The diminution in the revenue arising from the great diminution of duties under what is commonly called the compromise act necessarily involves the Treasury in embarrassments, which have been for some years palliated by the temporary expedient of issuing Treasury notes–an expedient which, affording no permanent relief, has imposed upon Congress from time to time the necessity of replacing the old by a new issue. The amount outstanding on the 4th of March, 1840, varies in no great degree from the amount which will be outstanding on the 1st of January next, while in the interim the new issues are rendered equivalent to the redemption of the old, and at the end of the fiscal year leave an augmented pressure on the finances by the accumulation of interest.
The contemplated revision of the tariff of duties may, and doubtless will, lead in the end to a relief of the Treasury from these constantly recurring embarrassments, but it must be obvious that time will be necessary to realize the full anticipations of financial benefit from any modification of the tariff laws. In the meantime I submit to Congress the suggestions made by the Secretary, and invite its prompt and speedy action.
JOHN TYLER.
WASHINGTON, _March 8, 1842_.
_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:
In my message of the 7th of December I suggested to Congress the propriety, and in some degree the necessity, of making proper provisions by law within the pale of the Constitution for the removal at their commencement and at the option of the party of all such cases as might arise in State courts involving national questions or questions touching the faithful observance and discharge of the international obligations of the United States from such State tribunal to the Federal judiciary. I am urged to repeat at this time this recommendation by the receipt of intelligence, upon which I can rely, that a subject of Great Britain residing in Upper Canada has been arrested upon a charge of connection with the expedition fitted out by the Canadian authorities by which the _Caroline_ was destroyed, and will in all probability be subjected to trial in the State courts of New York. It is doubtful whether in this state of things, should his discharge be demanded by the British Government, this Government is invested with any control over the subject until the case shall have reached the court of final resort of the State of New York and been decided in that court; and although such delay ought not, in a national point of view to give cause of umbrage to Great Britain, yet the prompt and instant rendering of justice to foreign nations should be placed among our highest duties. I can not, therefore, in consideration of what properly becomes the United States, and in anticipation of any demand from a foreign government for the discharge of one of its subjects, forego the duty of repeating my recommendation to Congress for the immediate Adoption of some suitable legislative provision on this subject.
JOHN TYLER.
WASHINGTON, _March 11, 1842_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
In compliance with a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 23d ultimo, I communicate to that body a report from the Secretary of State, conveying copies of the correspondence[26] which contains the information called for by said resolution.
JOHN TYLER.
[Footnote 26: Relating to complaints of Spain and Portugal that the operation of the revenue act of September 11, 1841, infringed treaty stipulations.]
WASHINGTON, _March 12, 1842_.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
I have reason to think that the rejection of Silas Reed as surveyor-general of Illinois and Missouri on the evening of the last day of the session of the Senate at the last session of Congress was founded in a misapprehension of facts, which, while it deprived the public of the services of a useful officer, left him to suffer a considerable degree of injustice in his reputation. After mature reflection upon all the circumstances of his case, and particularly of facts which have become known since his rejection, I have felt it my duty to submit his nomination for the same office anew to the Senate for its advice and consent.
I therefore nominate Silas Reed to be surveyor-general of Illinois and Missouri, in place of Joseph C. Brown, removed.
JOHN TYLER.
MARCH 15, 1842.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
I take the earliest moment to correct an error into which I inadvertently fell in my message of the 12th instant, nominating Silas Reed to be surveyor-general for Illinois and Missouri. In that message I represent the nominee as being rejected by the Senate on the evening of the last day of the last session of Congress, when upon a more accurate inquiry I find that he was rejected on the 14th of August, 1841, and his successor nominated on the 23d August and confirmed on the 13th September, which was the last day of the last session of Congress, and which fact had become identified in my memory, upon which I drew when I wrote the message, with the fact of his rejection.
I hasten to make the correction, not deeming it, however, of much moment in regard to the real merits of the nomination; for whether the rejection occurred on the last or any other day of the session, if done under a misapprehension or mistake of the facts, the Senate, I doubt not, will take equal pleasure in correcting the error.
JOHN TYLER.
WASHINGTON, _March 17, 1842_.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 2d ultimo, requesting information in regard to the demarcation of the boundary line between the United States and the Republic of Texas, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State and the papers by which it was accompanied.
JOHN TYLER.
WASHINGTON, _March 17, 1842_.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
I have the honor to submit the accompanying report and documents[27] from the Postmaster-General, in compliance with the resolution of the Senate of the 16th February.
JOHN TYLER.
[Footnote 27: Statements of the quantity and cost of labor and materials for the new public buildings in Washington, D.C., etc.]
WASHINGTON, _March 23, 1842_.
_To the House of Representatives of the United States_:
A resolution adopted by the House of Representatives on the 16th instant, in the following words, viz, “_Resolved_, That the President of the United States and the heads of the several Departments be requested to communicate to the House of Representatives the names of such of the members (if any) of the Twenty-sixth and Twenty-seventh Congresses who have been applicants for office, and for what offices, distinguishing between those who have applied in person and those whose applications were made by friends, whether in person or by writing,” has been transmitted to me for my consideration.
If it were consistent with the rights and duties of the executive department, it would afford me great pleasure to furnish in this, as in all cases in which proper information is demanded, a ready compliance with the wishes of the House of Representatives. But since, in my view, general considerations of policy and propriety, as well as a proper defense of the rights and safeguards of the executive department, require of me as the Chief Magistrate to refuse compliance with the terms of this resolution, it is incumbent on me to urge, for the consideration of the House of Representatives, my reasons for declining to give the desired information.
All appointments to office made by a President become from the date of their nomination to the Senate official acts, which are matter of record and are at the proper time made known to the House of Representatives and to the country. But applications for office, or letters respecting appointments, or conversations held with individuals on such subjects are not official proceedings, and can not by any means be made to partake of the character of official proceedings unless after the nomination of such person so writing or conversing the President shall think proper to lay such correspondence or such conversations before the Senate. Applications for office are in their very nature confidential, and if the reasons assigned for such applications or the names of the applicants were communicated, not only would such implied confidence be wantonly violated, but, in addition, it is quite obvious that a mass of vague, incoherent, and personal matter would be made public at a vast consumption of time, money, and trouble without accomplishing or tending in any manner to accomplish, as it appears to me, any useful object connected with a sound and constitutional administration of the Government in any of its branches.
But there is a consideration of a still more effective and lofty character which is with me entirely decisive of the correctness of the view that I have taken of this question. While I shall ever evince the greatest readiness to communicate to the House of Representatives all proper information which the House shall deem necessary to a due discharge of its constitutional obligations and functions, yet it becomes me, in defense of the Constitution and laws of the United States, to protect the executive department from all encroachment on its powers, rights, and duties. In my judgment a compliance with the resolution which has been transmitted to me would be a surrender of duties and powers which the Constitution has conferred exclusively on the Executive, and therefore such compliance can not be made by me nor by the heads of Departments by my direction. The appointing power, so far as it is bestowed on the President by the Constitution, is conferred without reserve or qualification. The reason for the appointment and the responsibility of the appointment rest with him alone. I can not perceive anywhere in the Constitution of the United States any right conferred on the House of Representatives to hear the reasons which an applicant may urge for an appointment to office under the executive department, or any duty resting upon the House of Representatives by which it may become responsible for any such appointment.
Any assumption or misapprehension on the part of the House of Representatives of its duties and powers in respect to appointments by which it encroaches on the rights and duties of the executive department is to the extent to which it reaches dangerous, impolitic, and unconstitutional.
For these reasons, so perfectly convincing to my mind, I beg leave respectfully to repeat, in conclusion, that I can not comply with the request contained in the above resolution.
JOHN TYLER.
WASHINGTON, _March 25, 1842_.
_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:
Notwithstanding the urgency with which I have on more than one occasion felt it my duty to press upon Congress the necessity of providing the Government with the means of discharging its debts and maintaining inviolate the public faith, the increasing embarrassments of the Treasury impose upon me the indispensable obligation of again inviting your most serious attention to the condition of the finances. Fortunately for myself in thus bringing this important subject to your view for a deliberate and comprehensive examination in all its bearings, and I trust I may add for a final adjustment of it to the common advantage of the whole Union, I am permitted to approach it with perfect freedom and candor. As few of the burdens for which provision is now required to be made have been brought upon the country during my short administration of its affairs, I have neither motive nor wish to make them a matter of crimination against any of my predecessors. I am disposed to regard, as I am bound to treat, them _as facts_ which can not now be undone, and as deeply interesting to us all, and equally imposing upon all the most solemn duties; and the only use I would make of the errors of the past is by a careful examination of their causes and character to avoid if possible the repetition of them in future. The condition of the country, indeed, is such as may well arrest the conflict of parties.
The conviction seems at length to have made its way to the minds of all that the disproportion between the public responsibilities and the means provided for meeting them is no casual nor transient evil. It is, on the contrary, one which for some years to come, notwithstanding a resort to all reasonable retrenchments and the constant progress of the country in population and productive power, must continue to increase under existing laws, unless we consent to give up or impair all our defenses in war and peace. But this is a thought which I am persuaded no patriotic mind would for a moment entertain. Without affecting an alarm, which I do not feel, in regard to our foreign relations, it may safely be affirmed that they are in a state too critical and involve too many momentous issues to permit us to neglect in the least, much less to abandon entirely, those means of asserting our rights without which negotiation is without dignity and peace without security.
In the report of the Secretary of the Treasury submitted to Congress at the commencement of the present session it is estimated that after exhausting all the probable resources of the year there will remain a deficit of about $14,000,000. With a view partly to a permanent system of revenue and partly to immediate relief from actual embarrassment, that officer recommended, together with a plan for establishing a Government exchequer, some expedients of a more temporary character, viz, the issuing of Treasury notes and the extension of the time for which the loan authorized to be negotiated by the act of the last session should be taken. Congress accordingly provided for an issue of Treasury notes to the amount of $5,000,000, but subject to the condition that they should not be paid away below par.
