intimate to the United States that it would not consider the formal acceptance of the award by the two governments as precluding modifications of the line by mutual exchange and concession. The Government of the United States for a time hesitated. Mr. Preble's protest was made without instructions, and President Jackson was inclined to accept the award He afterward regretted that he had not done so.3 The award was, however, unsatisfactory both to Maine and to Massachu setts, and on December 7, 1831, the President submitted the question of its acceptance or rejection to the United States Senate. The Senate in June 1832, by a vote of 35 to 8, resolved that the award was not obligatory, and advised the President to open a new negotiation with Great Britain for the ascertainment of the line. The British Government, though it declined to consider the question of the navigation of the St. John in connection with the boundary question, promised to enter upon the negotiations in a friendly spirit; and it was agreed that both sides should in the mean time refrain from exercising any jurisdiction beyond the boundaries which they actually possessed."

Maine.

Meanwhile the Government of the United Negotiations of States entered into an unsuccessful negotia United States with tion with the State of Maine, with a view to obtain a free hand for effecting a settlement. It was proposed that the legislature of Maine should provisionally surrender to the United States all territory claimed by the State north of the St. John and east of the River St. Francis, Maine to be indemnified by adjoining territory for the ultimate loss of any part of the territory thus surrendered, and, so far as the adjoining territory should prove inadequate, by Michigan lands, at the rate of a million acres of such lands for the whole of the territory surrendered, the lands thus appropriated to be sold by the United States and the proceeds paid into the treasury of Maine. An agreement or "treaty" to this effect was actually signed in 1832 by Edward Livingston, Secretary of State, Louis McLane, and Levi Woodbury, on the part of the United States, and by William Pitt Preble, Ruel Williams, and Nicholas Emery, on the part of Maine. It never was rat

Br. and For. State Papers, XXII. 772, 776, 783. 2S. Ex. Doc. 3, 22 Cong. 1 sess.

3 Curtis's Life of Webster, II. 139.

4 Br. and For. State Papers, XXII. 788, 850, 871.

5 Br. and For. State Papers, XXII. 788, 795.

ified.

Nor did the fact that it was concluded become public till long after the transaction had failed.'

Lane.

In April 1833 Mr. Livingston made to the Proposal of Messrs. British minister at Washington a proposal Livingston and Mcwhich Mr. Gallatin once declared to be "incomprehensible." He proposed that, in connection with the appointment of a commission of European experts, fresh surveys should be made, and that if it should be found that the line due north from the source of the St. Croix would not reach the highlands described in the treaty of 1783, a line should be drawn from the source of the St. Croix directly to such highlands, whatever its direction might be." This proposition was further explained by Mr. McLane, Mr. Livingston's successor. The first duty of the commissioners, said Mr. McLane, would be to find the highlands, whether north or south of the St. John; and it would then be their duty to draw a line from the monument at the head of the St. Croix to that point in the highlands which should be nearest to a due-north line, but not in any case to deviate to the eastward.'

Division of Terri

tory.

The British Government, thinking that British Proposal for nothing could be accomplished by a new commission and further surveys, unless the parties could previously agree as to what were "rivers falling into the Atlantic Ocean," now formally withdrew its offer to accept the compromise recommended by the King of the Netherlands, and proposed to divide the territory by taking the River St. John, from its intersection by the due-north line to its southernmost source, as the boundary."

The President declined this proposal, but United States' Pro- offered to solicit the consent of Maine to make posal of the St. the St. John from its source to its mouth the John. boundary. To this offer the British repre

S. Ex. Doc. 431, 25 Cong. 2 sess.

2 Mr. Gallatin to Mr. Davies, June 14, 1839, Adams's Writings of Gallatin, II. 546.

3 Br. and For. State Papers, XXII. 804, 812.

Br. and For. State Papers, XXII. 818-820. Mr. Gallatin said that Mr. Livingston and Mr. McLane "sadly departed" from the true ground, "simply because they did not take the trouble to examine the question." (Letter to Mr. Howard, Nov. 5, 1840, Adams's Writings of Gallatin, II. 549.) 5 Br. and For. State Papers, XXII. 826, 857.

"Mr. Bankhead, British chargé, to Mr. Forsyth, Sec. of State, Dec. 28, 1835. (Br. and For. State Papers, XXIV. 1179.)

Br. and For. State Papers, XXII. 1184; XXV. 903; S. Ex. Doc. 319, 25 Cong. 2 sess.

sentative at once replied that he was convinced his government would never agree to it. On the 15th of June 1836 the correspondence was communicated to the Senate.2

Van Buren's Ad

ministration.

Thus the negotiations stood at the close of State of Case during President Jackson's administration, when the thread was taken up by President Van Buren. In his first annual message of December 5, 1837, President Van Buren adverted to the subject and expressed the hope that "an early and satisfactory adjustment" of it would be effected.3 On the 20th of March 1838 he sent a message to the Senate, with recent correspondence between the Secretary of State, Mr. Forsyth, and the British minister, Mr. Fox. By this correspondence it appeared that the question of a new commission was still pending, though neither party seemed to entertain strong hopes that such a mode would, if tried again, be successful. It also appeared that Mr. Forsyth had sought the opinion of the government of Maine as to the adoption of a new conventional line as the only amicable way of settling the dispute except by an arbitration. Governor Kent submitted the question to the legislature, which on the 23d of March 1838 resolved (1) that it was not expedient to assent to the Federal Government's treating for a conventional line, but that the State would insist on the line established by the treaty of 1783; (2) that the State had not assented to the appointment of an arbitrator under the Treaty of Ghent, and was not prepared to consent to the appointment of a new one; (3) that the Senators and Representatives of Maine in Congress be requested to urge the pas sage of a bill then pending for the survey of the boundary; and that, if the bill should not during the current session of Congress become a law, and the Government of the United States should not before the 1st of September, either alone or in conjunction with Great Britain, appoint a commission to make a survey, it should be the imperative duty of the governor to appoint commissioners for ascertaining, running, and locating the line, and to cause it to be carried into operation.”

