ceeded Mr. Wilmot, viz: William Campbell in 1765, Francis Legge in 1773, and John Parr, whose commission is dated 29th July, 1782, and who was Governor at the time when the preliminary Articles of Peace were signed, the reservations (in italics) are omitted; and the boundaries are thus expressed, viz : "Our Province of Nova Scotia, bounded on the westward " by a line drawn from Cape Sable across the Bay of Fundy " to the mouth of the River St. Croix, by the said River to its 66 source, and by a line drawn due north from thence to the “ southern boundary of our Colony of Quebec, to the north" ward," &c. It is nevertheless true, that, notwithstanding the opinion of the Law Officers of the Crown of 11th August, 1731, declaring that the charter of Massachusetts remained in force, the British Government still insisted upon the operation which certain treaties with France might have had upon the charter; and that the wish and hope to extend the boundary of Nova Scotia, as far west as the Penobscot, had never been abandoned, prior to the final relinquishment of that pretension by the preliminary Articles of Peace of 1782. It is foreign to our present purpose to repeat the arguments drawn from the express terms of the treaty without reference to any other previous acts, or to advert at this time to the proofs which established the identity of the boundaries established by the treaty, with those defined by the charter of Massachusetts. It is sufficient, with a view to the evidence derived from maps, to have shown the identity of the treaty boundaries, with those previously established by the commissions of the Governors of Nova Scotia, by the proclamation of 1763, and by the Quebec Act of 1774. The question then occurs: Which were the Highlands declared by the two last mentioned public Acts to be the southern boundary of the Province of Quebec? Independent of arguments derived from other sources, the U. States produced, and laid before the King of the Netherlands, all the maps published in Great Britain, between the years 1763 and 1783, on which the southern boundary of the Province of Quebec is laid down, and which, after a diligent search, both in England and America, could be obtained. Not a single one was omitted that had come within the knowledge of the American Government: not a single one of an opposite character has ever been produced. The maps thus collected are the following, viz: 1. T. Kitchin's British Dominions in North America, &c. Engraved for Dodsley's Annual Register, of 1763 2. T. Kitchin's British Dominions in North America, &c. Engraved for Capt. John Knox's History of the War in America, London,........ .... 3. British Empire in North America, &c. Annexed to Wynne's History of the British Empire, &c. London,..... 1769 1770 4. J. Palairet's North America, with improvements, &c. By L. Delarochette. London,.... 1765 5. Ridge's British Dominions in North America, &c. Annexed to a Complete History of the Late War, &c. Dublin,........ .. 1766 6. Palairet's North and South America, by the American Traveller. Annexed to "The American Traveller," &c. London,..... .... 7. North America and West Indies, with the opposite 1769 coasts, &c. [Jeffreys' Atlas,] London,........ 1775 8. North America, improved from Danville, with divi B sions by P. Bell. Engraved by R. W. Seale, London, .. .. 9. P. Bell's British Dominions in North America, &c. 1772. Annexed to "History of British Dominions in North America, &c. in fourteen books." London,........ ... .... 10. S. Dunn's British Empire in North America. London,......... .... 11. Danville's North America, improved with English Surveys, &c. London,.................. ... 12. E. Bowen and J. Gibson's North America, &c. London,..... .... 13. Sayer and Bennett's Province of Quebec, &c. London, .... 14. Seat of War in the Northern Colonies, &c. Annexed to the American Military Pocket Atlas. London,.. ... 1771 1772 1774 1775 1775 1776 1776 15. North America, &c. corrected from the materials of Gov. Pownall, M. P., London,............. 1777 16. Continent of America, &c. corrected from the ma terials of Gov. Pownall, London,......... 1777 17. W. Faden's British Colonies in North America,.. 1777 18. W. Faden's North America, from the latest discoveries, 1778. Engraved for "Carver's Travels," London,...... ..... 1778 & 1781 47. T. Jeffreys' Nova Scotia, &c. London,........ 1775 The identity of the Highlands which form the southern boundary of the Province of Quebec, with those which are claimed by the United States as their boundary, will appear evident on the first inspection of those maps. I happen to have four of these in my possession, from which you may judge of the character common to all these are Nos. 10, 12, 13, and 14, of the preceding list. In every one of those maps, the course of the line from the source of the River St. Croix is northward; in every instance that line crosses the River St. John and terminates at the Highlands, in which the rivers that fall into the River St. Lawrence have their sources; in every instance, the northwest angle of Nova Scotia is laid down on those Highlands,and where the north line terminates; in every instance, the Highlands, from that point to the Connecticut River, divide the rivers that fall into the river St. Lawrence, from the tributary streams of the River St. John, and from the other rivers that fall into the Atlantic Ocean. The exhibition of such undeniable proofs of the universal understanding in England, from the date of the proclamation of 1763 to the time when the preliminary Articles of Peace were signed, of the position of the Highlands defined as the southern boundary of the Province of Quebec, by the proclamation and by the Quebec act, placed in a rather awkward dilemma the British agents. They must either deny, in the face of the public acts of Great Britain, the identity of the boundaries defined by those acts with those declared by the treaty: or they must, notwithstanding the conclusive evidence derived from the maps, affirm that the boundaries prescribed by the proclamation and the Quebec act were not correctly delineated on those maps. As it was equally difficult to maintain either position, the agents, employed at different times by the British Government, have differed amongst themselves on that point. You may in that respect consult and compare the arguments used by the British agent and commissioner under the joint commission, with those contained in the British statements laid before the King of the Netherlands, and with the reasons adduced on that particular subject in the report of Messrs. FEATHERSTONHAUGH & MUDGE. It was probably, at least partly, in order to avoid the inferences that might be drawn from more modern maps, that the British Commissioners who negotiated the preliminary Articles of Peace, brought Mitchell's map, for the purpose of its being used jointly by the Commissioners in the course of the negotiations, on which, as it was published in 1755, the boundaries prescribed by the Proclamation of 1763, and the Quebec Act of 1774, could not be delineated. It was in proof by the testimony of our own Commissioners that this was the map, which had been jointly used by the American and British negotiators of the preliminaries of Peace; and it was accordingly recognised as such by the Convention of 29th September, 1827, as follows, viz: "The map, called Mitchell's Map, by which the framers "of the Treaty of 1783 are acknowledged to have regulated "their joint and official proceedings, and the map A, which "has been agreed on by the contracting parties, as a deline"ation of the water courses, and of the boundary lines in "reference to the said water courses as contended for by "each party, respectively, and which has accordingly been "signed by the above named Plenipotentiaries, at the same "time with this Convention, shall be annexed to the state"ments of the contracting parties, and be the only maps that "shall be considered as evidence, mutually acknowledged by "the contracting parties, of the topography of the country." The proposal respecting Mitchell's map, came from British Commissioners, and I assented to it with the following addition : "It shall, however, be lawful for either party to annex "to its respective first statements, for the purposes of gene"ral illustration, any of the maps, surveys, or topographi |