No measure connected with the last of the two objects above mentioned was introduced until recently into the House of Representatives. Should the loan bill now pending before that body pass into a law for its present amount, there would still remain a deficit of $2,500,000. It requires no argument to show that such a condition of the Treasury is incompatible not only with a high state of public credit, but with anything approaching to efficiency in the conduct of public affairs. It must be obvious even to the most inexperienced minds that, to say nothing of any particular exigency, actual or imminent, there should be at all times in the Treasury of a great nation, with a view to contingencies of ordinary occurrence, a surplus at least equal in amount to the above deficiency. But that deficiency, serious as it would be in itself, will, I am compelled to say, rather be increased than diminished without the adoption of measures adequate to correct the evil at once. The stagnation of trade and business, in some degree incident to the derangement of the national finances and the state of the revenue laws, holds out but little prospect of relief, in the ordinary course of things, for some time to come.
Under such circumstances I am deeply impressed with the necessity of meeting the crisis with a vigor and decision which it imperatively demands at the hands of all intrusted with the conduct of public affairs. The gravity of the evil calls for a remedy proportioned to it. No slight palliatives or occasional expedients will give the country the relief it needs. Such measures, on the contrary, will in the end, as is now manifest to all, too surely multiply its embarrassments. Relying, as I am bound to do, on the representatives of a people rendered illustrious among nations by having paid off its whole public debt, I shall not shrink from the responsibility imposed upon me by the Constitution of pointing out such measures as will in my opinion insure adequate relief. I am the more encouraged to recommend the course which necessity exacts by the confidence which I have in its complete success. The resources of the country in everything that constitutes the wealth and strength of nations are so abundant, the spirit of a most industrious, enterprising, and intelligent people is so energetic and elastic, that the Government will be without the shadow of excuse for its delinquency if the difficulties which now embarrass it be not speedily and effectually removed.
From present indications it is hardly doubtful that Congress will find it necessary to lay additional duties on imports in order to meet the ordinary current expenses of the Government. In the exercise of a sound discrimination having reference to revenue, but at the same time necessarily affording incidental protection to manufacturing industry, it seems equally probable that duties on some articles of importation will have to be advanced above 20 per cent. In performing this important work of revising the tariff of duties, which in the present emergency would seem to be indispensable, I can not too strongly recommend the cultivation of a spirit of mutual harmony and concession, to which the Government itself owes its origin, and without the continued exercise of which jarring and discord would universally prevail.
An additional reason for the increase of duties in some instances beyond the rate of 20 per cent will exist in fulfilling the recommendations already made, and now repeated, of making adequate appropriations for the defenses of the country.
By the express provision of the act distributing the proceeds of the sales of the public lands among the States its operation is _ipso facto_ to cease so soon as the rate of the duties shall exceed the limits prescribed in the act.
In recommending the adoption of measures for distributing the proceeds of the public lands among the States at the commencement of the last session of Congress such distribution was urged by arguments and considerations which appeared to me then and appear to me now of great weight, and was placed on the condition that it should not render necessary any departure from the act of 1833. It is with sincere regret that I now perceive the necessity of departing from that act, because I am well aware that expectations justly entertained by some of the States will be disappointed by any occasion which shall withhold from them the proceeds of the lands. But the condition was plainly expressed in the message and was inserted in terms equally plain in the law itself, and amidst the embarrassments which surround the country on all sides and beset both the General and the State Governments it appears to me that the object first and highest in importance is to establish the credit of this Government and to place it on durable foundations, and thus afford the most effectual support to the credit of the States, equal at least to what it would receive from a direct distribution of the proceeds of the sales of the public lands.
When the distribution law was passed there was reason to anticipate that there soon would be a real surplus to distribute. On that assumption it was in my opinion a wise, a just, and a beneficent measure. But to continue it in force while there is no such surplus to distribute and when it is manifestly necessary not only to increase the duties, but at the same time to borrow money in order to liquidate the public debt and disembarrass the public Treasury, would cause it to be regarded as an unwise alienation of the best security of the public creditor, which would with difficulty be excused and could not be justified.
Causes of no ordinary character have recently depressed American credit in the stock market of the world to a degree quite unprecedented. I need scarcely mention the condition of the banking institutions of some of the States, the vast amount of foreign debt contracted during a period of wild speculation by corporations and individuals, and, above all, the Doctrine of repudiation of contracts solemnly entered into by States, which, although as yet applied only under circumstances of a peculiar character and generally rebuked with severity by the moral sense of the community, is yet so very licentious and, in a Government depending wholly on opinion, so very alarming that the impression made by it to our disadvantage as a people is anything but surprising. Under such circumstances it is imperatively due from us to the people whom we represent that when we go into the money market to contract a loan we should tender such securities as to cause the money lender, as well at home as abroad, to feel that the most propitious opportunity is afforded him of investing profitably and judiciously his capital. A government which has paid off the debts of two wars, waged with the most powerful nation of modern times, should not be brought to the necessity of chaffering for terms in the money market. Under such circumstances as I have adverted to our object should be to produce with the capitalist a feeling of entire confidence, by a tender of that sort of security which in all times past has been esteemed sufficient, and which for the small amount of our proposed indebtedness will unhesitatingly be regarded as amply adequate. While a pledge of all the revenues amounts to no more than is implied in every instance when the Government contracts a debt, and although it ought in ordinary circumstances to be entirely satisfactory, yet in times like these the capitalist would feel better satisfied with the pledge of a specific fund, ample in magnitude to the payment of his interest and ultimate reimbursement of his principal. Such is the character of the land fund. The most vigilant money dealer will readily perceive that not only will his interest be secure on such a pledge, but that a debt of $18,000,000 or $20,000,000 would by the surplus of sales over and above the payment of the interest be extinguished within any reasonable time fixed for its redemption. To relieve the Treasury from its embarrassments and to aid in meeting its requisitions until time is allowed for any new tariff of duties to become available, it would seem to be necessary to fund a debt approaching to $15,000,000; and in order to place the negotiation of the loan beyond a reasonable doubt I submit to Congress whether the proceeds of the sales of the public lands should not be pledged for the payment of the interest, and the Secretary of the Treasury be authorized out of the surplus of the proceeds of such sales to purchase the stock, when it can be procured on such terms as will render it beneficial in that way, to extinguish the debt and prevent the accumulation of such surplus while its distribution is suspended.
No one can doubt that were the Federal Treasury now as prosperous as it was ten years ago and its fiscal operations conducted by an efficient agency of its own, coextensive with the Union, the embarrassments of the States and corporations in them would produce, even if they continued as they are (were that possible), effects far less disastrous than those now experienced. It is the disorder here, at the heart and center of the system, that paralyzes and deranges every part of it. Who does not know the permanent importance, not to the Federal Government alone, but to every State and every individual within its jurisdiction, even in their most independent and isolated individual pursuits, of the preservation of a sound state of public opinion and a judicious administration here? The sympathy is instantaneous and universal. To attempt to remedy the evil of the deranged credit and currency of the States while the disease is allowed to rage in the vitals of this Government would be a hopeless undertaking.
It is the full conviction of this truth which emboldens me most earnestly to recommend to your early and serious consideration the measures now submitted to your better judgment, as well as those to which your attention has been already invited. The first great want of the country, that without answering which all attempts at bettering the present condition of things will prove fruitless, is a complete restoration of the credit and finances of the Federal Government. The source and foundation of all credit is in the confidence which the Government inspires, and just in proportion as that confidence shall be shaken or diminished will be the distrust among all classes of the community and the derangement and demoralization in every branch of business and all the interests of the country. Keep up the standard of good faith and punctuality in the operations of the General Government, and all partial irregularities and disorders will be rectified by the influence of its example; but suffer that standard to be debased or disturbed, and it is impossible to foresee to what a degree of degradation and confusion all financial interests, public and private, may sink. In such a country as this the representatives of the people have only to will it, and the public credit will be as high as it ever was.
My own views of the measures calculated to effect this great and desirable object I have thus frankly expressed to Congress under circumstances which give to the entire subject a peculiar and solemn interest. The Executive can do no more. If the credit of the country be exposed to question, if the public defenses be broken down or weakened, if the whole administration of public affairs be embarrassed for want of the necessary means for conducting them with vigor and effect, I trust that this department of the Government will be found to have done all that was in its power to avert such evils, and will be acquitted of all just blame on account of them.
JOHN TYLER.
WASHINGTON, _March 25, 1842_.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
I have the honor herewith to submit a report[28] from the Secretary of the Navy, in compliance with your resolution of the 18th February, 1842.
JOHN TYLER.
[Footnote 28: Transmitting list of agents, etc., employed by the Navy Department without express authority of law, etc.]
WASHINGTON, _March 30, 1842_.
_To the House of Representatives of the United States_:
I transmit to the House of Representatives two extracts from a note of the charge d’affaires of the Republic of Texas accredited to this Government to the Department of State, one suggesting in behalf of his Government such modifications of the existing laws of the United States as will impart greater facility to the trade between the two countries, particularly to that which passes across their frontier, and the other expressing a desire for some regulation on the part of this Government by means of which the communication by post between the United States and Texas may be improved.
As the wishes of the Texan Government in relation to those subjects can only be gratified by means of laws to be passed by Congress, they are accordingly referred to the consideration of the two Houses.
JOHN TYLER.
[The same message was sent to the Senate.]
WASHINGTON, _April 1, 1842_.
_To the Senate_:
In part compliance with a resolution of the Senate of the 20th of July, 1841, I transmit herewith a report[29] from the Department of War.
JOHN TYLER.
[Footnote 29: Transmitting list of removals from and appointments to office in the Department of War from March 4, 1829, to September 30, 1841.]
WASHINGTON, _April 1, 1842_.
_To the House of Representatives of the United States_:
In compliance with your resolution of the 21st of March, I have the honor to submit the accompanying communication[30] from the Secretary of the Navy.
JOHN TYLER.
[Footnote 30: Relating to appointments to office in the Navy and Marine Corps since April 4, 1841.]
WASHINGTON, _April 4, 1842_.
_To the House of Representatives of the United States_.
In part compliance with a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 21st March, 1842, I herewith communicate a report[31] from the Secretary of State.
JOHN TYLER.
[Footnote 31: Transmitting list of appointments by the President or Secretary of State since April 4, 1841.]
WASHINGTON, _April 7, 1842_.