Br. and For. State Papers, XXII. 1187.

The message and correspondence were published, much, it seems, to the annoyance of the President and the Secretary of State. (Br. and For. State Papers, XXV. 907–908.)

Br. and For. State Papers, XXV. 916–917.

4S. Ex. Doc. 319, 25 Cong, 2 sess.

On July 4, 1838, the Committee on Foreign Relations of the United States Senate reported adversely the bill directing the President to cause the boundary to be "surveyed and marked." (S. Rep. 502, 25 Cong. 2 sess.)

Report of Feather-
stonhaugh
Mudge.

and

Negotiations for another arbitration languished along for three more years, with many projects and counterprojects,' and in the mean time new but independent surveys were made by both governments. In 1839 Messrs. Featherstonhaugh and Mudge surveyed a part of the territory in dispute for the British Government and subsequently presented their well-known report, in which they took the ground that all prior lines were erroneous, and proposed a new one. By the grant of James I. to Sir William Alexander, Nova Scotia was, as we have seen, bounded on the west by a line drawn from St. Marys Bay "versus septentrionem" (toward the north) directly across the mouth of the Bay of Fundy to the St. Croix River, and thence up that river to the remotest source or spring on its western side; and from that point by an imaginary direct line "versus septentrionem" to the nearest ship road, river, or spring emptying itself into the River St. Lawrence. Messrs. Featherstonhaugh and Mudge discovered that the words "versus septentrionem," which had always been translated "toward the north," really meant "northwest." Such was, in fact, the direction of the line from St. Marys Bay to the St. Croix kiver; and such also, they argued, was the direction of the line from the mouth of that river to the true source or spring mentioned in the grant, which, though either misunderstood or disregarded by the commissioners under Article V. of the Jay Treaty, evidently intended the westernmost waters of the Scoodeag (Schoodiac) lakes. "Having reached the most remote spring where the land portage begins, we find," they said, "the old course versus septentrionem, or north-west, again enjoined, and directed to be followed by a straight line drawn in that direction to the nearest naval station, river, or spring, discharging itself into the great river of Canada. Such a course leads directly to the east branches of the Chaudière, which are in the 46th parallel of north latitude, and on the ancient confines of Acadia." Here they found a starting point from which to follow the highlands.

Webster's Works, VI. 89-98.

2 George William Featherstonhaugh, who is referred to in the text, in his early life spent many years in North America. In 1834-35 he made for the War Department of the United States a geological inspection of parts of the West; and in his reports, which were printed by order of Congress, he is described as "United States Geologist." He projected a geological map of the United States. After he completed his labors as a commissioner for the British Government in relation to the northeastern boundary, he was appointed a British consul in France, where in 1866 he died.

As to the highlands, Messrs. Featherstonhaugh and Mudge said that the Green Mountains, which ran from south to north between the rivers Hudson and Connecticut, divided at the forty-fourth degree of north latitude into two branches, of which the southern, proceeding northeasterly, separated the head waters of the Chaudière from those of the Connecticut, the Kennebec, and the western branches of the Penobscot. This was, they maintained, the ridge designated in the proclamation of 1763; and, though toward the east its height was diminished, it continued to form the "axis of maximum elevation," and farther on its course toward the Bay of Chaleurs attained an altitude of 2,000 feet. This axis of maximum elevation they presented "as the true Highlands intended by the 2nd article of the treaty of 1783, uniting to the character of " Highlands,' as contradistinguished from lowlands, the condition required by the treaty, of dividing the 'rivers that empty themselves into the river St. Lawrence from those which flow into the Atlantic Ocean, to the northwesternmost head of Connecticut River.""

As appears by the map at the beginning of this chapter, the line of Messrs. Featherstonhaugh and Mudge intersects the highlands claimed by Great Britain before the King of the Netherlands. Nor does it in the whole of its northeasterly course from the source of the Chaudière touch any stream flowing into the River St. Lawrence, or, for a large part of the way, run within a hundred miles of them, or in fact "divide, intersect, or touch any other rivers than the St. John, and the tributary streams of that river, or those which fall into the Bay des Chaleurs."1

In the Westminster Review for June 1840 Mr. Charles Buller, it is said with the approval of Lord Palmerston, proposed yet another line. Admitting that the lines of the treaty of 1783 were not new lines, but were those intended by the proclamation of 1763, the act of 1774, and the commissions of the governors of Quebec and Nova Scotia, he argued that the principal object of the boundary was to connect the head of the Connecticut River with the head of the Bay of Chaleurs. This connection he proposed to make by drawing a straight line from the source of the Restigouche to the head of the Connecticut.

'Gallatin's The Right of the United States of America to the Northeastern Boundary Claimed by Them, 151.

2 North American Review (1843), LVI. 457.