sippi Basin on the north, the United States lost a portion of the upper Missouri Valley, but gained in compensation nearly the whole of that of the Red River of the North. The commission to determine the line from the intersection of the forty-fifth parallel with the St. Lawrence to the northwest corner of the Lake of the Woods, filed its report as to the part east of the passage from Huron into Superior, June 18, 1822.1 This part they had been able to agree upon and to trace. But as to the line thence to the northwestern corner of the Lake of the Woods, the commissioners disagreed on various points; and in the latter part of 1827 they made separate reports and the commission was dissolved. Nothing further was done as to this part of the boundary until the negotiations for the Ashburton treaty began." The commission appointed to determine, survey, and mark the boundary from the source of the St. Croix to the intersection of the forty-fifth parallel with the St. Lawrence found its task much more difficult. It was organized in September, 1816, and immediately began operations; the various lines claimed were surveyed, the ground was carefully examined, and the commission met from time to time to hear the reports of the surveyors and the arguments of the agents or attorneys of the two governments concerned. One point of disagree 1 U. S. Treaties and Conventions, 407-409. ment after another was developed as to the proper interpretation of the terms used in describing the boundary that was to be traced, and as the work progressed the prospect of a settlement grew more and more remote. The most serious question was the meaning of the term "highlands" as used in the treaty of 1783; for these highlands were to be the westerly leg of the "northwest angle of Nova Scotia." About forty miles north of the source of the St. Croix the surveyors found a high elevation at a point called Mars Hill; but the line had to be extended one hundred and three miles farther north in order to strike a ridge beyond which was the head of a stream emptying into the St. Lawrence. The American agent claimed that this northern ridge was the "highlands" of the treaty, and that the intersection of the north and south line with it determined the proper northwest angle of Nova Scotia. The British agent, for two reasons, disagreed: the ridge was, he said, not elevated nor continuous enough to be called "highlands"; nor did the waters immediately south of it flow into the Atlantic Ocean, but, through the Restigouche and the Bay of Chaleurs, into the Gulf of St. Lawrence.1 Where were the real "highlands," then? The British found them at Mars Hill. True, it was on the divide between two tributaries of the St. John, which flowed into the Bay of Fundy, and hence 1 Moore, International Arbitrations, I., 78. Mars Hill did not separate waters flowing into the St. Lawrence from those flowing into the Atlantic Ocean; but it belonged to a line of highlands which at its western extremity separated the drainage basin of the Penobscot from that of the Chaudière, a tributary of the St. Lawrence; and the fact of its branching off eastward so as to run south of the upper valley of the St. John did not, the agent argued, prevent it from conforming to the description in the treaty.1 The British claim that "highlands" must mean high lands was a quibble; the word signifies no more than "divide" or "watershed"; and as to the real place of the highlands referred to by the treaty, the Americans had greatly the advantage of the argument. This becomes the more evident when it is remembered that the line which the treaty meant to fix must have been the same as the southern boundary of Quebec described in the proclamation of 1763, and lying along the edge of the St. Lawrence Basin. There might, however, have been some reason for so drawing the line as to make it follow the southern edge of the Restigouche Valley.❜ Another point of difference developed, in which the American contention was untenable, and that was the proper location of the forty-fifth parallel 'Moore, International Arbitrations, I., 78–80, 106-111. 'Cf. Ganong, Boundaries of New Brunswick, 348-353. Moore, International Arbitrations, I., 93, 103, 113-115, 143. north of New Hampshire and Vermont. The parallel had been marked in 1774, and the accuracy of the work was so far trusted by the United States government that it erected costly fortifications at Rouse's Point, at the north end of Lake Champlain and just south of the line as then laid down; but more accurate determination showed that the true line was about three-quarters of a mile farther south, and that the United States was technically a trespasser. The American agent could find no better way to avoid the disagreeable consequences of this fact than to insist that, if the old line were not to be accepted, the new should be determined by the principles, not of "observed" but of “geocentric" latitude, which would have thrown the line thirteen miles farther north, besides upsetting the whole system of geodetic measurements then and now in practical use. Gallatin, who prepared the statement for the United States laid before the king of the Netherlands in 1830, regretted that this absurd proposition had ever been made.1 The commissioners differed also as to what was "the northwesternmost head of Connecticut River," the United States commissioner insisting on Hall's Stream, while the British commissioner fixed on the Connecticut - Lake River. The commissioners held their final session in April, 1822. Finding it impossible to agree, they made separate reports to their respective governments and adjourned. 1 Moore, International Arbitrations, I., 80, 112, 119. This possibility had been foreseen and provided for in the treaty of 1814 erecting this commission, as well as the two others whose work has already been described; in case of failure to concur in a report to be made jointly, the separate reports were to be referred to "some friendly sovereign or State, to be then named for that purpose," whose decision should be conclusive. For five years this provision was left in abeyance; but meanwhile troubles concerning the unsettled boundary arose between Maine, which had now become a state, and New Brunswick, which had been formed from the adjacent part of Nova Scotia,1 and the national government was stimulated to new efforts for the determination of the line. Instead, however, of choosing an arbiter at once, as provided by the treaty, the United States and Great Britain, on September 29, 1827, concluded a new convention, which regulated in various ways the procedure to be followed in presenting the case for arbitration." The king of the Netherlands was chosen as arbiter, and on January 10, 1831, he made his award. He declined to decide in favor of either line claimed, but recommended a third lying between the other two which he thought it would be suitable to adopt. This was an artificial compromise, and not a decision between the two rival claims as pre 1 Ganong, Boundaries of New Brunswick, 362. |