_To the House of Representatives of the United States_:
I herewith transmit to the House of Representatives copies of a letter addressed to the Secretary of State by the chairman of the board of commissioners appointed to explore and survey the boundary line between the States of Maine and New Hampshire and the adjoining British Provinces, together with the report of the operations of that commission to the 31st ultimo, and a profile of the meridian line from the source of the St. Croix River as far as surveyed, illustrative of the report.
JOHN TYLER.
[The same message was sent to the Senate.]
DEPARTMENT OF STATE,
_Washington, March 31, 1842_.
Hon. DANIEL WEBSTER,
_Secretary of State_.
SIR: By directions of the board of commissioners for exploring and surveying the northeastern boundary, I have handed you the papers hereinafter specified, viz:
1. The report of the operations of the commission up to the present date.
2. A profile of the meridian line of the source of the St. Croix as far as surveyed, intended to illustrate the report.
3. A portfolio of drawings intended for the same purpose.
4. A roll marked Appendix No. 1, containing the narrative of the field operations of the division of Professor Renwick.
5. A tin case containing the detail of the surveys of the division of Professor Renwick.
In reply to your inquiry in relation to the disposition of the said papers, I am directed respectfully to suggest that all which it is absolutely necessary to lay before Congress are the items 1 and 2, which, with a general map now in preparation, will contain all that will be of any general public interest.
The portfolio (No. 3) and the box of maps and profiles (No. 5) should remain on file in the Department; and while a part of the drawings in the former may be useful for illustration, the latter will be superseded by the general map, in which will be embodied all that they contain of importance to the question at issue.
Appendix No. 1, specified as No. 4 in the above list, will probably be demanded hereafter to give authenticity to the conclusions of the report (No. 1). It ought not, however, to be communicated until the Appendices Nos. 2 and 3, containing the operations of the divisions of Messrs. Graham and Talcott, are handed in; and of the three no more than a limited number of copies will be useful.
I have the honor to be, with much respect, your most obedient servant,
JAS. RENWICK,
_Chairman_.
_Report of the commissioners appointed by the President of the United States for the purpose of surveying and exploring the boundary line between the States of Maine and New Hampshire and the British Provinces_.
WASHINGTON, _March 28,1842_.
Hon. DANIEL WEBSTER,
_Secretary of State_.
SIR: The duties assigned to the undersigned by the instructions of your predecessor were twofold:
First. To explore and survey the lines respectively claimed by the Governments of the United States and Great Britain.
Second. To examine and report upon the arguments contained in the report of Messrs. Featherstonhaugh and Mudge addressed to the secretary of state of Her Britannic Majesty for foreign affairs under date of 16th April, 1840.
I.
In order to the more exact and successful performance of the duties included under the first of the above heads, the boundary line was divided by their instructions into three separate portions, one of which was assigned to each of the commissioners; and while they were instructed to assemble in a board for the purpose of comparing their respective surveys, in view of the performance of the duties included in the second of the above divisions their explorations have been separately conducted. Each of the commissioners has employed the methods and course of action most appropriate in his opinion to the successful fulfillment of his appointed task, and the nature of the surveys assigned to one of them has been of a character widely different from those of his colleagues. The commissioners, therefore, while uniting in a general report of the progress made up to this time in the duties of their appointment, beg leave to submit, in the form of appendices, the narrative of their several operations, with so much of the records of their observations and calculations as they have severally judged necessary to authenticate the conclusions at which they have arrived.
The progress which has been made in the labors of the commissioners enables them at this time to lay before you–
1. A description of the physical features of the disputed territory.
2. A comparison of the heights of the line claimed by the United States with those of the line styled the “axis of maximum elevation” by Messrs. Featherstonhaugh and Mudge. In laying the latter before you they have, in order to avoid delay, made use in part of the published results obtained by those gentlemen, and although they have already detected errors in their inferences they do not consider that by accepting them for the moment as the basis of comparison they can be accused of exhibiting the line claimed by Great Britain in an unfavorable light.
I.–DESCRIPTION OF THE DISPUTED TERRITORY.
The seacoast of the State of Maine is rugged and hilly. The primitive rocks of which its geological structure is chiefly composed are broken into ridges which run parallel to the great streams, and therefore in a direction from north to south. These ridges terminate in an irregular line, which to the east of the Penobscot may be identified nearly with the military road to Houlton. From the northern summit of these ridges an extensive view of the disputed territory can in many places be obtained. This is the case at the military post at Houlton, whence a wide extent of country may be seen. A still more perfect view may be obtained from the summit of Parks Hill, at a point about 400 yards south of the road from Houlton to Woodstock and about half a mile east of the exploring meridian line. At the time when that line was run by the British and American surveyors, under the fifth article of the treaty of Ghent, the top of this hill was covered with wood, and they were obliged to content themselves with the view from Park’s barn, which is at least 200 feet beneath the summit. At the present moment the latter is cleared, and the view from west-southwest to northeast is unimpeded except by a single clump of trees, which cuts off the view for a few degrees in the northwest direction; but by a change of position every part of the horizon between these points is to be seen. Toward the west are seen ridges parallel to the Penobscot, over which Katahdin towers to a great height, bearing by compass N. 85 deg. W. In a direction N. 75 deg. W. are seen two distant peaks, one of which was identified as the Traveller. All of these eminences lie south of the line claimed by Great Britain. In the north-northwest direction there appear two ridges of comparatively small elevation, which were pointed out as the Aroostook Mountains, but have since been ascertained to lie near the sources of the Meduxnikeag. These lie in the line claimed by Great Britain in 1817.
Between these and the other mountains there is evidently no connection, and the rest of the country, as seen from the hill, bears the aspect of a wooded plain. It will be sufficient to refer to this view to be satisfied that all the impressions which have been circulated of a continuous chain of elevations extending along the line claimed by Great Britain are utterly fallacious.
Toward the north the country exhibits the same general features. One vast and apparently unbroken plain extends to the utmost limits of the visible horizon. In the midst of this, and at a distance of nearly 30 miles, Mars Hill alone breaks the monotonous prospect, and from its isolated position assumes to the eye an importance to which its altitude of less than 1,800 feet would not otherwise entitle it. No other eminences are to be seen in this direction, except a round peak bearing a few degrees west of north and some distant ridges about an equal distance to the east. The first of these has been ascertained by the surveys of Major Graham to be an isolated hill near the peak known as Quaquajo. The eastern ridges are probably those measured between the Tobique and the Bay of Chaleurs by the British commissioners. A sketch of this view from Parks Hill is annexed to the report, and lest any doubt be entertained of its accuracy it is proper to state that the unassisted vision was not relied upon, but that the outlines were carefully delineated by means of the camera lucida.
From this view it might be inferred that the northern part of the admitted possessions of the United States to the east of the Penobscot and the disputed territory as far as visible constitute a vast table-land slightly inclined toward the southeast.
On descending into the valley of the St. John the appearances change. The tableland is cut to a great depth by that stream, and from its bed the broken edges of the great plain look like ridges whose height is exaggerated to the senses in consequence of their being densely clothed with wood. The same is the case with all the branches of this river, which also cut the table-land to greater or less depths according to their distance from the stream into which they discharge themselves.
The want of a true highland or mountainous character in this region is obvious from the aspect it presents in the two different points of view. Mountainous regions are most imposing when seen from a distance and from heights. On a nearer approach, and from the valleys which intersect them, the elevations, so important in the distant view, are hidden by their own slopes or lose the appearance of relative elevation in consequence of the absolute heights of the valleys themselves. In conformity with this character, the line claimed by the United States for the most part presents, when seen at a distance, the appearance of lofty and deeply serrated ridges, while to one who traverses it it is a labyrinth of lakes, morasses, and short but steep elevations which hide its peaks from the valleys and streams.
The line claimed by Great Britain, on the other hand, when seen from a distance is as level as the surface of the ocean, with no greater appearance of elevation and depression than would represent its billows; while, seen from its own valleys, the heights assume an importance which their elevation above the valleys when actually measured does not warrant. The characteristics of the region through which the line of Messrs. Mudge and Featherstonhaugh passes are therefore the opposite of those usually remarked in highland countries, while those of the line claimed by the United States are the same as are always observed in such regions.
This character of a table-land deeply cut by streams is well exhibited in the section of their “axis of maximum elevation” by the British commissioners. In that will be seen the mountains near the source of the Aroostook, Alleguash, and Penobscot on the one hand, and of the Tobique on the other, while the intervening space is occupied by a curve resembling an inverted arch, of which the St. John occupies the keystone. In a country of this character any line whatever would present the appearance of a succession of eminences, and might by as liberal a construction of the term as has been made by Messrs. Mudge and Featherstonhaugh be called highlands.
The sameness of this general character is broken only by a single chain of hills.[32] This is a prolongation of Mars Hill toward the north, and, being both of less height and breadth than that mountain, is hidden by it from the view of a spectator on Parks Hill. Mars Hill is itself an isolated eminence, and is in fact nearly an island, for the Presque Isle and Gissiguit rivers, running the one to the north and the other to the south of it, have branches which take their rise in the same swamp on its northwestern side. To the north of the Des Chutes the ground again rises, and although cut by several streams, and particularly by the Aroostook, the chain is prolonged by isolated eminences as far as the White Rapids, below the Grand Falls of the St. John, where it crosses that river. It may thence be traced in a northern direction to the Sugar Loaf Mountain, on the Wagansis portage, where it terminates.
[Footnote 32: A chain is made up of mountains whose bases touch each other.–BALBI.]
To this broken chain belongs the elevation of 918 feet given by Messrs. Mudge and Featherstonhaugh to an eminence in the neighborhood of the Aroostook Falls. An accurate profile of so many of these eminences as fall in the line of the connected meridian is herewith submitted. This chain of eminences is not prolonged to the westward, as it is entirely unconnected with any other height aspiring to the name of mountain in that direction.
It is not in any sense a dividing ridge, being cut by all the streams in the country, and in particular to a great depth by the St. John and the Aroostook.
A section of this line was given in a report to the British commissioner under the fifth article of the treaty of Ghent by Colonel Bouchette, the surveyor-general of the Province of Canada. His heights were determined by the barometer, and estimated from the assumed level of the monument at the source of the St. Croix.
