York on May 14, 1821, in order to afford the agents time for preparation. On that day the board convened in New York to hear argument.

ments of Agents.

On the 24th of May the agents of His BritanClaims and Argu- nic Majesty presented a memorial in which they stated that they were prepared to file a claim in respect of the northwest angle of Nova Scotia, but that the agent of the United States had declined to take corresponding action on that subject. On the following day the American agent replied, objecting to the taking up of a single question as being contrary to a prior agreement between the agents not to discuss particular points but to argue the whole subject before the board in all its parts. On the 9th of June an adjournment was taken till the 1st of August. When the board reconvened the controversy as to procedure was renewed, with many criminations and recriminations as to the responsibility for the delays that had supervened in the execution of the work of the commission. Arguments, however, were also made on the merits of the case, and the board, after adjourning on the 14th of August, met again on the 20th of September and sat till the 4th of October, when the arguments, which had been characterized by not a little acrimony, were brought to a close, and the commissioners, who were unable to agree, adjourned till the following year in order to prepare their separate reports.1

of the Commission.

The discussion by the agents of the responDelays and Expenses sibility for delays doubtless was prompted by the complaints made both in the United States and in England of the slowness and the expenses of the "mere operation of survey" which the commission was instituted to perform. On December 14, 1820, President Monroe sent to the House of Representatives a detailed statement of the expenses under the Treaty of Ghent, by which it appeared that the amount expended under Article V. for the years 1816 to 1820, inclusive, was $99,099.10, for which the two governments were jointly liable." A select committee of the House, to whom the message was referred, deemed this amount exorbitant and adverted to the failure of the two governments definitely to regulate expenditures. Most of the expenditures

1 Am. State Papers, For. Rel. VI. 138.

2 Am. State Papers, For. Rel. V. 50.

3 Feb. 3, 1821, Am. State Papers, For. Rel. IV. 617.

were, however, quite necessary. The requisite surveys turned out to be much more elaborate and costly than was anticipated. "The obstacles to be encountered," said Mr. Van Ness, "have been great and numerous. The whole extent of the country from the source of the river St. Croix, north, to the river St. Lawrence, and between that line and the head of Connecticut river, is one vast and entire wilderness, inhabited by no human being, except a few savages, and, in one spot, a few Frenchmen.” 1

missioners.

As the surveys progressed the presumptive Prospective Disagreement of Com- possibility of an agreement of the commissioners gradually disappeared. Colonel Bouchette, who is represented as having been "bullied" by the American surveyor, and who was later discharged from the service, seems in an early stage of the surveys, when the exploration from the source of the St. Croix had proceeded about one hundred miles to the north, to have recommended

1 Am. State Papers, For. Rel. IV. 649. By an act of March 3, 1821, 3 Stats. at L. 640, it was provided that each commissioner and each agent under the Treaty of Ghent should be entitled to receive for his services performed before January 1, 1821, not more than $4,444 a year, in full compensation for all services and personal expenses, and after that date not more than $2,500 a year, and that for not more than two years. For appropriations, see 3 Stats. at L. 422, 561, 673, 762. The following are some of the surveys under Article V.: The first 99 miles north of the St. Croix, to the Restigonche, by Mr. Bouchette, British, and Mr. Johnson, American, surveyor, in 1817; the remainder to Beaver Stream, a tributary of the St. Lawrence, 116 miles from the St. Croix, by Mr. Johnson and Mr. Odell (British) in 1818. The northern extremity of the due-north line was examined again in 1820 by Dr. Tiarks, British astronomer, and Mr. Burnham, American surveyor. Mars Hill was visited in 1819 by Mr. Odell and Mr. Partridge, American surveyor. Mr. Johnson in 1818 visited Green Mountain and the Temiscouata Portage, which was again examined by Mr. Partridge in 1819. In 1819 Messrs. Partridge and Odell ascended the Aroostook; Mr. Hunter (American) ascended the river Aliguash to its source, crossed the British line at the Umbazucksus Portage, ascended the northwest branch of the Penobscot, from Chesumcook Lake to its source, and descended the river to its confluence with the Matawamkeag; Mr. Campbell (British) proceeded from the Schoodiac to the Matawamkeag, thence up the Penobscot, and visited Mount Katahdin. In 1820 Mr. Odell and Mr. Loring (American) visited this mountain and surveyed on the Penobscot and Aliguash; Mr. Hunter and Mr. Loss (British) surveyed on the west and south branches of the St. John; Mr. Burnham and Mr. Carlile (British) surveyed Metjarmette Portage; Mr. Campbell and Mr. Odell explored different parts of the Penobscot; Messrs. Burnham and Tiarks examined Tuladi and Green River portages, and Messrs. Burnham and Carlile the River Ouelle. In the different years there were surveys of various highlands.

the fixing of the northwest angle of Nova Scotia at the point where the due-north line intersects the River Restigouche, which flows into the Bay of Chaleurs. This recommendation the British commissioner held in abeyance, and when the surveys were pushed farther he rejected it.

Nova Scotia.

