubtful. This was strongly intimated by Benton in the debates on the treaty. But when, through the publication of the debates in the Senate, the use made by Mr. Webster of the map became known he was vigorously assailed for not having exhibited it to Lord Ashburton, whom he was charged with having overreached. Mr. Webster very appropriately replied that he did not think it a very urgent duty on his part to go to Lord Ashburton and say that a doubtful bit of evidence had been found in Paris, out of which he might perhaps make something to the prejudice of the United States, or from which he might set up higher claims for himself, or obscure the whole matter still further. But it must have been known, at least to some of

1 Wharton's Dip. Cor. Am. Rev. VI. 120.

2 Sparks, North American Review (1843), LVI. 470–471.

3 North American Review (1843), LVI. 468.

4 Curtis's Life of Webster, II. 103.

5 Winsor's Narrative and Critical History of America, VII. 180, et seq.

6 Benton's Thirty Years' View, II. 422.

7 Curtis's Life of Webster. II. 132, 134, 149, 154, 155, 159–162, 167.

४

Proceedings of the New York Historical Society, April 15, 1813, p. 67; Webster's Works, II. 145.

Mr. Webster's and Lord Ashburton's detractors in England, that there then existed in the foreign office, to which it had been removed from the British Museum,' the veritable copy of Mitchell's map used in the negotiations of 1782 with Oswald's line, and also the line finally agreed on marked upon it. This map was exhibited by Lord Aberdeen to Mr. Everett at the foreign office in March 1843. It was subsequently restored to the British Mu eum, where it is now preserved. A copy of Mitchell's map, with Oswald's first line marked upon it, was found in 1843 among the papers of Mr. Jay. This line runs along the St. John from its mouth and follows the north branch to the head of Lake Medousa, where it turns westward, and, on its course to the head of Connecticut River, skirts the sources of the streams that empty themselves into the River St. Lawrence.

ican Commissioners in 1782.

It has been seen that Egbert Benson, in his Map used by Amer- report under Article V. of the treaty of 1794, said that the commissioners under that article had before them the copy of Mitchell's map used by the negotiators of the treaty of peace, with the lines of the boundary marked upon it. This map, he said, was obtained from the Department of State. It probably was the one referred to by a writer in 1826, who said: "We have ourselves seen the very copy of the map which was used at the conference at Paris, with the lines in pencil yet hardly obliter

Benton's Thirty Years' View, II. 422.

2 Mr. Everett, in a dispatch of March 31, 1843, describes the map thus: "It is a copy of Mitchell in fine preservation. The boundaries between the British and French Possessions, as fixed by the treaty of Utretch,' are marked upon it in a very full distinct line, at least a tenth of an inch broad, and those words written in several places. In like manner the line giving our boundary as we have always claimed it, that is, carrying the northwestern angle of Nova Scotia far to the north of the St. Johns, is drawn very carefully in a bold red line, full a tenth of an inch broad; and in four different places along the line distinctly written the boundary described by Mr Oswald.' What is very noticeable is, that a line narrower, but drawn with care with an instrument, from the lower end of Lake Nipissing to the source of the Mississippi, as far as the map permits such a line to run, had once been drawn on the map, and has since been partially erased, though still distinctly visible." (Benton's Thirty Years' View, II. 671.)

3 Fitzmaurice's Life of Shelburne, III. 205, 324, note.

4 Proceedings of the New York Historical Society, April 18, 1843, with a "Memoir on the Northeastern Boundary," by Mr. Gallatin, and a speech by Mr. Webster.