It would now appear that the section of Colonel Bouchette is very inaccurate, and that the heights as reported by him are not only much beyond the truth, but that the continually ascending slope ascribed by him to the country from the monument at the source of the St. Croix to the point where the due north line crosses the St. John is entirely erroneous. He, however, adroitly availed himself of this inaccurate section to attempt to prove the existence of a continuous chain of mountains from Katahdin to the Great Falls of the St. John, and thence around the southwestern branches of the Restigouche until it met the heights rising from the north shore of the Bay of Chaleurs. For this reason his view taken from Park’s barn and that made by Mr. Odell from the same point were urged for admission as evidence on oath by the British agent, and the map of Mr. Johnson, which contradicted this evidence, was carefully excluded. It can not be concealed that could Colonel Bouchette’s idea founded on erroneous premises have been established by indisputable facts it would have been the most fatal argument that has ever been adduced against the American claim, for he would have argued that the meridian line of the St. Croix would at Mars Hill have first intersected highlands which, rising from the north shore of the Bay of Chaleurs, would have appeared to divide until within a few miles of the Grand Falls of the St. John waters which fall into the St. Lawrence from those which fall into the Atlantic, and would have been the south boundary of the Province of Quebec.
Mars Hill would then have appeared to be in truth as well as in claim the northwest angle of the Province of Nova Scotia; and although the rest of the line would not have fulfilled the conditions, the United States might by an arbitrator have been compelled to accept this point as the beginning of their boundary. Nor, in the unexplored state of the country, is it by any means certain that the American agent, who does not seem to have seen the drift of the proceedings of Colonel Bouchette, would have been prepared with the adverse facts, which are now known to be undeniable. It may therefore be considered fortunate for the claim of the United States that the survey was afterwards intrusted to a surveyor who, in pursuit of the double object of encroachment on the United States and the enlargement of his native Province at the expense of Canada, signally failed in the proof of either of his positions.
The knowledge now acquired shows that the idea of Colonel Bouchette is unsupported by the facts of the case, for the highlands which rise from the north shore of the Bay of Chaleurs do not meet those in which the most southerly branch of the Restigouche takes its rise.
The British commissioners, although they give a profile of this ridge, do not pretend to have examined it except at Mars Hill, near the Aroostook, and at the Grand Falls of the St. John. It must be remarked that these profiles (the original one of Colonel Bouchette and that exhibited by themselves) are contrasted–one British authority with another–for the purpose of invalidating the ground on which the American claim is founded.
It is not our business to reconcile these conflicting authorities, but it is our duty to recall the recollections of the fact that no part of the American argument laid before the King of the Netherlands was founded on this or any other estimate of heights. Many elevations, indeed, were measured with great pains on the part of the Americans as well as of Great Britain.
On behalf of the United States Captain Partridge made many barometric observations, while Mr. Johnson took an extensive series of vertical and horizontal angles. His operations were performed in the presence of Mr. Odell, the surveyor on behalf of Great Britain, who doubtless made similar ones, as he visited the same stations with a better instrument and for the same avowed purpose. Mr. Odell’s observations were not presented by the British agent, and those of Mr. Johnson were objected to. If received, they would have set aside the pretensions that a continuous ridge of mountains existed between the Metjarmette portage and Mars Hill. They are, however, superseded by the operations of the undersigned, which have yielded satisfactory evidence that no chain of highlands in the sense of the British commissioners, or even an “axis of maximum elevation,” exists where it is laid down on their map. Nor can it be doubted that the operations of Mr. Johnson had a decided advantage in point of probable accuracy over theirs. The exploring meridian line used as a base was measured with a tolerable degree of accuracy, and from the three heights chosen by him the whole country is visible.
On the other hand, the course of Messrs. Mudge and Featherstonhaugh being confined, except where they ascended Mars Hill, to the valleys of the streams, they were for the most part excluded from a prospect. In describing the view from Mars Hill, however, they have pictured in most accurate terms the true features of the country:
“The character of the country may be well discerned and understood from this insulated hill. It presents to the eye one mass of dark and gloomy forest to the utmost limits of sight, covering by its umbrageous mantle the principal rivers, minor streams, and scanty vestiges of the habitation of man.”
This description can only agree with that of a vast table-land into which the streams cut so deep and form such narrow valleys as to be invisible.
But if a chain of highlands, or even an “axis of maximum elevation,” had existed as they lay it down, within 20 miles, it would have been visible, and it need not be said that they would not have failed to describe it. The inconsistency between their map and this true and forcible description of the features of the country is apparent.
The same general character of table-land is found to the north of the St. John above the Grand Falls. Its first important northern tributary is the Grand River. In ascending this stream the level of the table-land is soon reached. The river runs between banks of very moderate elevation and on a regular slope, and although running with great rapidity upon a pebbly bed it is yet so tortuous that while its distance from its mouth to the Wagansis portage in a straight line is no more than 13 miles the meanders of its channel amount to 30.
On the Wagansis portage the table-land is terminated by a ridge whose summit is elevated 264 feet above the wagansis[33] of Grand River. It was at first believed that this, although of small elevation, was a dividing ridge, and that it might correspond to one construction which has, although inaccurately, been put on the treaty of 1783. This belief was speedily removed, for the rivulet on its northern side was found to be cut off from the Restigouche by the Sugar Loaf Mountain, and is therefore a branch either of the Grand River or of the stream which falls into the St. John immediately above the Grand Falls. The height of land which divides this rivulet from the wagan of the Restigouche is not elevated above the former more than 117 feet. There is, in fact, at this place a gap 5 or 6 miles in breadth in the great system of mountains which extend from the Gulf of St. Lawrence at the Bay des Chaleurs to the river St. Lawrence near the Temiscouata portage. At the northern verge of the table-land which has been described, and near the mouth of Green River, rises to the height of about 1,600 feet a mountain known from the name of that stream. This is, like Mars Hill, isolated, and affords an extensive view. To the north and west the prospect is bounded by a continuous line of horizon, which, instead of being obviously below the level of the eye, as in the view of the disputed territory from Mars Hill, is evidently of even greater height than the Green River Mountain itself.
[Footnote 33: Wagan is a term in the Abenaki language signifying way. Sis is a diminutive particle. Wagansis is therefore the little way; and it seems probable that the name of Grand River, the usual epithet for the St. John, has been improperly applied to the small stream which bears it on the map.]
On entering into this region from the south by any of the navigable streams which traverse it, it presents a more decidedly mountainous character than the country to the south. The Grande Fourche of Restigouche is bordered by two continuous chains of mountains, rising when it first issues from them to the height of a thousand feet above its surface. The stream having a rapid fall, the relative elevation becomes less until, in the neighborhood of the lake in which its north branch first collects its waters, the relative elevation is not more than four or five hundred feet.
On traversing this elevated country it presents a different aspect from what is seen either from a distance or where it is entered from the rivers. Frequent ridges are crossed; the tops of these are often occupied by swamps filled with a thick growth of cedars. Deep and small basins occur, which are occupied by lakes that give rise to rivers flowing to the St. Lawrence or to the St. John. These are intermingled with thickets of dwarf spruce, and the streams are sometimes bordered by marshes covered by low alders, and sometimes cut deep into rocky channels. In this apparent labyrinth one positive circumstance marks the line of division, or the true height of land: The streams which run to the St. John are all of the first description–sluggish–while those which discharge themselves into the St. Lawrence are rapid, and have the character of torrents.
On the western side of the disputed territory are ridges of rocky hills running nearly north and south, and thus tending toward the St. Lawrence, which they in some places reach and shut out the view of the interior.
It thus becomes difficult to find a station whence the heights of land can be viewed and its character exhibited. It has therefore been hitherto possible for those who have argued in support of the claims of Great Britain to represent without meeting with contradiction that the streams which fall into the St. John had their rise in a country possessed of none of that mountainous character which they urged was essential to the epithet of highlands. There are, however, points where a different character is apparent, and some of these are easy of access. Thus, on the main mail road, along the Southeast Branch of the St. Lawrence a mile northeast of the church of L’Islette, a rocky eminence is passed, whence may be seen a bold group of mountains which have been identified with the sources of the Ouelle, the Kamouraska, and Black rivers. A view of this group is herewith presented.
From the height to the east of river Du Loup a view may be seen on a clear day extending round 137 deg. of the horizon, beginning with the highlands of Bic, bearing N. 58 deg. E., and terminating in a conical mountain bearing S. 15 deg. W.
The nearest and more conspicuous of these highlands (named those of St. Andre) are on the river Fourche, a branch of the river Du Loup, whose waters they divide from those of the St. Francis. A view of these is also submitted herewith.
A similar view of the same panorama of highlands is obtained from Hare Island, in the St. Lawrence, an outline of which, taken with the camera lucida, is likewise submitted. About a quarter of a mile to the south of the point where the Temiscouata portage crosses Mount Biort the highlands may be seen at the head of Rimouski, bearing nearly east, thence extending round by the north to the mountains of St. Andre, bearing nearly west, forming about one-half of the entire horizon. The entire panorama from the latter point, taken with the camera lucida, along with copies of some daguerreotypes made at the same place, are herewith submitted. Of the part of the line which extends to the northeast from the source of the Etchemin for a distance of many miles, a view may be almost constantly seen from the citadel of Quebec and from the tops of the houses in that city. One still more satisfactory may be obtained from the road between Quebec and the Falls of Montmorency, in the neighborhood of the village of Belport. The latter views are in particular referred to, as they are within the reach of numerous civil and military officers of the British Government, who must assent to the evidence of their own senses, which will prove that this region, the position of the path pursued during the present year by Captain Talcott’s parties, is to all intents a range of highlands.
The boundary presents from these positions the aspect of a continuous and deeply serrated ridge.
The geological character of the country can not be admitted as having any bearing upon the subject under consideration. It never entered into the views of the framers of the treaty of 1783, and therefore could afford no illustrations of their intentions.
Were it admissible, however, it might be cited as an additional argument that the dividing height which incloses the waters of the Connecticut continues unchanged in its features until it is cut off by the deep channel of the St. Lawrence.
Opportunities for observations of this character were most frequent on the Temiscouata portage and on the banks of the St. Lawrence itself. It was only on the former place that the relative geological heights of the rocks could be observed by means of their outcrop.
