In the fourth article provision was made for the confirmation of such grants of land as had previously been made by either party in territory left by the treaty in the jurisdiction of the other; also for the confirmation of all equitable possessory claims based on the possession and improvement of any lot or parcel of land by the person in actual possession, or by those under whom he claimed, more than six years before the signing of the treaty.

In the fifth article permission was made for the distribution of the "disputed territory fund," as suggested by the Maine commissioners. Of this fund the United States agreed to pay to Maine and Massachusetts their respective portions, and also to satisfy their claims for expenses incurred by them in protecting the disputed territory and in making a survey thereof in 1838. The United States further agreed "with the States of Maine and Massachusetts to pay them the further sum of three hundred thousand dollars, in equal moieties, on account of their assent to the line of boundary described in this treaty, and in consideration of the conditions and equivalents received therefor from the government of her Britannic Majesty."

In the sixth article of the treaty provision was made for the establishment of the boundary (as described) by two commissioners, one to be appointed by the United States, and one by Great Britain.1

lumber or timber of any kind," cut on territory "watered by the St. John and its tributaries, and floated down that river to the sea, when the same is shipped to the United States from the province of New Brunswick." Moore, International Arbitrations, I, 152, note.

1Report of the [Maine] Commissioners, under Resolves of May 26, 1842, in Relation to the Northeastern Boundary. Augusta, 1843, 83-87.

N

CHAPTER XIX.

THE ASHBURTON TREATY RATIFIED.

OTWITHSTANDING the Maine commissioners had given their consent to the proposed conventional line, provided the Senate of the United States on mature consideration should so advise, they undoubtedly entertained the hope that the discussion of the treaty would result in some modifications of its terms in the interest of the border state. President Tyler, communicated the treaty to the Senate August 11, 1842. It established, he said, the boundary line, from the source of the St. Croix to the St. Lawrence, for considerations satisfactory to Maine and Massachusetts; the chief of these considerations being the privilege of transporting the lumber and agricultural products of Maine down the St. John to the ocean free from imposition or disability. To a country, covered by forests of great value, and much of it capable of agricultural improvement, he regarded this privilege, perpetual in its terms, as a matter of importance upon which the opinion of intelligent men was not likely to be divided.1

The treaty, with the president's message and accompanying documents, was referred to the committee on foreign relations. That committee, August 15th, reported the treaty without amendments, and it was made the order of the day in the Senate for August 17th. At that time, Mr. William C. Rives, of Virginia, chairman of the committee, in opening the debate said that while the committee and a large majority of the people of the United States were clear in their conviction of the justice of the American 1Messages and Papers of the Presidents, IV, 162-165.

2Congressional Globe, 27th Congress, Third Session, 1.

3 He was twice minister to France, and thrice elected a member of Senate of the United States.

claim, it was no longer possible to stand uncompromisingly on the ground of right. We have made the question a subject of arbitration, he remarked, and the opinion of the arbiter, however wanting in legal obligation, has been declared to the world and is against our claim. Since then, this expedient has been rejected by Great Britain, the United States and the State of Maine. In this connection Mr. Rives referred to the Sparks and other maps hitherto mentioned; but while denying any just weight to them affecting the American claim, he saw the use that might be made of them in event of another arbitration. In order to terminate, therefore, this protracted controversy, he held that the only remaining expedient was the establishment of a new and welldefined conventional line; and he was authorized to say that a threefold option had been offered to the Maine commissionersthe award, arbitration, and the arrangement now before the Senate. The last, the commissioners had deliberately elected. To the committee, also, from a national point of view, the arrangement before the Senate presented equally obvious advantages.1

Levi Woodbury, of New Hampshire, following Mr. Rives, thought it not patriotic, or warranted by the facts, to seek to justify a ratification of the treaty by arguments derived from loose conjectures of itinerant Americans in Europe. The French map of 1755, which, with its red lines, running west from the St. Croix, had been made to occupy so prominent a place in the debate, was doubtless one illustrating the boundaries between the French and British colonies in America, before the conquest of Canada by Great Britain and its cession in 1763. There is a similar map in the French atlas on the table of the secretary, which he had procured from the state department. The publications of that earlier day were full of such maps. Whatever might be the decision of the Senate with reference to the treaty, that decision should not be based on any doubt created by old maps.❜

1Appendix to Congressional Globe, 27th Congress, Third Session, 59-62. "He was secretary of the navy, 1831-1834, and secretary of the treasury, 1834-1841.

