TREATY OF AMITY AND COMMERCE BETWEEN GREAT BRITAIN AND THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. -PROCEEDINGS HAD IN RELATION TO THE BOUNDARY IN QUESTION, UNDER THE FIFTH ARTICLE OF THAT TREATY.

THE fifth article of the Treaty of 1794 is to the following effect :

Whereas, doubts have arisen, what river was "truly intended under the name of the River St. "Croix, mentioned in the said Treaty of Peace, and

forming a part of the boundary therein described; that question shall be referred to the final decision of Commissioners, to be appointed in the following manner, viz. :—

One Commissioner shall be named by His Ma"jesty, and one by the President of the United

States, by and with the advice and consent of the "Senate thereof. And the said two Commissioners "shall agree on the choice of a third: or if they "cannot so agree, they shall each propose one per

son, and of the two names so proposed, one shall "be drawn by lot in the presence of the two origi"nal Commissioners. And the three Commissioners

so appointed shall be sworn impartially to exa"mine and decide the said question, according to

"such evidence as shall respectively be laid before them, on the part of the British Government and "of the United States. The said Commissioners "shall meet at Halifax, and shall have power to

adjourn to such other place as they shall think "fit. They shall have power to appoint a Secre

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tary, and to employ such Surveyors or other per"sons as they shall judge necessary. The said "Commissioners shall, by a declaration under their "hands and seals, decide what river is the River St. "Croix intended by the Treaty. The said declara"tion shall contain a description of the said river, "and shall particularize the latitude and longitude "of its mouth and of its source. Duplicates of this "declaration, and of the statements of their ac"counts, and the journal of their proceedings, shall "be delivered by them to the agent of His Majesty, "and to the agent of the United States, who may "be respectively appointed and authorized to ma

nage the business on behalf of the respective go

vernments; and both parties agree to consider "such decision as final and conclusive, so as that "the same shall never thereafter be called into "question, or made the subject of dispute or differ"ence between them."

Soon after the making of this Treaty, Thomas Barclay, Esquire, on the part of His Majesty, and David Howell, Esquire, on the part of the United States, were named Commissioners to carry the above clause into effect. In 1796, Egbert Benson,

Esquire, a Judge of the Supreme Court of New York, was appointed as an umpire, by the mutual agreement of both Commissioners, to settle a question which it seems had arisen, whether the River St. Croix mentioned in the foregoing Treaties was the river now known by the name of the Maguadavic, as was contended on the part of the United States, or the river now known by the name of the River Schoodic, as was urged on our part. The umpire determined that the River Schoodic was the true St. Croix.

Uncertainty as to the highlands described in the Treaty of 1783 could only be introduced by obtaining a point of departure different from that contemplated by the framers of the Treaty. The more accurate the description in the Treaty, the greater would probably be the discrepancy between the line described in the Treaty, and a line drawn from a point of departure other than that of the Treaty. If such assumed point of departure could be carried a certain number of miles to the eastward and northward of the true source of the St. Croix, it would be below the great dividing ridge of highlands; and a line running due north from such assumed point of departure would never strike these highlands, but would probably terminate at that subordinate range of highlands which border the northern shores of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

That the westernmost source was the true source of the St. Croix, is established, first, by the Letters

Patent heretofore mentioned; secondly, by the fact that that stream retains the name of the principal stream, the Schoodic, whilst the Cheputnaticook has its own peculiar name, as is usual in tributary streams; thirdly, by the award of the American umpire.

It is true that the American umpire, whose award will presently be examined more particularly, fixes the lowest point of the Schoodic Lakes as the source of the St. Croix; but this, for the purposes of the present argument, is altogether immaterial, for a line run due north from the lowest point of the Schoodic lakes will strike the extremity of the dividing ridge, which may be followed as well from the extremity of such line, as from the extremity of a line drawn from the true source of the St. Croix.

These two lines may be seen on the map at the end of this paper, No. 3, which map is reduced from the large map signed by the English and American Ministers, and laid before the King of the Netherlands, as evidence to be used by him in the reference made to him by the two Powers on the 12th day of January, 1829.

It was probably with a view of obtaining a point of departure to the eastward of the great dividing ridge, that it was in the first instance pretended on the part of the American commission, that the Maguadavic-a river to the eastward of the Schoodicwas the St. Croix River mentioned in the Treaty of 1783; but this pretension was so utterly ground

less, that the American umpire himself rejected it. It has been seen that the American umpire also determined that the westernmost waters of the Schoodic River were its main stream.

Yet strange to say, the point of departure was fixed by a wonderful compromise at the head waters of the tributary stream Cheputnaticook, to the eastward of the dividing ridge, and to the north-eastward of the true point of departure.

The only information to the public at large upon the transactions just adverted to, is to be found in a pamphlet published on the subject of this Boundary question, under the signature "Verax," the writer of which had access to the original documents of the commission, and could not have been mistaken upon a point of such vital importance.

His words in his first letter are as follows:"The next year after this treaty was concluded, viz., in the year 1784, a part of the ancient pro"vince of Nova Scotia, bordering on the United States, was erected into the province of New "Brunswick, and settlements were made by the king's subjects at St. Andrew's, and on the River Schoodic, as being the St. Croix, and the boun. Idary of the treaty. The Americans soon set up a claim to the River Maguadavic as the St. "Croix; and the Treaty of Amity, Commerce, and Navigation, made in the year 1794, commonly "called in the United States Jay's Treaty, provided "for settling this question by a Board of three