The whole of the portage passes over stratified rocks dipping rapidly to the southeast. They were found to be alternate groups of common and talcose slate and of a rock made up principally of angular fragments of white quartz (grauwacke). These are in all respects identical with rocks which have been observed by one of the commissioners in place in Berkshire County, Mass., and in Columbia and Rensselaer counties, N.Y., and the description of geologists at various intervening points, as well as the observations of Captain Talcott’s parties, would tend to establish the fact that the formations are continuous.
From these data it would appear probable that the rocks are a prolongation of the western slope of the great range called by Mr. Featherstonhaugh, in his report as United States geologist, the Atlantic ridge. This formation, which is but a few miles in width where it crosses the Hudson, appears gradually to widen as it proceeds to the north, and was on the St. Lawrence found to prevail both at the river Du Loup and at Grand Metis, dipping in the two places in opposite directions and covered in the interval by the thick diluvial deposits which form the valley of the Trois Pistoles. To render the analogy more complete, in the valley of the outlet of the Little Lake (Temiscouata) was found a vein of metalliferous quartz charged with peroxide of iron, evidently arising from the decomposition of pyrites, being in fact the same as the matrix of the gold which has been traced in the talcose slate formation from Georgia to Vermont; and on the western shore of the Temiscouata Lake, about a mile to the south of Fort Ingall, lie great masses of granular carbonate of lime, identically resembling the white marbles of Pennsylvania, Westchester County, N.Y., and Berkshire County, Mass.
If the latter be in place, which, although probable, was not ascertained beyond all question, the primitive carbonate of lime has exactly the same relation to the slaty rocks which it bears in the latter locality.
The formations which have been spoken of appear to occupy the whole extent of the country explored by the parties of Professor Renwick. Everywhere the streams were found cutting through rocks of slate. On the summits of many of the hills were found weathered masses of angular quartz rocks, showing that while the slate had yielded to the action of the elements, the harder and less friable rock had kept its place. The ridges which intervene between the St. Lawrence at the river Du Loup and Lake Temiscouata have the character, so well described by Elie de Beaumont, of mountains elevated by some internal force.
To the eastward of Lake Temiscouata, on the other hand, the country has the aspect of having once been a table-land, elevated on the average about 1,700 feet above the level of the sea, and of having been washed by some mighty flood, which, wearing away the softer rocks, had cut it into valleys, forming a complex system incapable of being described in words and only to be understood by inspection of a map.
2.–COMPARISON OF THE ELEVATIONS OF THE BOUNDARY LINE CLAIMED BY THE UNITED STATES WITH THOSE OF THE “AXIS OF MAXIMUM ELEVATION” OF MESSRS. FEATHERSTONHAUGH AND MUDGE.
For the purpose of exhibiting the relative claims of the two lines to the exclusive epithet of “the highlands” in the most clear and definite manner, each of them will be considered as divided into three portions, which will be contrasted with each other by pairs The first portion of each of the lines is that which lies nearest to the point of bifurcation, the residue of the American line is divided at the source of the Ouelle, the remainder of the line of Messrs. Featherstonhaugh and Mudge at that of the Aroostook Metjarmette portage is taken as the point of bifurcation, whence waters run to the Penobscot, the St. John, and the St. Lawrence.
On the American line from the Metjarmette portage to Lake Etchemm– Feet The maximum height is 1,718 The minimum height is 1,218
The minimum measured height is that of Lake Etchemm, which is lower than the actual source of that stream, and whose omission as not upon the dividing ridge would make the minimum greater. This height was determined by the parties of A. Talcott, esq, by two distinct and separate sets of observations, one of which was continued hourly for several days, and no doubt can exist that it is as accurate a measure as the barometer is capable of affording. In the report of Messrs. Featherstonhaugh and Mudge this height is set down as no more than 957 feet, but it is determined from a single observation. That it is erroneous must be considered as demonstrated. In the map presented by those gentlemen they have made use of this erroneous determination for a purpose which, even were it correct, would not be warranted, for they on its authority leave out all the symbols by which heights are represented, and substitute therefore a dotted line with the inscription “Fictitious hills of Mr. Burnham’s map.” The actual character of this part of the American line is an undulating country.
On the line of Messrs. Featherstonhaugh and Mudge between the Metjarmette portage and the Cocumgamoc Mountains– Feet The maximum elevation is 2,302 The minimum elevation is 987
This part of the line of Messrs. Featherstonhaugh and Mudge derives its apparent advantage from the fact that it crosses the summit and occupies the eastern slope of the highlands claimed by the United States. Notwithstanding this, the difference in their elevation is not such as to give it any decided superiority in its highland character.
On the American line from Lake Etchemm to the river Ouelle– Feet The maximum height is 2,854 The minimum height is 1,306
On the line of Messrs Featherstonhaugh and Mudge from the Cocumgamoc Mountains to the head waters of the Aroostook– The maximum height is 1,268 The minimum height is 880
On the parts of the line thus contrasted the maximum height of that claimed by Great Britain is less elevated than the lowest gap of that claimed by the United States.
On the third portion of the American line
From the head of the Ouelle to the Temiscouata portage– Feet The maximum height is 2,231 The minimum height is 853
From the point where the line first crosses the Temiscouata portage to Mount Paradis–
The maximum height is 1,983 The minimum height is 906
From the Temiscouata portage to the head of the Abagusquash– The maximum height is 1,510 The minimum height is 676
From Abagusquash to the Rimouski Lake– The maximum height is 1,824 The minimum height is 651
From the Rimouski Lake to the northwest angle– The maximum height is 1,841 The minimum height is 1,014
The greatest elevation of the whole of the third part of the American line, therefore, is 2,231 The minimum is 651
The termination of the exploring meridian line falls into this part of the American line. Its height of 1,519 feet was determined by two separate observations, compared with others taken on Lake Johnson. The height of the latter was calculated at 1,007 feet from a series of observations continued for seventeen days, and is believed to be as accurate as the method of the barometer is susceptible of.
This height of the termination of that line is estimated by Messrs. Featherstonhaugh and Mudge at no more than 388 feet, and that of the lake at no more than 363. In this estimate they reject the indications of their own barometers, because the results of them would have contradicted the previous impressions which seem to have governed all their operations, viz, that the point claimed by the United States as the northwest angle of Nova Scotia is not in an elevated region of country.[34]
[Footnote 34: A continuous line of leveling was carried by one of the parties of Major Graham’s division, by means of two spirit levels checking one another, from tide water at Calais, in Maine, to the monument at the source of the St. Croix, and thence along the true meridian line to its intersection with the river St. John. The surface of the St. John at this point of intersection was thus found to be 419-1/2 feet above the level of mean tide at Calais. The basin of the river immediately above the Grand Falls may be stated as of the same elevation in round numbers, as there is very little current in the river between those two points.]
On the third part of the British line from the sources of the Aroostook to the Grand Falls of the St. John no height is reported as measured by the British commissioners which exceeds 1,050 feet, while the greatest height on their profile is 1,150 feet. The minimum height on their profile, excluding the Aroostook at its mouth and its intersection with the meridian line, is 243 feet, and the mean of the numbers entered by them both on their map and profile is 665 feet.
It will therefore appear that if the profile of Messrs. Featherstonhaugh and Mudge be correct the lowest gap on the third part of the American line is about as high as the mean elevation of the part of the British line with which it is compared.
The line claimed by the United States therefore possesses throughout in a pre-eminent degree the highland character according to the sense at one time contended for in the argument of Great Britain, and is, to use the term of the British commissioners, “the axis of maximum elevation,” the mean of all the heights measured upon it being 1,459 feet, while that of those measured on the line of Messrs. Featherstonhaugh and Mudge is no more than 1,085 feet.
It is regretted that the computations of the barometric and other observations for the determination of the heights of that portion of the country between the valley of the St. John and the sources of the Aroostook, explored by the division of Major Graham, could not be completed in time to be made use of for this report in the description of that portion of the line claimed for Great Britain by Messrs. Featherstonhaugh and Mudge. This delay has been solely caused by a want of reasonable time to complete this portion of the work, the commissioner having direction of the division charged with it having only returned from the field in the month of January.
Sufficient information is known, however, to have been derived from those surveys to justify the assertion that, instead of the strongly marked range of highlands represented by the British commissioners as constituting a part of their “axis of maximum elevation,” the country in the vicinity of the Aroostook lying between its sources and the valley of the St. John is devoid of the character they have attributed to it. When properly represented upon a map it will appear as an extended undulating surface of moderate elevation above the level of the Aroostook River, sparsely interspersed with occasional detached elevations rising to heights of 600 to 900 and 1,400 feet above the level of the sea, but forming no continuous or connected chain whatever in the direction represented by the British commissioners, or that could be construed into the character of highlands such as are described in the treaty of 1783.[35]
[Footnote 35: Since the above was written Major Graham’s map and the computations of the barometric heights above alluded to have been completed.
This map exhibits in their proper positions the numerous altitudes which were determined throughout the country watered by the Aroostook and its principal tributaries, extending laterally to the heights which bound the basin of that river on either side; along the due west line traced in the year 1835 by Captain Yule, of the royal engineers, between Mars Hill and a point near the forks of the Great Machias River; along and in the vicinity of the road recently opened by the State of Maine from Lewis’s (a point in latitude 46 deg. 12′ 20″, between the head branches of the Meduxnikeag and the Masardis or St. Croix of the Aroostook) to the mouth of Fish River, in latitude 47 deg. 15′ 13″, being a distance, actually measured, of 79 miles; and along the new military road, embracing 40-1/2 miles of the distance from Fort Fairfield to Houlton and including the adjacent heights on either side.
The number of elevations within the territory watered by the Aroostook and claimed by Great Britain that have thus been carefully measured amounts to upward of 200.
This survey shows that although the prominent eminences which occur along that portion of the “axis of maximum elevation” of Messrs. Mudge and Featherstonhaugh which lies between the mouth and the source of the Aroostook correspond very nearly in height and position by our measurements with those reported by themselves, yet these eminences are separated one from another by spaces of comparatively low and very often swampy country, so extended as to preclude the idea of a continuous range of highlands in the direction represented upon the map of those commissioners.
