was of English, French, or other nationality. On the 6th of December 1782 Franklin returned the map after having, as he said, marked the limits of the United States "with a strong red line." Early in 1842 Jared Sparks, while pursuing his researches among the papers relating to the American Revolution in the archives of the French department of foreign affairs, discovered Franklin's letter to Vergennes. Immediately instituting a search, he found among the 60,000 maps in the archives a small map of North America by D'Anville dated 1746, with a red line upon it apparently drawn with a hair pencil or a pen with a blunt point, and apparently intended to indicate the boundaries of the United States. Besides this line there was nothing whatever to identify the map with the map marked by Franklin. In reality, it made the northeastern boundary run even below the line claimed by Great Britain westward from Mars Hill.3 Sparks however at once sent a copy of the map to Mr. Webster, who, after inspecting it, instructed Mr. Everett to "forbear to press the search after maps in England or elsewhere." Mr. Webster retained the copy in his possession, but exhibited it only to the Maine commissioners and later to the Senate. That it bore any relation to the negotiations of 1782 and 1783 is more than doubtful. This was strongly intimated by Benton in the debates on the treaty. But when, through the publication of the debates in the Senate, the use made by Mr. Webster of the map became known he was vigorously assailed for not having exhibited it to Lord Ashburton, whom he was charged with having overreached. Mr. Webster very appropriately replied that he did not think it a very urgent duty on his part to go to Lord Ashburton and say that a doubtful bit of evidence had been found in Paris, out of which he might perhaps make something to the prejudice of the United States, or from which he might set up higher claims for himself, or obscure the whole matter still further. But it must have been known, at least to some of

1 Wharton's Dip. Cor. Am. Rev. VI. 120.

2 Sparks, North American Review (1843), LVI. 470–471.

3 North American Review (1843), LVI. 468.

Curtis's Life of Webster, II. 103.

5 Winsor's Narrative and Critical History of America, VII. 180, et seq.

6 Benton's Thirty Years' View, II. 422.

7 Curtis's Life of Webster, II. 132, 134, 149, 154, 155, 159-162, 167.

8

Proceedings of the New York Historical Society, April 15, 1843, p. 67; Webster's Works, II. 145.

Mr. Webster's and Lord Ashburton's detractors in England, that there then existed in the foreign office, to which it had been removed from the British Museum,' the veritable copy of Mitchell's map used in the negotiations of 1782 with Oswald's line, and also the line finally agreed on marked upon it. This map was exhibited by Lord Aberdeen to Mr. Everett at the foreign office in March 1843.2 It was subsequently restored to the British Mu eum, where it is now preserved. A copy of Mitchell's map, with Oswald's first line marked upon it, was found in 1843 among the papers of Mr. Jay. This line runs along the St. John from its mouth and follows the north branch to the head of Lake Medousa, where it turns westward, and, on its course to the head of Connecticut River, skirts the sources of the streams that empty themselves into the River St. Lawrence.

ican Commissioners in 1782.

It has been seen that Egbert Benson, in his Map used by Amer- report under Article V. of the treaty of 1794, said that the commissioners under that article had before them the copy of Mitchell's map used by the negotiators of the treaty of peace, with the lines of the boundary marked upon it. This map, he said, was obtained from the Department of State. It probably was the one referred to by a writer in 1826, who said: "We have ourselves seen the very copy of the map which was used at the conference at Paris, with the lines in pencil yet hardly obliter

Benton's Thirty Years' View, II. 422.

2 Mr. Everett, in a dispatch of March 31, 1843, describes the map thus: "It is a copy of Mitchell in fine preservation. The boundaries between the British and French Possessions, as fixed by the treaty of Utretch,' are marked upon it in a very full distinct line, at least a tenth of an inch broad, and those words written in several places. In like manner the line giving our boundary as we have always claimed it, that is, carrying the northwestern angle of Nova Scotia far to the north of the St. Johns, is drawn very carefully in a bold red line, full a tenth of an inch broad; and in four different places along the line distinctly written the boundary described by Mr Oswald.' What is very noticeable is, that a line narrower, but drawn with care with an instrument, from the lower end of Lake Nipissing to the source of the Mississippi, as far as the map permits such a line to run, had once been drawn on the map, and has since been partially erased, though still distinctly visible." (Benton's Thirty Years' View, II. 671.)

3 Fitzmaurice's Life of Shelburne, III. 205, 324, note.

4 Proceedings of the New York Historical Society, April 18, 1843, with a "Memoir on the Northeastern Boundary," by Mr. Gallatin, and a speech by Mr. Webster.

5 Supra, pp. 39-40.

1

ated." The responses elicited by inquiries addressed to the Department of State some years ago by Mr. Justin Winsor,2 and lately repeated by myself, tend to show that the map has been lost. It seems to have disappeared at some time after 1828. Early in November in that year Mr. Gallatin, who was then engaged in preparing the American statement for submission to the King of the Netherlands, visited the Department of State, and one of his first acts on his arrival was to make inquiry for the map said to have been offered in evidence in 1798. The chief clerk, Mr. Brent, immediately produced a copy of Mitchell's map as the identical map in question. "There had been traced on it," says Mr. Gallatin, "originally with a pencil and over it with a pen, the boundary of the United States in conformity with their claim." It was, however, decided not to produce it before the arbitrator. Though Mr. Brent was convinced from tradition, and though there could under all the circumstances be little doubt that it was the map laid before the commissioners in 1798, there was no indorsement or certificate on it to show by whom it was depos ited in the Department of State, nor could any letter announ cing its transmission be found; and it was thought to be improper as well as impolitic to attempt to support the claim of the United States by equivocal or disputable evidence. There was no knowledge or recollection in the Department of the map sent by Franklin to Jefferson in April 1790.3

Brunswick.

After the settlement of the northeastern Boundary between boundary question, steps were taken by the Canada and New British Government to bring to a close the long-pending dispute as to boundaries between the provinces of Canada and New Brunswick, the political successors in that quarter of the ancient provinces of Quebec and Nova Scotia. In this dispute the two British provinces respectively took the positions of Great Britain and the United States on the northeastern boundary question, Canada claiming a line drawn northeastwardly from Mars Hill, while New Brunswick claimed substantially the same line as that which had been contended for by the United States; and they maintained their respective pretensions with as much pertinacity as the two national governments had done. So "opposite" were

1 Samuel L. Knapp, Boston Monthly Magazine (1826), 573.

2 Narrative and Critical History of America, VII. 181.

3 Proceedings of the New York Historical Society April 15, 1843, pp. 48–49.