CHAPTER IV.

THE NORTHEASTERN BOUNDARY: ARBITRATION UNDER THE CONVENTION OF SEPTEMBER 29, 1827.

as a State.

The failure of the commissioners under Arti

1

Admission of Maine cle V. of the Treaty of Ghent to render a decision on the northeastern boundary question imposed upon the two governments the duty of referring the "reports of the said commissioners to some friendly sovereign or state to be then named for that purpose." The indefiniteness of this provision bred delay, which served only to compli cate the difficulties of a settlement. By acts of June 19, 1819, and February 25, 1820, the commonwealth of Massachusetts consented that the District of Maine should be erected into a State; and by an act of Congress of March 3, 1820, Maine was admitted as a member of the Union from the 15th of the same month.

Brunswick.

Soon afterwards disputes began to multiply Disputes between in regard to the contested territory, and the auMaine and New thorities of Maine and New Brunswick were often involved in controversy. In January 1825 a committee of the senate of Maine made a report in which it was alleged that persons from New Brunswick had been guilty of encroaching and cutting timber on the territory of that State. When the matter was brought to its attention the British Government promised that encroachments on the acknowledged territory of the United States should cease; but it claimed that the Aroostook and Madawaska settlements, which were treated by the committee of the Maine senate as lying within that State, were within the British jurisdiction. It declared

Aroostook and Mad

awaska Settlements.

1Treaty of December 24, 1814, Article IV.

2 Br. and For. State Papers, XV. 469.

that the Madawaska settlement was established under a crown grant made thirty years before, and that as late as 1810, when the settlement had been established upwards of twenty years, no claim to it had been advanced by the United States. The Aroostook settlement was asserted to be British on the ground that it lay north of the range of highlands which the line north from the source of the St. Croix reaches at Mars Hill.' Moreover, the British Government complained that two American citizens, representing themselves as agents of Massachu setts, which, in consenting to the separation of Maine, retained an interest in the wild and uncultivated lands of the district, had been circulating notices on the rivers St. John and Madawaska to the effect that they were authorized to make grants in those regions. The United States, after seeking information of the local authorities, answered that the acts complained of were purely precautionary, for the purpose of avoiding any impairment of the claims of Maine and Massachusetts; and it was suggested that till the question of title was settled both governments should pursue a system of forbearance and moderation. At length a common understanding was reached that, pending negotiations, no exercise of exclusive jurisdiction by either party should have the effect of changing the state of the question of right which was to be definitely settled. It was hoped that this agreement would prevent collisions, but in spite of it they continued to occur.

Arrest of John
Baker.

The arrest of John Baker by the authorities of New Brunswick in 1827 in the Madawaska settlement gave rise to an animated correspondence. The United States contended that the settlement on the Madawaska was an unauthorized intrusion on the property of Massachusetts by individuals after 1783, and that it was not till 1790 that New Brunswick assumed to make grants to the intruders. A demand was made for Baker's release, together with reparation for his arrest and imprisonment, and for the abstention by New Brunswick from acts of exclusive jurisdiction in the disputed territory till the question of title should be decided. The British Government answered that Baker had from 1816 to 1820 resided in New Brunswick

1 Br. and For. State Papers, XV. 474.

2 Br. and For. State Papers, XV. 476, 478, 487.

3 Am. State Papers, For. Rel. VI. 626.

4 Br. and For. State Papers, XV. 494, 507, 565.

and Canada; that in 1820 he went to the Madawaska settlement and lived on land granted by New Brunswick, and that he had obtained the government bounty on the cultivation of grain; that as late as 1825 he had applied to the British authorities for the enforcement of British laws; that he was guilty of acts of outrage and sedition, and that the British authorities should be permitted, pending a settlement of the question of title, to continue the exercise of jurisdiction over territory held for a long time by them. New Brunswick had, it was said, discontinued the issuing of licenses for the cutting of timber in the district in question.' Thus not only were the differences of the commissioners under Article V. of the Treaty of Ghent transferred to the domain of diplomacy, but they were also exposed to the hazards of local rivalries, political and personal.

Negotiations of Mr.
Gallatin.

Meanwhile negotiations were undertaken for the settlement of the boundary. In 1826 Albert Gallatin, who was one of the commissioners of the United States at Ghent in 1814, went to England as minister of the United States charged with the duty of arranging various questions of difference. In regard to the northeastern boundary, he was instructed to endeavor to have the subject referred for direct negotiation to Washington, but, in case the attempt should fail, to agree ad referendum on a statement of the controversy to be submitted to arbitration. It was found necessary to adopt the latter course. In the conferences on the various questions of difference, the British Government was represented by two plenipotentiaries, Messrs. Charles Grant, afterward succeeded by William Huskisson, and Henry Unwin Addington; and, although the formal negotiations on the northeastern boundary were brief, the informal discussions were tedious and protracted, Mr. Gallatin being much plagued not only by the letters of Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Madison, which had been published in the United States, but also by Mr. Addington, whom he pronounced "extremely unmanageable." Several sovereigns were considered as arbitrator, among them the King of Prussia and the Emperor of Russia, but no agreement on this subject was reached.

Br. and For. State Papers, XV. 507, 565. See, also, Am. State Papers, For. Rel. VI. 838, 1015; S. Ex. Doc. 130, 20 Cong. 1 sess.; H. Ex. Doc. 278, 2 Cong. 1 sess.

2 Supra, pp. 66-68.

3

Mr. Gallatin proposed that in order to avoid topographical disputes the two governments should agree on a general map of the country, and this proposal was accepted. On the 18th of August 1827 he addressed a note to the British plenipotentiaries, inclosing a project of a treaty of arbitration. At the seventeenth conference the British plenipotentiaries opened the subject, referring to Mr. Gallatin's note, and at the nineteenth conference a convention was agreed on. It was signed September 29, 1827. Receiving the approval of the President, it was transmitted to the Senate, whose advice and consent to the exchange of the ratifications was duly given.* By this convention the contracting parties enConvention of 1827. gaged, as soon as its ratifications should have been exchanged, to proceed in concert to choose some friendly sovereign or state as arbiter, and to use their best endeavors to obtain a decision within two years after the arbiter should have signified his consent to act. But, for that part of the Treaty of Ghent which stipulated that the reports of the commissioners, if they disagreed, should be presented to the arbitrator, the convention substituted a new mode of procedure. The reports of the commissioners and the documents thereto annexed being, said the convention, "so voluminous and complicated as to render it improbable that any sovereign or state would be willing or able to undertake the office of inves tigating and arbitrating upon them," it was agreed to substitute for those reports new and separate statements of the respective cases, severally drawn up by each of the contracting parties, in such forms and terms as each may think fit." It was further agreed that these statements, when prepared, should be mutually communicated to each other by the contracting parties within fifteen months after the exchange of the ratifications of the convention, and that, after such communication had taken place, the parties should have the right. to draw up definitive statements, which should be mutually communicated by each party to the other within twenty-one months after such exchange of ratifications.

In order that the statements of the contracting parties might. be prepared with full knowledge, it was provided that each

1 Adams's Writings of Gallatin, II. 308, 309, 331, 361, 363, 369, 388.

2 Am. State Papers, For. Rel. VI. 643, 700–705.

3 Adams's Writings of Gallatin, II. 398.

4 For later comments on the convention by Gallatin, see Adams's Writings of Gallatin, II. 544-545.