If a range or chain of highlands is to be made to appear by drawing a strongly marked line over widely extended valleys or districts of comparatively low country so as to reach and connect the most prominent eminences which may fall within the assumed direction, then such a range or chain of highlands may here be made as plausibly in any other direction as in that chosen by Messrs. Mudge and Featherstonhaugh, for the detached elevated peaks are so distributed as under such a principle to favor any one direction as much as another, and might thus be made to subserve in an equal degree whatever conflicting theories the object in view might cause to be originated.
We may also refer, in further illustration of the character of the country through which a portion of this pretended “axis of maximum elevation” is made to pass, to a panorama view taken in October, 1841, by one of Major Graham’s assistants from the summit of Blue Hill, where crossed by the true meridian of the monument, at the source of the St. Croix. This position is 1,100 feet above the level of the sea and 47-1/2 miles north of the monument. It commands a most satisfactory view of the whole country embraced within a radius of 40 to 60 miles, including, as the landscape shows, Parks Hill to the south; Katahdin, the Traveller, and Mars Hill to the southwest; Quaquajo, the Horseback, the Haystack, and one or two peaks beyond the Aroostook to the west; the heights upon the Fish River and the southern margin of the Eagle Lakes to the northwest, and those south of the St. John (except a small angle obstructed by the Aroostook Hill) to the north.
The character of the great basin of the Aroostook, dotted with the detached peaks which rise abruptly from it at intervals of many miles apart, is here exhibited through at least two-thirds of its extent in so satisfactory a manner as in itself to preclude the idea of an “axis of maximum elevation” composed of anything like a connected or continuous chain in this region of country.
MAY 1 1842.]
In addition to the surveys upon the boundary line claimed by the United States, an exploring line was run under the direction of Professor Renwick, as is more particularly described in Appendix No. 1. This line extended to an eminence on the eastern side of Lake Matapediac, elevated 1,743 feet above the level of the sea. The views obtained from this eminence established the fact that a chain of highlands extended thence to the north shore of the Bay des Chaleurs. They are believed to terminate in an eminence, which from its imposing appearance has been called by the Scotch settlers at its foot Ben Lomond. This was measured during the operations of the summer of 1840, and found to rise from the tide of the bay to the height of 1,024 feet. This exploring line, coupled with the more accurate surveys, appears to establish the fact of the existence of a continuous chain of eminences entitled to the epithet of highlands from the north shore of the Bay des Chaleurs at its western extremity to the sources of the Connecticut River. Returning from the latter point, they exhibit the aspect of well-marked ranges of mountains as far as the sources of the Metjarmette. Thence to the sources of the Etchemin extends an undulating country whose mean height is 1,300 or 1,500 feet above the level of the sea. The boundary line is thence prolonged to the Temiscouata portage over well-defined ridges to the eastern side of Lake Temiscouata. At the sources of two of the streams which run into this lake the minimum heights of 651 feet and 676 feet have been observed.
With these exceptions, the sources of the streams which rise to the north of the Temiscouata portage and between the lake of that name and Lake Matapediac average more than 900 feet above the level of the sea. For the purpose of describing this portion of the line claimed by the United States, we may take this height of 900 feet as the elevation of a horizontal plane or base. On this are raised knolls, eminences, and short ridges whose heights above this assumed base vary from 300 to 1,300 feet. The more elevated of these are universally designated by the hunters who occasionally visit the country and the lumberers who search it for timber as mountains clothed to the summit with wood, which, in consequence of the rigor of the climate, attains but a feeble growth. They have an aspect of much greater altitude than they in reality possess, but their character as highlands is indisputable. This term, which the first English visitors ascribed without hesitation to the hills of New Jersey,[36] whose altitude is about 300 feet above the level of the sea, is much better merited by a group of eminences rising from 300 to 1,300 feet above a base itself 900 feet in height, and which exceed in elevation the well-known highlands of the Hudson River.
[Footnote 36: The highlands of Neversink.]
Not to rest merely on instances drawn from the language of those of English birth who first settled or traded on the coast of the present United States, there are in the immediate vicinity of the region in question a range of eminences the highest of which is no more than 1,206 feet above the level of the sea. These, on the authority of a distinguished officer of Her Britannic Majesty’s navy,[37] are named the “highlands of Bic,” and have long been thus known by all the navigators of the St. Lawrence who use the English tongue.
[Footnote 37: Captain Byfield.]
To sum up the results of the field operations of the commissioners:
(1) The meridian has been traced by astronomic observations from the monument, established by the consent of both nations in 1798, at the source of the St. Croix to a point 4 miles beyond the left bank of the St. John in the neighborhood of the Grand Falls. In the course of this not only has no highland dividing waters which run into the St. Lawrence from those which run into the Atlantic been reached, but no common source or reservoir of two streams running in opposite directions.[38] No place has, therefore, been found which by any construction proposed or attempted to be put on the words of the treaty of 1783 can be considered as the northwest angle of Nova Scotia. This point must, in consequence, lie in the further prolongation of the meridian line to the north.
[Footnote 38: The levelings carried along this meridian line by means of spirit levels, alluded to in the note at bottom of page 121, passed Mars Hill at a depression of 12 feet _below_ the level of the base of the monument which stands (except at seasons of extreme drought) in the water at the source of the St. Croix.]
(2) The streams whose title to the name of the northwesternmost head of the Connecticut River is in dispute have been explored, and the line of the highlands has been traced from their sources to the point at which the lines respectively claimed by the two nations diverge from each other.
(3) The line claimed by Messrs. Featherstonhaugh and Mudge, on the part of Great Britain, has been in a great measure explored.
(4) The line of highlands claimed by the United States has, with some small exceptions, been thoroughly examined, and its prolongation as far as the north shore of the Bay of Chaleurs reconnoitered. The parts of the line which have not been actually reached have been seen from a distance, and streams flowing from them crossed and leveled. From the former indication it is probable that the average height of those parts exceeds that of the neighboring parts of the line. From the heights of the streams it is certain that the lowest gaps in the unexplored portion of the line can not be less elevated than 1,000 feet above the level of the sea.
That part of this line of highlands which lies east of the sources of the Rimouski fulfills to the letter the words of the royal proclamation of 1763 and the contemporaneous commission of Governor Wilmot. The first of those instruments defines the mouth of the river St. Lawrence by a line drawn from Cape Rozier to the St. John River (on the Labrador coast), and therefore all to the eastward of that line is “the sea.” The height of land thus traced by the commission, rising from the north shore of the Bay des Chaleurs at its western extremity, divides waters which fall into the river St. Lawrence from those which fall into the sea, and is the southern boundary of the Province established by the proclamation of 1763 under the name of Quebec. The identity of the line defined in the proclamation of 1763 and the boundary of the United States in the treaty of 1783 has been uniformly maintained on the part of the United States, and is not merely admitted but strenuously argued for in the report of Messrs. Featherstonhaugh and Mudge.
The undersigned therefore report that they have explored and in a great measure surveyed and leveled a line of highlands in which the northwest angle of Nova Scotia lies, and which in their opinion is the true boundary between the States of Maine and New Hampshire and the British Provinces.
II.–EXAMINATION OF THE ARGUMENT CONTAINED IN THE REPORT OF MESSRS. MUDGE AND FEATHERSTONHAUGH.
The progress which has been made in the first portion of the duties of the commissioners has been set forth in the preceding part of this report.
Although, as will be there seen, the task of running the meridian line of the monument marking the source of the St. Croix and of exploring and surveying the lines of highlands respectively claimed by the Governments of the United States and Great Britain has not been completed, yet enough has been done to furnish materials for an examination of the argument preferred by Messrs. Mudge and Featherstonhaugh in support of the novel form in which the claim of Great Britain has been presented by them.
In the surveys made by direction of the commissioners under the fifth article of the treaty of Ghent the difficult character of the country had prevented any other method of exploration than that of ascending rivers to their sources. It was believed on the part of the United States that the determination of the position of these sources was sufficient for the demarcation of the line of highlands in relation to which the controversy exists, and no attempt was made to meet the British argument by the exhibition of the fact that the lines joining these sources run in some cases along ridges and in other cases pass over elevations to which in any sense of the term the epithet of “highlands” may be justly applied. The denial of this mode of determining the line of highlands by Great Britain has made it important that both the lines claimed by Great Britain and by the United States should be explored and leveled–a task which until recently had not been attempted on either part. The examination of the lines claimed by the two nations, respectively, has been in a great measure accomplished, as will be seen from the reports of the field operations of the commission, while such of these determinations as have a direct bearing on the argument will be cited in their proper place in this report.
It is to be regretted that the document now under consideration exhibits many instances of an unfriendly spirit. Charges of direct and implied fraud are made, and language is used throughout that is irritating and insulting. It is fondly hoped that these passages do not express the sentiments of the British nation, as in a state of feeling such as this report indicates little hope could be entertained of an amicable adjustment of this question. Any inference to be drawn from the language of the report under consideration is contradicted by the official declarations of the British Government, and may therefore be considered as the individual act of the authors, not as the deliberate voice of the nation by which they were employed.
It might have been easy to have retorted similar charges, and thus have excited in the Government of Great Britain feelings of irritation similar to those which pervaded the whole population of the United States on the reception of that report. While, however, it is due to the honor of the United States to declare that no desire of undue aggrandizement has been felt, no claim advanced beyond what a strict construction of their rights will warrant, it is trusted that the pretensions of Great Britain, however unfounded in fact or principle, have been advanced with a like disregard to mere extension of territory, and urged with the same good faith which has uniformly characterized the proceedings of the United States.
It is not to be wondered that the claims of Great Britain have been urged with the utmost pertinacity and supported by every possible form of argument. The territory in question is of great value to her, by covering the only mode of communication which can exist for nearly six months in the year, not only between two valuable colonies, but between the most important of all her possessions and the mother country. The time is not long past when the use of this very communication was not an unimportant part of the means by which that colony was restrained from an attempt to assert its independence. It is not, therefore, surprising that the feelings of British statesmen and of those who desired to win their favor have been more obvious in the several arguments which have appeared on that side of the question than a sober view of the true principles, on which alone a correct opinion of the case can be founded.
