Limitation of Time for Arbitration.

The period within which the completed statements of the contracting parties, with the accompanying documents, should be presented to the arbitrator was fixed at two years after the exchange of the ratifications of the convention, unless the arbitrator should not within that time have been selected and have consented to serve, in which case it was stipulated that the papers should be laid before him within six months after the time when he should have consented to act. It was also provided that the statements and accompanying documents should be laid by the contracting parties before the arbitrator jointly and simultaneously.

In order to facilitate the attainment of a Powers of the Arbi- sound and just decision the arbitrator was trator. authorized, by a requisition simultaneously

made to both parties, to call for further elucidation or evidence in regard to any specific point contained in any of the statements submitted to him; and in such case each party was permitted to bring further evidence, and to make a reply to the specific questions propounded by the arbitrator, such evidence and replies to be immediately communicated by each party to the other. To the same end it was stipulated that, in case the arbitrator should find the topographical evidence laid before him insufficient for the purposes of a sound and just decision, he should have the power to order additional surveys to be made of any portions of the disputed boundary line or territory as he might think fit; and that such surveys should be made at the joint expense of the contracting parties, and should be considered as conclusive by them.

Arbitrator.

The ratifications of the convention were King of the Nether- exchanged at London on the 2d of April 1828. lands Chosen as It was carefully drawn, and its provisions were ample for the purposes for which it was designed. No stipulation was wanting to enable the arbitrator to reach "a sound and just decision." As arbitrator the contracting parties agreed on the King of the Netherlands,' who duly consented to act.

Statements of the
Parties.

The statements and definitive statements of the contracting parties were duly submitted to the arbitrator, those of the United States being prepared by Mr. Gallatin, with whom was associated

1 Am. State Papers, For. Rel. VI. 643.

William Pitt Preble, a citizen of Maine. Seldom has a question been so thoroughly discussed as was this disputed boundary. On January 5, 1828, a joint select committee of the legislature of Maine made a report on it, which was very full and exhaustive. Within three years, the unpublished reports and documents under the Treaty of Ghent having been cast aside as "so voluminous and complicated" as to discourage investigation, new statements, composed with great ability and learning, were substituted for all that had gone before. These statements, which were printed but not published, were bound up in a volume of which there are only a few copies in existence. In order to understand the case in its various aspects as it came before the King of the Netherlands, it is necessary, in addition to the history of the commission under Article V. of the Treaty of Ghent, which is narrated in the preceding chapter, to present a brief account of the origin of the questions at issue, and a summary of the statements submitted by the contracting governments to the arbitrator.

of 1783.

It was the design of the treaty of peace of Design of the Treaty 1783 to leave the United States in the possession of the boundaries which properly belonged to them when they were colonies under the British Crown. This design was, as will hereafter be shown, the basis of the definition finally adopted; and it is therefore necessary, in order that the subject may be understood, to recur to the British acts in which the lines originated.

Ancient Grants.

By the grant made by James I. to Sir William Alexander on September 10, 1621, Nova Scotia was bounded on the west by the river "commonly called St. Croix," and from the most remote source or spring on its western side by an imaginary direct line toward the north to the nearest ship road, river, or spring emptying itself into the great river of Canada (the St. Lawrence), and "from thence proceeding eastwardly along the seashores of the said river of Canada," along a course described. By a charter of April 3, 1639, Charles I. granted to Sir Ferdinando Gorges the province or county palatine of Maine, which, bounded on the west by the River Piscataqua, extended northeast along the seacoast to the River Sagadahock, the name of the

1 Gallatin says he devoted nearly two years to the subject, bestowing on it more time than he ever did on any other question. (Adams's Writings of Gallatin, II. 549.)

'Am. State Papers, For. Rel. VI. 893-945.

Kennebec below the confluence of the Androscoggin, and up the Sagadahock to the "Kynybecky" (Kennebec) River, and from thence along a described course. The territories included in this grant were conveyed by Gorges to John Usher on March 13, 1677, and were by the latter conveyed on the 15th of the same month to the Massachusetts Bay Company.

Sagadahock.

It will be observed that between the territories thus granted there is a region, lying between the St. Croix and the Kennebec, of considerable dimensions. It is called on the old maps, including Mitchell's, Sagadahock, the name by which the lower waters of the Kennebec were designated. This region, which the name of Maine afterward came to include, was granted on March 12, 1664, by Charles II. to his brother James, Duke of York, by the description-"all that part of the maine land of New England beginning at a certaine place called or knowne by the name of St. Croix next adjoyning to New Scotland in America and from thence extending along the sea coast into a certain place called Petuaquine or Pemaquid and so up the River thereof to the furthest head of ye same as it tendeth northwards and extending from thence to the River Kinebequi and so upwards by the shortest course to the River Canada northward." On the 29th of June 1674 the Duke of York obtained a confirmation of this grant from Charles II., and on the accession of the Duke to the throne as James II. it was merged in the Crown. The reason for this confirmation was the fact that by the Peace of Breda of July 21, 1667, the King of Great Britain agreed to restore to the King of France the territory of Acadia, or Nova Scotia. The confirmation affirmed the fact that, according to the British view, Nova Scotia did not extend to the westward of the St. Croix.