The treaty of 1783 places, as we have seen, Northwest Angle of the northwest angle of Nova Scotia at the point where "a line drawn due north from the source of the St. Croix River" strikes the "highlands which divides those rivers that empty themselves into the river St. Lawrence, from those which fall into the Atlantic Ocean." By the surveys it was found that the north line, passing along the eastern base of Mars Hill, forty miles north of the source of the St. Croix, reached at that point a high elevation, and descending thence into the valley of the St. John, crossed that river nearly forty miles farther on; that it rose again, about ninetyseven miles north of the source of the St. Croix, to a ridge dividing tributary streams of the St. John from the waters of the River Restigouche; and that, proceeding thence across several upper branches of the Restigouche, it reached, at a distance of 143 miles from the source of the St. Croix, the head of the River Metis, which flows into the River St. Lawrence, and there struck for the first time a ridge that turns waters into the latter river.

The American agent claimed this point as the northwest angle of Nova Scotia. The British agent contested it on two grounds-first, that the ridge, being a mere watershed, did not possess either that elevation or that continuity which was essential to highlands; and second, that, as it divided the waters of the Metis from waters of the Restigouche, which falls through the Bay of Chaleurs into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and not into the "Atlantic Ocean," it could not be said to "divide those rivers that empty themselves into the river St. Lawrence, from those which fall into the Atlantic Ocean.". The British agent claimed Mars Hill as the desired point; and while it must be admitted that he supported it by remarkable dexterity of reasoning, it must also be conceded that he did not exceed in that respect the requirements of his preten

'Mr. Barclay to Mr. Chipman, November 8, 1817, Rives's Correspondence of Thomas Barclay, 395; same to same, December 6, 1817, p. 398; see, also, pp. 378, 396, 400, 402.

sion. Mars Hill is in every direction at least a hundred miles distant from the sources of any of the rivers that empty into the River St. Lawrence. The only streams it divides are two small tributaries of the River St. John, which flows into the Bay of Fundy. So that, according to the British agent's contention in regard to the Restigouche, Mars Hill does not divide rivers falling either into the River St. Lawrence or into the Atlantic Ocean. It was preeminent for fulfilling none of the conditions of the treaty of 1783, except, perhaps, that it was a high elevation. But the British agent met this difficulty by interpreting the treaty according to its "spirit" and not its letter. The words "north to the Highlands" in the treaty of 1783 were, he said, evidently intended to mean that the line should terminate whenever it reached highlands which "in any part of their extent" divided the waters therein mentioned. It was not necessary that they should possess this characteristic "in their whole extent." The words "which divide those rivers" merely meant "where they divide those rivers." "Where" the highlands divided rivers emptying themselves into the River St. Lawrence from those falling into the Atlantic Ocean properly so-called, the line was to follow such highlands; but where they did not so divide rivers the line was at any rate to follow "highlands." To exemplify and strengthen his interpretation, the British agent proposed that the language of the treaty should be reversed, and that the line, instead of beginning at the northwest angle of Nova Scotia, should be traced "from the northwesternmost head of Connecticut, along the highlands which divide those rivers, &c. to the northwest angle of Nova Scotia, viz. that angle which is formed by a line drawn due north from the source of the St. Croix River to the Highlands." Tracing the line thus, it proceeded from the Connecticut River coincidently with the line claimed by the United States for a distance of about eighty miles, if measured in a straight line from point to point, to a place called Metjarmette Portage, dividing the source of the northwesternmost branch of the Penobscot River, which falls into the Atlantic Ocean, from the source of a tributary of the River Chaudière, which falls into the River St. Lawrence. From this point the line proceeded to Mars Hill along highlands which divide either tributaries of the Penobscot from those of the St. John or tributaries of the St. John from each other. To these

arguments of the British agent the British commissioner added the suggestion that the treaty, in directing that the due-north line should be run to the highlands, meant the first highlands or elevation to be met. The British as well as the American line may be seen on the map at the beginning of the next chapter.

As to the northwesternmost head of ConNorthwesternmost necticut River the American and British lines also differed, the American agent claiming the head of Hall's Stream and the British agent

Head of Connecticut River.

a different stream.

Forty-fifth Parallel of North Latitude.

But the most surprising difference was that which arose in regard to the forty-fifth parallel of north latitude. In 1817 Andrew Ellicott,' who was then acting as astronomer on the part of the United States, ascertained the point where that parallel of latitude strikes the Cataraquy and marked it with a stone monument. He found the point to be within two or three feet of the place of its supposed true location. But in the autumn of 1818 Dr. Tiarks and Mr. Hassler, then the British and American astronomers, discovered, apparently to the consternation of both of them, that just east of Lake Champlain the true parallel lay about three-fourths of a mile south of the "Old Line," which was surveyed in the preceding century. Less than half a mile to the south of this line lay the fort at Rouse's Point, which had been constructed by the United States at a cost of a million dollars and which was believed to be of great strategic value; and near by was a new work in course of construction; so that it seemed that both forts were on British territory. The astronomers at first kept their discovery a profound secret, except from the agents of their governments, fearing that its disclosure might cause a local uprising. There was no doubt, however, as to the fact. The old line was in certain parts erroneous. The American agent, Mr. Bradley, endeavored to meet the emergency by claiming that geocentric instead of observed

Mr. Ellicott was at this time professor of mathematics at West Point. He was born in Bucks Co., Pa., Jan. 24, 1754. His father was one of the founders of Ellicott City (then Ellicott's Mills), near Baltimore, Md. His services to the United States were numerous. He died Aug. 29, 1820. See Coues's Expeditions of Zebulon Montgomery Pike, II. 656.

2 Mr. Tiarks to Mr. Barclay, October 15, 1818, Rives's Correspondence of Thomas Barclay, 402; Diary of John Quincy Adams, October 28, 1818.