To the United States in their collective capacity the territory in dispute is, on the other hand, of comparatively little moment. No other desire is felt throughout the greater part of the Union than that the question should be settled upon just principles. No regret could, therefore, be widely felt if it should be satisfactorily shown that the title of Great Britain to this region is indisputable. But should it be shown, as is beyond all question the fact, that the title is in truth in the United States, national honor forbids that this title should be abandoned. To the States of Maine and Massachusetts, who are the joint proprietors of the unseated lands, the territory is of a certain importance from the value of the land and timber, and to the latter, within whose jurisdiction it falls, as a future means of increasing her relative importance in the Union, and a just and proper feeling on the part of their sister States must prevent their yielding to any unfounded claim or the surrender of any territory to which a title can be established without an equivalent satisfactory to those States.
To show the basis on which the title rests–
It is maintained on the part of the United States that the territory they held on the continent of North America prior to the purchase of Louisiana and the Floridas was possessed by a title derived from their own Declaration of Independence on the 4th of July, 1776, the assertion of that independence in a successful war, and its acknowledgment by Great Britain as a preliminary to any negotiation for a treaty of peace. It is admitted on the part of Great Britain that a territory designated by certain limits was _granted_ to the United States in the treaty of 1783. As a matter of national pride, the question whether the territory of the original United States was held by the right of war or by virtue of a grant from the British Crown is not unimportant; as a basis of title it has not the least bearing on the subject. From the date of the treaty of 1783 all pretensions of the British Crown to jurisdiction or property within the limits prescribed by the provisions of that instrument ceased, and when a war arose in 1812 between the two nations it was terminated by the treaty of Ghent, in which the original boundaries were confirmed and acknowledged on both sides.
The treaty of 1783, therefore, is, in reference to this territory, the only instrument of binding force upon the two parties; nor can any other document be with propriety brought forward in the discussion except for the purpose of explaining and rendering definite such of the provisions of that treaty as are obscure or apparently uncertain.
The desire of full and ample illustration, which has actuated both parties, has led to the search among neglected archives for documents almost innumerable, and their force and bearing upon the question have been exhibited in arguments of great ability. Such has been the talent shown in this task of illustration and so copious have been the materials employed for the purpose that the great and only important question, although never lost sight of by the writers themselves, has to the eye of the casual observer been completely hidden. In the report under consideration this distinction between treaties of binding force and documents intended for mere illustration has not been regarded, and the vague as well as obviously inaccurate delineations of a French or a Venetian map maker are gravely held forth as of equal value for a basis of argument as the solemn and ratified acts of the two nations.
In pursuance of this desire of illustration, every known document which could in any form support either claim has been advanced and set forth in the statements laid before His Majesty the King of the Netherlands when acting as umpire under the fifth article of the treaty of Ghent. If not yet given entire to the public,[39] they are in the possession of both Governments in a printed form, together with the opinion of the arbiter in respect to them; and although it is necessary that the arguments then adduced in favor of the American claim should be in part repeated, and although new illustrations of the correctness of that argument have since been brought to light, the present document will be confined as closely as possible to the provisions of the treaty itself, and will adduce no more of illustration than is barely sufficient to render the terms of that treaty certain and definite.
[Footnote 39: A considerable part of the papers, together with the argument, has been published by Mr. Gallatin in his Right of the United States to the Northeastern Boundary. New York, 1840. 8 vo. pp. 180.]
The boundaries of the United States are described in the treaty of 1783 in the following words:[40]
[Footnote 40: The words here appearing in italics are not italicized in the original treaty.]
“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 are and shall be their boundaries, viz: _From the northwest angle of Nova Scotia_, viz, _that angle which is formed by a line drawn due north from the source of 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 _northwesternmost_ head of Connecticut River; _thence_ down along the middle of that river to the forty-fifth degree of north latitude; from thence by a line due west on said latitude until it strikes the river Iroquois, or Cataraquy; 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 Brie; 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 northwestern point thereof, and from thence on a due west course to the river Mississippi; thence by a line to be drawn along the middle of the said river Mississippi until it shall intersect the northernmost part of the thirty-first degree of north latitude; south by a line to be drawn due east from the determination of the line last mentioned in the latitude of 31 deg. north of the equator to the middle of the river Apalachicola, or Catahouche; thence along the middle thereof to its junction with the Flint River; thence straight to the head of St. Marys River, and thence down along the middle of St. Marys River to the Atlantic Ocean; east _by a line to be drawn along the middle of the river St. Croix from its mouth in the Bay of Fundy to its source_ and from its source _directly north_ to the aforesaid highlands which divide the rivers that fall into the Atlantic Ocean from those which fall into the river St. Lawrence; comprehending all islands within 20 leagues of any part 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 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 the said Province of Nova Scotia.”
So far as the present question is concerned, five points of discussion are presented by this article of the treaty of 1783:
I. What stream is to be understood by the name of the river St. Croix?
II. The determination of the line due north from the source of that river.
III. What is the position of the northwest angle of Nova Scotia?
IV. The delineation of the line passing through the highlands from that angle to the northwest head of Connecticut River.
V. What is to be considered as the northwestern head of Connecticut River?
I.–RIVER ST. CROIX.
Doubts in respect to the particular river intended to be understood by the name of the St. Croix having arisen, an article was inserted in the treaty of commerce signed in London in November, 1794, by Lord Grenville on the part of Great Britain and by John Jay on the part of the United States.[41] This article, the fifth of that treaty, provided for the appointment of a joint commission with full powers to decide that question. This commission was constituted in conformity, and the award was accepted by both Governments.[42] The river designated in this award became thenceforth the true St. Croix, however erroneous may have been the grounds on which it was decided so to be. When, therefore, in the fourth article of the treaty of Ghent it is declared that the due north line from the source of the St. Croix has not been surveyed, and when in this and the other articles of the same treaty all other uncertain parts of the boundary are recited, the validity of the decision of the commissioners under the fifth article of Jay’s treaty is virtually acknowledged. Nay, more; the acknowledgment is completed by the stipulation in the second article of the treaty of Ghent that “all territory, places, and possessions taken by either party during the war,” with certain exceptions, shall be forthwith restored to their previous possessors.[43] The only exceptions are the islands in Passamaquoddy Bay; and had it been believed that any uncertainty in respect to the adjacent territory existed it would not have been neglected. Nay, more; all the settlements lying within the line claimed by Great Britain before the commission created by the treaty of 1794 had been taken, and were in her actual possession at the time the treaty of Ghent took effect, and were forthwith restored to the jurisdiction of the United States. When, also, it became necessary to proceed to the investigation of the second point of the discussion, the agents and surveyors of both parties proceeded as a matter of course to the point marked in 1798 as the source of the St. Croix.[44] This point is therefore fixed and established beyond the possibility of cavil, and the faith of both Governments is pledged that it shall not be disturbed.
[Footnote 41: See Note I, pp. 141,142.]
[Footnote 42: See Note II, p. 142.]
[Footnote 43: See Note III, pp. 142,143.]
[Footnote 44: See Note IV, p. 143.]
II.–DUE NORTH LINE FROM THE SOURCE OF THE ST. CROIX.
The treaty of 1783 provides that the boundary from the source of the St. Croix shall be drawn “directly north.” In relation to this expression no possible doubt can arise. It is neither susceptible of more than a single meaning nor does it require illustration from any extrinsic source. The undersigned, therefore, do not consider that so much of the argument of Messrs. Mudge and Featherstonhaugh as attempts to show that this line ought to be drawn in any other direction than due north requires any reply on the part of the United States. Admitting that the words had been originally used as a mistranslation of terms in the Latin grant of James I to Sir William Alexander, the misconception was equally shared by both parties to the treaty of 1783; and it will be shown hereafter that this misconception, if any, had its origin in British official papers. Were it capable of proof beyond all possibility of denial that the limit of the grant to Sir William Alexander was intended to be a line drawn toward the northwest instead of the north it would not affect the question. So far as that grant was used by American negotiators to illustrate the position of the northwest angle of Nova Scotia it would have failed to fulfill the object, but such failure in illustration does not involve the nullity of the treaty itself.
That the translation which has hitherto been universally received as correct of the terms in the grant to Sir William Alexander is the true one, and that the new construction which is now attempted to be put upon it is inaccurate, will be shown in another place,[45] where will also be exhibited an error committed in rendering the sense of another part of that instrument. The consideration of the correctness or incorrectness of the several translations can form no part of the present argument. While, therefore, it is denied that Messrs. Mudge and Featherstonhaugh have succeeded in showing that the grant to Sir William Alexander has been mistranslated, it is maintained that an error in the translation of this document can have no effect in setting aside the simple and positive terms of the treaty of 1783. That treaty and its confirmation in the treaty of Ghent must be admitted to be null and void before that line can be drawn in any other direction than “due north.”
[Footnote 45: See Note V, pp. 143-147.]
III.–NORTH WEST ANGLE OF NOVA SCOTIA.
The term northwest angle of Nova Scotia was used in the secret instructions of Congress and is adopted in the treaty of 1783. In the instructions it is named without any explanation, as if it were a point perfectly well known. In one sense it was so, for although it never had been marked by a monument, nor perhaps visited by the foot of man, its position could be laid down upon a map; nay, was so on many existing maps, and the directions for finding it on the ground were clear and explicit. These directions are to be found in the royal proclamation of October, 1763, and in the commission to Montague Wilmot, governor of Nova Scotia, of cotemporaneous date. Any uncertainty in regard to the position of this angle which may have existed in relation to the meaning of the first of these instruments is removed by the act of Parliament of 1774, commonly called the Quebec act.
Before citing these instruments it will be proper to refer to the circumstances under which the two first were issued.
