Early after Mr. Webster's appointment as secretary of state, Mr. Fox, who was still the British minister in Washington, was instructed by Lord Palmerston to renew his efforts to have the boundary controversy settled by arbitration. Writing to Mr. Fox, he said, "Let us consider the American coutre projet as unreasonable, undeserving an answer, as withdrawn from consideration, and now submit my original projet to Mr. Webster, the new secretary of state, and persuade him it is reasonable."

Although Mr. Webster was not to be so easily persuaded as Lord Palmerston desired, he did hope to see the boundary question settled during his connection with the state department. But it must be rescued from the labyrinth of projects and counterprojects in which it had become involved. "I found the parties in wandering mazes lost," he said later. "I found it quite as tedious and difficult to trace the thread of this intricate negotiation, as it would be to run out the line of the highlands itself. One was quite as full as the other of deviations, abruptnesses and perplexities. And having received the president's authority, I did say to Mr. Fox, as has been stated in the British Parliament, that I was willing to attempt to settle the dispute by agreeing on a conventional line, or line by compromise."'*

But a conventional line was not what Maine wanted. Again and again, with emphatic reiteration, she had insisted on the line described in the treaty of 1783; and Mr. Webster was very well aware of the difficulties of the task to which he had devoted himself. He knew it was a serious matter to ask Maine to come into an agreement by which she might and was likely to subject herself to the loss of territory which she regarded as clearly her own by treaty rights. "The question touched her propriety interests, and, what was more delicate, it touched the extent of her jurisdiction. I knew well her extreme jealousy and high feeling on this point. But I believed in her patriotism, and in her willing

1This was in the summer of 1841. The Works of Daniel Webster. Boston, Little & Brown, 1851, VI, 270.

2 Ib., Boston, Little & Brown, 1851, V, 97, VI, 270.

ness to make sacrifices for the good of the country." Accordingly, very early, Mr. Webster began to consider means for giving influential people in Maine information concerning his plans and purposes with reference to a settlement of the boundary controversy on the basis of a compromise, which should include not only an exchange of territory but a pecuniary indemnity.

With the fall of the Melbourne ministry, Lord Palmerston retired from office as foreign secretary, and Lord Aberdeen had now taken his place, with Sir Robert Peel as prime minister. At this time, also, Edward Everett was the American minister in London, possessing, as may well be believed, the fullest information with reference to Mr. Webster's purposes as to the manner in which boundary matters were to be taken up with the new British ministry. Both parties, therefore, entered into negotiations with reference to the desired settlement under the most favorable auspices; and before the end of 1841, Lord Aberdeen informed Mr. Everett that his government had decided to send Lord Ashburton to the United States as a special minister, with full powers to settle the boundary controversy and any other matters concerning which differences existed that required adjustment.

December 15, 1841, therefore about the same time as the Ashburton appointment was announced, Governor Kent wrote to Mr. Webster seeking information with reference to boundary matters. In his reply Mr. Webster said there had been hardly any positive progress during the year. In fact, he went back farther. "Mr. Forsyth's counter-project, delivered in August, 1840," he wrote, "received no answer until just before Lord Palmerston went out of office in August, 1841. It was then answered, and this answer has revived the subject; and other correspondence will ere long take place between the parties. The interest of both parties undoubtedly requires a compromise, and I have no doubt that the position which Maine has assumed is the only obstacle to bringing such a compromise about. The English government cannot treat with us about a compromise, unless we say we have authority to consummate what we agree to; and although I entertain not the

slightest doubt of the just authority of this government to settle this question by compromise, as well as in any other way, yet in the present condition of affairs, I suppose it will not be prudent to stir in the direction of compromise without the consent of the State of Maine. Suppose England should be willing to pay for the land north of the river [St. John], and leave the question of its navigation to be settled hereafter; or suppose she should be willing to let our line run from the monument to the mouth of Eel river, and then up the St. John and so through the lakes? should be very glad of your thought on these and all other points; but incline for the present to think, with you, that perhaps the easiest mode of getting the parties together for a compromise may be the creation of a commission. I hope this may be done this session of Congress.'

But Mr. Webster's purposes included something more than Maine's acceptance of a boundary settlement on the basis of a conventional line. As a matter of prime importance preceding the conferences that would follow the arrival of Lord Ashburton in Washington, he saw the necessity of obtaining first of all the definite consent of Maine to his plans and purposes. With this end in view he sought first of all the assistance of Francis O. J. Smith, of Portland, a former member of Congress from Maine, who, with several assistants, interviewed "leading and influential gentlemen of both political parties" in five of the principal counties in Maine. Also, early in 1842, he had an interview with the two senators from Maine, Reuel Williams and George Evans, to whom he freely disclosed his matured views. Later, at the White House with the president, he had a second interview with Mr. Williams. Subsequently Mr. Williams returned to Maine, probably with reference to boundary matters principally; and to him, February 2, 1842, Mr. Webster addressed a letter for use in his conferences there. In the letter he referred to Lord Ashbur'The Letters of Daniel Webster. Van Tyne, 1902, 248, 249.

2 Letter in the library of the Maine Historical Society, Box IV, Northeastern Boundary Pamphlets.