In order to show how the western boundary of the Grant to Sir William Alexander was understood, the commissioners, instead of seeking for ancient English maps, have appealed to a Venetian map by Coronelli, dated 1689; at which time, as they say, the nature of the Grant must have been well understood. How it was understood by Coronelli will appear by looking at his map, in which he has placed the whole of Nova Scotia west, instead of east of the River St. Croix. The country east of it, or the present province of New Brunswick he calls Etechemins he transposes the Penobscot and the Kennebec and confines Acadia to the peninsula. The commissioners have given two copies of the map, in one of which there is a coloured line from the source of the St. Croix to Bay des Chaleurs. Which of the two is the genuine transcript I cannot say.

:

It is further stated in the report that the above quoted American translation is an official one, being appended to a document communicated by the President of the United States in January, 1838, to the House of Representatives. And the Commissioners in their recapitulation say:

"XVI. It appears that in the discussions which have been hitherto "had on the subject of the Grant of Nova Scotia in 1621, reference has "always been had to an American translation of that Grant which was "defective; and that all the omissions and inaccuracies in that defective "translation singularly concur to obscure the nature of the claim which "Her Majesty's Government is interested to maintain."

The only Agents ever employed by the Government of the United States, in the discussions with that of Great Britain, concerning the north-eastern boundary, have been Mr. Bradley, under the Ghent Commission, and Albert Gallatin and William P. Preble, to prepare the Statements of the case laid before the King of the Netherlands.

A passage already mentioned in page 15 of the first of those Statements has been quoted in the report of the commissioners (page15.) Had those gentlemen only turned the leaf of the American Statement, they would have seen (page 12) the translation of the Grant used by the two last mentioned American Agents, viz:

"Beginning at Cape Sable, in 43° north latitude, or thereabout, extending thence westwardly along the Sea shore, to the road commonly called St. Mary's Bay; thence towards the north by a direct line crossing the entrance or mouth of that great ship road, which runs into the eastern tract of land between the territories of the Souriquois and of the Etchemins, (Bay of Fundy) to the river commonly called St. Croix, and to the most remote spring or source, which, from the western part thereof, first mingles itself with the river aforesaid; from thence, by an imaginary direct line, which may be conceived to stretch through the land, or to run towards the north, to the nearest road, river or spring

emptying itself into the great river de Canada; (River St. Lawrence ;) and from thence proceeding eastwardly along the Sea shores of the said river de Canada, to the river, road, port, or shore, commonly known and called by the name of Gachepe or Gaspe.

Mr. Bradley, in his opening argument, which is quoted in page 43 of the Report of Messrs. Featherstonhaugh and Mudge, presented to the commissioners appointed under the fifth article of the Treaty of Ghent, an extract of the Latin text of the Grant to Sir William Alexander, together with the following translation, which has also escaped the notice of Messrs F. and M.

66

"By the tenor of this our present charter, we do give, grant, and convey to the said Sir William Alexander, his heirs or assigns, all and singular the lands of the continent and Islands situated and lying in America within the head lands or promontory commonly called Cape Sable, lying near the latitude of forty-three degrees or thereabout from the equanoctial line, towards the north, from which promontory stretching towards the shore of the sea to the west to the road of ships commonly called St. Mary's Bay, and then towards the north by a direct line crossing the entrance or mouth of that great road of ships which runs into the eastern tract of land between the territories of the Souriquois and the Etchemius to the river commonly called by the name of St. Croix, and to the most remote spring or fountain from the western part thereof, which first mingles itself with the river aforesaid, whence by an imagi. nary direct line which may be conceived to go through or run towards the north to the nearest road of ships, river or spring emptying itself into the great river of Canada-and from thence proceeding towards the east by the shores of the sea of the said river of Canada to the river road of ships or shore commonly known and called by the name Gachepe or Gaspe."

It is believed that the translations used in the only discussions which have taken place between the two Governments on the merits of the case will appear to have been free from the objections raised in the report. The grant was mentioned on the part of the United States to show the chain of title, and the origin of the designation of a certain territory by the name of Nova Scotia. It has also been used in order to show that, from the time when it was first mentioned in a British public act, the River St. Croix was designated as having its mouth in the Bay of Fundy.

In their recapitulation, the commissioners attach great importance to what they call their discovery. They say:

"XIV. We have discovered by a critical examination of the Grant of Nova Scotia 1621, in the original Latin, that the passage which describes the western boundary of the territory included in that grant, and

which boundary was agreed, at the time of the treaty of 1783, to be the eastern boundary of Massachusetts in conformity with the provision contained in the charter of Massachusetts of 1691, is susceptible of a new interpretation, varying in important particulars from the received one and we show by a literal translation of the Latin, that the boundary was intended to run from the most western waters of the St. Croix to the sources of the Chandiere; a line, which it has been seen, coincides in a very striking manner with the boundary in the Sieur de Monts' grant of 1603."

Now, so far as relates to any originality in the argument of the commissioners and in the conclusions they draw from their discovery; appears to me that the whole is comprehended in the following passage of the second statement laid before the King of the Netherlands on the part of Great Britain.

"Sir William Alexander's grant, which was not in the recollection either of Mr. Adams or Mr. Jay, when they were examined on oath as witnesses under the St. Croix commission, and which, in former discussions respecting boundary under the treaty of 1783, the United States agents have vehemently rejected, carries the western boundary of Nova Scotia up to the westernmost source of St. Croix River, and thence to the River St. Lawrence by a line extending towards the north, and joining the nearest spring or head stream emptying into that river. According to the same grant, the northern boundary of Nova Scotia was to pass along the southern coast of the River St. Lawrence to Cape Rosiers."