Great Britain, after a successful war, found herself in possession of the whole eastern side of the continent of North America. So much of this as lay to the south of the St. Lawrence and the forty-fifth parallel of north latitude had been previously made the subject of charters from the British Crown under a claim of right from priority of discovery.[46] The possession of this wide tract was not uncontested, and various other European nations had attempted to found settlements within the limits of the British charters. In such cases it was held as a matter of law that where the occupation or defense of the territory granted had been neglected the right had ceased, and the country, when recovered by conquest or restored by treaty, was again vested in the Crown, to be made the subject of new grants or governed as a royal colony. Thus, when the settlements made by the Dutch and Swedes, which by the fortune of war had become wholly vested in Holland, were reduced, the Crown exercised its rights by conveying them to the Duke of York, although covered in a great part, if not wholly, by previous charters; and when these countries were again occupied by the Dutch and restored by the treaty of Breda it was thought necessary that the title of the Duke of York should be restored by a fresh grant. In both of these charters to that prince was included the Province of Sagadahock, within whose chartered limits was comprised the territory at present in dispute. This Province, confined on the sea between the rivers St. Croix and Kennebec, had for its opposite limits the St. Lawrence, or, as the grant expresses it, “extending from the river of Kenebeque and so upward by the shortest course to the river Canada northward.” The shortest course from the source of the Kennebec to the St. Lawrence is by the present Kennebec road. This grant therefore covered the whole space along the St. Lawrence from about the mouth of the Chaudiere River[47] to the eastern limit of the grant to Sir William Alexander. By the accession of James II, or, as some maintain, by the act of attainder, it matters not which, this Province reverted to the Crown, and was by it granted, in 1691, to the colony of Massachusetts. In the same charter Nova Scotia also was included. This has been called a war grant, as in fact it was, and the colony of Massachusetts speedily availed themselves of it by conquering the whole of the territory conveyed except the island of Cape Breton. The latter, too, fell before the unassisted arms of the New England Provinces in 1745, at a time when Great Britain was too deeply engaged in the contest of a civil war to give aid either in money or in men to her transatlantic possessions.
[Footnote 46: Sebastian Cabot, in the employ of Henry VII, discovered the continent of North America 24th June, 1497, and explored it from Hudsons Bay to Florida in 1498. Columbus discovered South America 1st August, 1498, while the voyage of Vespucci, whose name has been given to the continent, was not performed until 1499.–HUMBOLDT.]
[Footnote 47: See Note VI, p. 147.]
The colony of Massachusetts, therefore, could not be charged with any want of energy in asserting her chartered rights to the territory in question. It is, in fact, due to her exertions that both Nova Scotia and New Brunswick came at so early a period into the possession of the British Crown. In 1654 the French settlements as far as Port Royal, at the head of the Bay of Fundy, were reduced by Major Sedgwick, but by the treaty of Breda they were restored to France.
In 1690 Sir William Phips, governor of Massachusetts, with a force of 700 men, raised in that colony, again conquered the country, and although on his return the French dislodged the garrison possession was forthwith resumed by an expedition under Colonel Church. Acadie, however, or Nova Scotia, was ceded again to France by the treaty of Ryswick. After several spirited but unsuccessful attempts during the War of the Succession, General Nicholson, with a force of five regiments, four of which were levied in Massachusetts, reduced Port Royal, and by its capitulation the present Provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick were permanently annexed to the British Crown.[48] Finally the militia of Massachusetts, during the War of 1776, took possession of the territory, and occupied it until the date of the treaty of 1783. This occupation was not limited by the St. Croix, or even by the St. John, but included the whole of the southern part of New Brunswick, while the peninsula of Nova Scotia was only preserved to Great Britain by the fortification of the isthmus which unites it to the mainland.[49]
[Footnote 48: Haliburton’s History, Vol. I, pp. 83-87.]
[Footnote 49: Haliburton’s History, Vol. I, pp. 244-289.]
The recession of Acadie, or Nova Scotia, to France by the treaty of Ryswick divested Massachusetts only of the territory granted her in the charter of 1691 under the latter name. Her war title to Sagadahock was confirmed by a conquest with her own unaided arms; and even the cession of Nova Scotia was a manifest injustice to her, as she was at the moment in full possession of it. It, however, suited the purpose of Great Britain to barter this part of the conquest of that colony for objects of more immediate interest.
Admitting that England did convey a part or the whole of Sagadahock to France under the vague name of Acadie or Nova Scotia,[50] the conquest by Massachusetts in 1710 renewed her rights to this much at least, and although the Crown appropriated to itself the lion’s share of the spoils by making Nova Scotia a royal province, it did not attempt to disturb her possession of Sagadahock. So far from so doing, the commission of the royal governors was limited to the west by the St. Croix, although it was stated in a saving clause that the Province of Nova Scotia extended of right to the Penobscot. From that time until the breaking out of the Revolutionary War, a space of more than sixty years, the Province of Sagadahock was left in the undisturbed possession of Massachusetts under the charter of 1691.
[Footnote 50: See Note VII, pp. 147, 148.]
In defiance of this charter the French proceeded to occupy the right bank of the St. Lawrence, which at the time of the capture of Quebec and the cession in the treaty of 1763 was partially held by settlements of Canadians. The Crown therefore acted upon the principle that the right of Massachusetts to the right bank of the St. Lawrence had thus become void, and proceeded by proclamation to form the possessions of France on both banks of the St. Lawrence into a royal colony under the name of the Province of Quebec.
This was not done without a decided opposition on the part of Massachusetts, but any decision in respect to her claims was rendered needless by the breaking out of the War of Independence. It is only proper to remark that this opposition was in fact made and that her claim to the right bank of the St. Lawrence was only abandoned by the treaty of 1783. The country of which it was intended to divest her by the proclamation of 1763 is described in a letter of her agent, Mr. Mauduit, to the general court of that colony as “the narrow tract of land which lies beyond the sources of all your rivers and is watered by those which run into the St. Lawrence.”
It is assigned by him as a reason why the Province of Massachusetts should assent to the boundary assigned to the Province of Quebec by the proclamation that “it would not be of any great consequence to you” (Massachusetts), “but is absolutely necessary to the Crown to preserve the continuity of the Province of Quebec.” The part of the Province of Quebec whose continuity with the rest of that colony was to be preserved is evidently the district of Gaspe, of which Nova Scotia, a royal colony, was divested by the same proclamation. For this continuity no more was necessary than a road along the St. Lawrence itself, and the reason would have been absurd if applied to any country lying beyond the streams which fall into that river, for up to the present day no communication between parts of Canada exists through any part of the disputed territory. The narrow territory thus advised to be relinquished extends, according to the views of Messrs. Mudge and Featherstonhaugh, from the Great Falls of the St. John to Quebec, a distance in a straight line of 160 miles. It has a figure not far from triangular, of which this line is the perpendicular and the shore of the St. Lawrence from the Chaudiere to the Metis the base. It contains about 16,000 square miles. It would have been a perversion of language in Mr. Mauduit to describe this to his employers as a narrow tract. But the space whose cession he really intended to advise is in every sense a narrow tract, for its length along the St. Lawrence is about 200 miles, and its average breadth to the sources of the streams 30. It contains 6,000 square miles, and is described by him in a manner that leaves no question as to its extent being “watered by streams” which “run into the St. Lawrence.” It therefore did not include any country watered by streams which run into the St. John.
It is believed that this is the first instance in which the term _narrow_ has ever been applied to a triangle almost right angled and nearly isosceles, and it is not a little remarkable that this very expression was relied upon in the statement to the King of the Netherlands as one of the strongest proofs of the justice of the American claim.
Admitting, however, for the sake of argument, that the Crown did demand this territory, and that the mere advice of an agent without powers was binding on Massachusetts, the fact would have no direct bearing upon the point under consideration. The relinquishment by Massachusetts of the whole of the territory west of the meridian of the St. Croix would not have changed the position of the northwest angle of Nova Scotia, nor the title of the United States collectively under the treaty of 1783 to a boundary to be drawn from that angle, however it might have affected the right of property of that State to the lands within it.
And here it is to be remarked that the Government of the United States is two-fold–that of the individual States and that of the Federal Union. It would be possible, therefore, that all right of property in unseated lands within a State’s jurisdiction might be in the General Government, and this is in fact the case in all the new States. Even had Massachusetts divested herself of the title (which she has not) the treaty of 1783 would have vested it in the Confederation. She had at least a color of title, under which the Confederation claimed to the boundaries of Nova Scotia on the east and to the southern limits of the Province of Quebec on the north, and this claim was allowed by Great Britain in the treaty of 1783 in terms which are at least admitted to be identical in meaning with those of the proclamation creating the latter Province.[51]
[Footnote 51: Report of Messrs. Featherstonhaugh and Mudge, p. 6.]
To illustrate the subject further:
Of the seventeen British colonies in North America, thirteen succeeded in asserting their independence; the two Floridas were conquered and ceded to Spain; while of her magnificent American domain only Quebec and Nova Scotia were left to Great Britain. The thirteen colonies, now independent States, claimed all that part of the continent to the eastward of the Mississippi and north of the bounds of Florida which was not contained within the limits of the last-named colonies, and this claim was fully admitted by the boundary agreed to in the treaty of 1783. Within the limits thus assigned it was well known that there were conflicting claims to parts which had more than once been covered by royal charters; it was even possible that there were portions of the wide territory the right to which was asserted by the United States and admitted by Great Britain that had not been covered by any royal grant; but the jurisdiction in respect to disputed rights and the title to land not conveyed forever ceased to be in the British Crown–first by a successful assertion of independence in arms, and finally by the positive terms of a solemn treaty.
If it should be admitted, for argument’s sake, that the claim of Massachusetts, as inherited by the State of Maine, to the disputed territory is unfounded, it is a circumstance that can not enter into a discussion between Great Britain and the United States of America. Massachusetts did claim, under at least the color of a title, not merely to “the highlands,” but to the St. Lawrence itself, and the claim was admitted as far as the former by the treaty of 1783. If it should hereafter appear that this claim can not be maintained, the territory which is not covered by her title, if within the boundary of the treaty of 1783, can not revert to Great Britain, which has ceded its rights to the thirteen independent States, but to the latter in their confederate capacity, and is thus the property of the whole Union. As well might Great Britain set up a claim to the States of Alabama and Mississippi, which, although claimed by the State of Georgia, were found not to be covered by its royal charter, as to any part of the territory contained within the line defined by the treaty of 1783, under pretense that the rights of Massachusetts are not indefeasible.
While, therefore, it is maintained that whether the title of Massachusetts be valid or not is immaterial to the present question, it may be further urged that not even the shadow of a pretense existed for divesting her of her rights by the proclamation of 1763, except to