Strachey's Canada and Maine. * Mr. Strachey transmitted another map + showing three proposed lines: (1) the NipissingMississippi line, originally accepted by Mr. Oswald; (2) the 45° latitude line, from the Connecticut River direct to the Mississippi; and (3) the present river and lake line to the Lake of the Woods, and thence to the Mississippi - which latter was the boundary line "The King's accepted by the Foreign Office. This line appears Map." to have been subsequently traced on a map by King George III., who wrote along the line the words "Boundary as described by Mr. Oswald." § This map is now in the British Museum, and is known as the "King's Map." Boundary lines of American In one of Mr. Oswald's despatches to the Foreign Office, he reported that the American Plenipotentiaries Plenipoten- had obtained from London "a complete set of the best tiaries. and largest maps of North America." And it is a matter of history that the Plenipotentiaries transmitted maps with marked boundary lines to their Government. President John Adams, one of the Plenipodence, 1797. tentiaries of 1782, when examined in 1797, before the Joint Commissioners appointed under Jay's Treaty of 1794, stated: "Lines were marked at that time, as designating the boundaries of the United States upon Mitchell's Map." Mr. Jay, another of the Plenipotentiaries, was also examined, and stated that "certain lines were marked on the copy of Mitchell's map which was before them at Paris."* And in the Boston Monthly Magazine, for 1826, it was stated that copies of Mitchell's maps "with lines in pencil, hardly obliterated, were then in the Department of State in Washing- Maps in U. S. State Depart-ton." But about 1828, or a year before the "Statement ment, 1826. on the part of the United States," respecting the Maine boundary was submitted to the King of the Netherlands, all of these maps "had mysteriously disappeared from the American Archives, and were nowhere to be Their mysterious disapfound;" for the maps there now have no marks. † pearance in In Dr. Franklin's published letters there is one to Mr. 1828. Jefferson, dated April, 1790, in which he also stated Dr. Frankthat "the map we used in tracing the boundary" was sustained one of Mitchell's; and he added: "Having a copy of "Red Line Map." that map before me in loose sheets, I send you the sheet where you will see that part of the boundary traced." ‡ This map was produced to the Senate during the debate on the Ashburton Treaty, and was declared by the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations (after comparing it with the Franklin Red Line Map), to sustain in every feature the map obtained in Paris It also has disappeared. by Dr. Sparks; but it also has since disappeared.§ President Mr. Jay's evidence. * This map, known as "Oswald's Map," was subsequently referred to by Lord Palmerston as "the red-lined map showing the boundary as claimed by Great Britain." See also Winsor's America, v. 7, p. 181. + MS. Despatch, Strachey to the Foreign Office, November, 1782. MS. Despatch, The Foreign Secretary to Messrs. Oswald and Strachey, Whitehall, 19th November, 1782. § Lord Brougham identified the handwriting as that of King George III. * Moore's History and Digest of International Arbitrations, v. 1, pp. 19 and 21. † The statement of the disappearance of the marked maps of 1782 was made by Mr. Forsyth, then Secretary of State, to Mr. Grattan, British Consul at Boston. See Grattan's Civilized America, v. 1, pp. 371 and 436. Their disappearance from the U. S. Department of State, is also confirmed by Winsor's America, v. 7, p. 181. ‡ Life and Letters of Franklin, by John Bigelow, v. 3, p. 462. § "There is no knowledge or recollection in the Department of State of the map sent by Franklin to Jefferson in April, 1790." Moore's History and Digest of International Arbitrations (1898), v. 1, p. 157. Dr. Sparks's But the map which furnished the best evidence in support of the British-Canadian claim respecting the Maine boundary, was discovered by Dr. Jared Sparks, of Harvard University, in the French Archives in 1842. He first discovered the following letter from Dr. Franklin to M. de Vergennes, dated Passy, December 6th, 1782-written six days after the preliminary Dr. Franklin's treaty had been signed: "I have the honour of return letter to the French Minister. ing herewith the map Your Excellency sent me yesterday. I have marked with a strong Red Line, according to your desire, the limits of the United States as settled in the preliminaries between the British and American Plenipotentiaries." * The map which accompanied this letter was found among several thousands in the Archives, with a strongly marked "red line." Dr. Sparks, who was familiar with the Maine boundary dispute, sent a copy of the map, and of Dr. Franklin's letter, to Mr. Webster, then Secretary letter sent to of State.