"The terms of the Grant would not bear us out in supposing that the western Boundary of Nova Scotia was to be formed by a due north line. The only positive circumstances to be collected from them as guides for our opinion, are, that the Line between the two sources specified therein shall be a straight one, and that the source communicating with the St. Lawrence shall be the nearest. On looking to the map, we instantly perceive that these guides might lead us to head waters of the River Chandiere, as being the nearest to the point of departure of all the sources north of it falling into the St. Lawrence. But, without ing to intimate that such was the real intention of the Grant, (f) dating, as it does, from a period when the face of the country was wholly unknown, we feel ourselves justified in pointing out the vagueness of its terms, as fairly acknowledged in the American Statement, and inferring how extremely difficult, or rather impossible, it would have been for the Negotiators of the Treaty to have fixed the Boundaries between two

presum

(ƒ) The respectable author of that Statement, sensible that such a line would be towards the west and not towards the north, could not insist on that construction.

Independent States, in conformity with definitions so loosely worded as to involve the most unexpected contingencies."

"A line extending from the source of the St. Croix "towards the north" to the nearest part of the St. Lawrence would, at all events, strike that river, owing to the obliquity of its course, far to the west of that point where a due north line would intersect it. A reference to the map will make this clear. It must not be forgotten that the Commissioners under the 5th Article of the Treaty of 1794, in deciding which was the true St. Croix, adopted the northern stream, to the exclusion of the westThus the variations of this one Grant alone offer four several north-west angles of Nova Scotia. The western stream being the one named in Sir William Alexander's Grant, the preference of the northern stream must surely invalidate the authority of the Grant as a binding designation of the boundary of Nova Scotia; and at any period subsequent to the Proclamation of 1763, Sir William Alexander's Grant is altogether irrelevant as to the northern boundary of that province."

ern.

If I am not much mistaken, the only original discovery of the report on that subject consists of the insertion of the Comma. But, admitting that the Crown had the right to determine the course of the line from the source of the St. Croix to the St. Lawrence, it had never been done or suggested prior to the year 1763. On the contrary, in the only map that had an official character, (the map of Mitchell of 1755 sanctioned by the Board of Trade,) the line is made to run due north, and that not for the purpose of simply going farther north than the sources of the Penobscut; for the line is extended to the banks of the St. Lawrence. At last, in 1763, the line was expressly prescribed by the public Acts of Great Britain to be a due north line; and thus matters stood at the date of the Treaty of 1783.

It was deemed important on the part of the United States to prove the identity of the boundary line prescribed by the Treaty of 1783, with that which had been designated by the proclamation of 1763, and the other previous public acts of Great Britain and it was of course necessary for them to demonstrate the identity of both with that which they claimed under the treaty. The third and fourth sections of the first American Statement of the case, laid before the King of the Netherlands, were devoted to that double object. In the second section, the greater part of which has been transferred to the introduction of the preceding essay, the chain of titles and the claim of Massachusetts, as it stood in 1782, were examined. Always admitting that the boundaries, whether containing more or less than that claim, were definitively settled by the Treaty of 1783; it has been urged that the boundaries of Massachusetts, as described in the Charter and rendered definite in 1763 by the proclamation and other public Acts of Great Britain, were discussed at large in

the course of the Negotiations of 1782, and had a considerable influence on the final agreement with respect to that portion of the boundary.

It is not intended to pursue the critical examination of all the other irrelevant or unimportant parts of the report, and to enter further into minutiæ, which divert the attention from the true questions at issue between the two governments. Notice will only be taken of that which appears new, or has not already been refuted in the preceding pages.

It had been heretofore contended on the part of Great Britain, that the boundary described in the Treaty of 1783, was identic with, and suggested by the height of land mentioned by Pownall, as that in which the Kennebec, the Penobscot, and the St. Croix had their sources. The same assertion is repeated in the report, and the same reasons assigned for it. But the former agents of the British Government had denied the identity of the treaty boundary with that designated by the Proclamation of 1763. That identity is now admitted in the report: and a curious and novel inference is drawn, viz: that the description of the southern boundary of the Province of Quebec in the Royal Proclamation of 1763, was derived from the information in the map published by Evans in 1755, although the eastern portion of that map, as re-published by Pownall in 1776, belongs to him and not to Evans; and that the descriptions contained in the Proclamation of 1763 are a mere echo of the information produced by the explorations of Governor Pownall; which information was for the first time published, together with his map, in the year 1776 by Governor Pownall. This anticipating echo ie all that belongs exclusively to the report.

A double transcript of Mitchell's Map is appended to the report; one of which is called Mitchell's Map, but accurately adjusted for latitude and longitude: in other words, it is a new map entirely differing from that of Mitchell. The western source of the St. John was known to Mitchell, and was found on his map: he had no knowledge of the source of the south branch of that river, and accordingly it is omitted on his map. In the transcript adjusted for latitude and longitude, the alteration consists simply in having converted Mitchell's western into the southern branch of the St. John. The result is simply, that a line drawn from the extremity of Bay Chaleurs, to the westernmost source of the St. John passes north, and that if drawn to its most southern source, it passes south of the River St. John. This might have been shown by looking at any modern map of the country. I do not understand what inference can be drawn from that fact, nor why in order to prove it, it was necessary to alter Mitchell's Map. But when the commissioners who appealed to Coronelli in order to prove the extent of geographical knowledge in 1689, repudiate Mitchell's Map, they forget that this has been adduced for the purpose of showing the knowledge which the negotiators who had that map before