Appendix to Congressional Globe, 27th Congress, Third Session, 27, 28.

Thomas H. Benton,' of Missouri, continued the debate. Mr. Rives had referred to Maine's consent to the conventional line of the treaty. If such consent had been given, he said, it would signify nothing. The boundaries in question are not state but national; they are not in the custody of Maine, but of the whole Union. "The consent of Maine! What was that consent? How obtained and how used? . . . . . Isolated from her sister States -from Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York and Michigan-all of which were conciliated in favor of the treaty; pressed upon by her own government, which presented the British proposition and urged its acceptance, informed that nothing better could be expected; warned that this might be the last chance for settling the question by agreement; presented as the sole obstacle to the peace and happiness of two great nations; thus isolated, urged and menaced, the Maine Commissioners so far assented as to agree to the sacrifice upon condition that the Senate of the United States, on mature consideration, should advise and consent to the ratification of the treaty;" and the senator cited the language of the Maine commissioners in yielding their consent, as they gave reluctant expression to it. Limiting himself at present to the fact that Maine did not consent to the wrong which was done to her and to the United States, but made that consent dependent and conditioned on the judgment of the Senate after mature consideration, Mr. Benton closed with the remark that his general objections to the treaty would be presented at another time."

The Sparks map had made no impression upon Mr. Benton. He, too, had found a map with a red line, and he related an interesting conversation he had with Jefferson in his later years in a long winter evening, in which Jefferson referred to a collection of books, maps, etc., pertaining to this country, which, with the sale of his library to the United States, had gone to the library of Congress. It had occurred to him to ask the librarian to send to 1 He was a member of the Senate from 1821 to 1851.

Appendix to Congressional Globe, 27th Congress, Third Session, 7.

him the Jefferson maps, and he was looking over the collection, when the chairman of the committee on foreign relations was calling the attention of the Senate to the Sparks map. Looking to see if the same map was in Jefferson's collection, he fell upon "the same red-line map made in Paris in 1784, dedicated and presented to Franklin. This he exhibited to the Senate and had it placed on the secretary's table for the inspection of senators."1 Evidently there were red lines on many maps.

On Friday, August 19th, Mr. Williams, of Maine, continued the debate. This, he said, was not the entertainment to which his state was invited, and he recited the facts connected with the

1Appendix to Congressional Globe, 27th Congress, Third Session, 16. The matter of the red-line map was brought up at the next session of Congress by Colonel Benton, who, January 4, 1843, referring to the debate concerning the treaty, said: "When he saw that the senator from Virginia [Mr. Rives] was yet in the act of pressing the importance of the map referred to by Mr. Sparks, he interrupted the senator by calling, 'Here is the very same red line on Mr. Jefferson's map,' and on comparison it was found to correspond exactly. He proclaimed the red line loudly to prove that Mr. Sparks' secret was no secret at all." Congressional Globe for 1842-1843, XII, 111.

2 In 1838, Mr. Webster received information that a gentleman in New York had a copy of Mitchell's map with lines on it corresponding to the British claim. Mr. Webster was told that the map had been found among the papers of Baron Steuben, of Revolutionary fame, and that there was reason to suspect that the map could be traced to Mr. Jay, etc., etc. It was also said that the British consul in New York was endeavoring to obtain it and had offered a very large price for it. On looking at it Mr. Webster concluded it would be prudent to keep it on this side of the water, and he bought it for $200.00. When the map was shown to Mr. Charles S. Daveis, he wanted it for the State of Maine and paid Mr. Webster for it. The members of the governor's council in Maine declined to allow this expenditure "unless they could understand distinctly for what it was paid." Governor Kent and Mr. Daveis were not then ready to yield their secret with reference to the map, and Mr. Daveis was not reimbursed until some time after. The map evidently was one of other maps in existence in the last half of the eighteenth century, but it had no more value than the Sparks map, which long ago went into deserved obscurity. Recent search for it has not been rewarded. It is neither in the state department in Washington, nor in the library of Congress. The Sparks papers are in the library of Harvard University, but the Sparks map is not among them.