† Lord Ashburton subsequently produced to Mr. Webster a map disclosing a similar boundary line; but it was not accepted as evidence by the United States; although Mr. Webster then had the Evidence of Franklin "Red-Line Map" and letter, which could have been claimed by Lord Ashburton, had he been aware of their existence, as corroborative evidence of the British claim. * Map and Mr. Webster. British claim. * Wharton's Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence, v. 6, p. 120. + Winsor's America, v. 7, p. 180. Webster's Works, v. 2, p. 143. Probably the "Oswald Map," for it is said that Lord Ashburton was not then aware of the existence of the "King's Map." There was said to have been found in the Public Record Office in London, a Mitchell map of 1755, on which was traced a faint red line which supported the British claim, and was assumed to be the "Oswald Map." See Winsor's America, v. 7, p. 181. Dr. Sparks, in reporting to the Senate Committee Dr. Sparks's on Foreign Relations, stated that after discovering the Congress. letter, he made further searches and "came upon a map of North America, by D'Anville, dated 1746, in size about eighteen inches square, on which was drawn a strong red line throughout the entire boundary of the United States, answering precisely Franklin's description. The line is bold and distinct in every part, made with red ink, and apparently drawn with a hair pencil, or a pen with a blunt point."......" In "Red Line Map" susshort it is exactly the line now contended for by Great tained British Britain, -except that it concedes more than is claim. claimed."+ He subsequently deposited in the Library Copies in of Harvard University a tracing of the red-line map, Library. and also a modern printed map of Maine on which he traced lines dividing the water-shed along the southerly highlands to the monument on the present western boundary. To this he added the following certificate: Dr. Sparks's "The broad black line on the annexed map corresponds with the Red Line drawn by Franklin on the map deposited in the Archives des Affaires Etrangères, at Paris."‡ report to * " Lord Ashburton told me it was very fortunate that this Map and Letter did not turn up in the course of his negotiation, for if they had there would have been no Treaty at all. Nothing, he said, would ever have induced the Americans to accept the line, and admit our claim; and with the evidence in our favour; it would have been impossible for us to concede what we did, or anything like it." Greville's Memoirs of the Reign of Queen Victoria, Part 2, v. 1, p. 469. † See Senate Debates, 17th-19th August, 1842. + The original Franklin "Red Line Map," as well as the original letter of Dr. Franklin enclosing it to M. de Vergennes, have also mysteriously disappeared from the French Archives at Paris. "It Harvard certificate. French Map with "Red Line " Map. Another French map, published in Paris in 1784, ofit783 agrees entitled "Carte des Etats Unis de L' Amerique, suivant le traité de Paix de 1783," and dedicated to Dr. Franklin, gives a boundary line corresponding in every respect with the "red line" on Dr. Franklin's map. The presumption is irresistible that the boun dary line printed on this map, must have been either Maps used to furnished to the publisher by Dr. Franklin, or copied secure assent of U. S. Senate. from the map transmitted by Dr. Franklin to M. de Neither Lord Ashburton, nor the British Foreign Office, appears to have known of any of these Franklin maps; and it is a matter of history that "Mr. Webster was anxious lest the English Government should obtain a knowledge of the Franklin map, for he cautioned Mr. Everett, the American Minister in England, against searching for maps, in England or elsewhere;-evidently in fear that Dr. Sparks's traces could be found."+ Subsequently, in 1843, he defended his Lord Ashburton not aware of certain Maps. Mr. Webster's caution to Mr. Everett. is a strange thing that neither letter nor map are now to be found at Paris, at least we have hitherto failed in doing so. But we have found another map altogether in favour of the American claim. I will tell you the particulars of this curious affair when we meet." Lord Aberdeen to Mr. J. W. Croker, 25th February, 1843, quoted in Wharton's Digest of International Law, v. 2, pp. 178 and 179. Copies of Dr. Sparks's maps were, by the courteous permission of the late Dr. Winsor, obtained by the author from the Harvard University Library. * The assent of Maine and Massachusetts was obtained by the payment of $300,000 for their expenses in sending the State Militia to hold the disputed territory, and in making a survey. Moore's History and Digest of International Arbitrations, v. 1, p. 151. + Winsor's America, v. 7, p. 180. |