On the 7th of October 1691 William and Charter of Massachu- Mary, Great Britain and France being then at setts Bay. war, granted the charter of the province of Massachusetts Bay. By this charter they will and ordaine that the Territories and Colonyes commonly called or knowne by the names of The Colony of Massachusetts Bay and Colony of New Plymouth the Province of Main The Territory called Accadia or Nova Scotia and all that Tract of Land lying between the said territories of Nova Scotia and the said Province of Main be united erected and incorporated. And Wee Doe by these Presents unite erect and incorporate the same into

one reall Province by the name of Our Province of Massachusetts Bay in New England." But by the Peace of Ryswick of September 10, 1697, Great Britain agreed to restore all places which France possessed before the declaration of war, France making a reciprocal promise. By these reciprocal engagements Nova Scotia remained with France, and was therefore excepted out of the "Province of Massachusetts Bay in New England," which thus comprised "the Territories and Colonyes commonly called or knowne by the names of The Colony of Massachusetts Bay and Colony of New Plymouth the Province of Main *** and all that Tract of Land lying between the said territories of Nova Scotia and the said Province of Main."

Province of Nova
Scotia.

By the Treaty of Utrecht of March 31, 1713, Nova Scotia or Acadia was retroceded by France to Great Britain, but it was not rejoined to the province of Massachusetts Bay, being erected into a separate province. The commission of its first governor, Richard Phillips, issued September 11, 1719, merely describes it as the "province of Nova Scotia or Accadie in America." The same words are preserved in the commissions of the gov ernors of the province down to 1761.

Treaty of Paris of 1763.

In 1763 a momentous change took place in the territorial possessions of the European powers in America. By the Peace of Paris of the 10th of February between France, Great Britain, and Spain, not only did Nova Scotia or Acadia rest under British sovereignty, but Canada, the island of Cape Breton, and all the islands and coasts in the gulf and river St. Lawrence passed under the same dominion and were lost to the French Crown, largely as the result of the exertions of the British colonists in America. It now became necessary to provide governments for the new possessions, and in so doing attention was naturally paid to boundaries.

Establishment of the
Province of Quebec.

By a royal proclamation of October 7, 1763, establishing a government for the province of Quebec, the boundary of that province is described as a line drawn from the south end of Lake Nipissin across the River St. Lawrence and Lake Champlain in fortyfive degrees of north latitude, and "along the High Lands which divide the Rivers that empty themselves into the said River St. Lawrence from those which fall into the Sea and also along the North Coast of the Bay des Chaleurs and the coast

of the Gulph of St. Lawrence to Cape Rosieres." By the act of 14 Geo. III. cap. 83 (1774), "for making more effectual provision for the Government of the Province of Quebec," the province is "bounded on the South by a line from the bay of Chaleurs, along the highlands which divide the rivers that empty themselves into the river St. Lawrence from those which fall into the Sea, to a point in forty-five degrees of north latitude, on the eastern bank of the river Connecticut, keeping the same latitude directly west." The location and the reason of this boundary are quite clear. The object was to include in the province of Quebec, to which the French population was confined, the basin of the St. Lawrence, which was already partly inhabited by persons of that race. It included in the province of Quebec that basin and the country north of the Bay of Chaleurs.

Boundaries of Nova
Scotia.

Having ascertained the boundary established by the British Government for the province of Quebec, let us turn again to Nova Scotia, which originally extended, as we have seen, to the River St. Lawrence. On the 21st of November 1763, six weeks after the publication of the royal proclamation in regard to Quebec, a commission was issued to Montague Wilmot as governor of Nova Scotia. By this commission it is provided that the province of Nova Scotia "shall be bounded" to the northward "by the Southern Boundary of our Province of Quebec as far as the western extremity of the Bay des Chaleurs," and to the eastward "by the said Bay and the Gulf of St. Lawrence." To the westward it is said that, "although our said province hath anciently extended and doth of right extend as far as the river Pentagonet or Penobscot It shall be bounded by a line drawn from Cape Sable across the entrance of the Bay of Fundy to the mouth of the River St. Croix by the said river to its source and by a Line drawn due North from thence to the Southern Boundary of our colony of Quebec." The scheme of these boundaries is exceedingly simple and definite, and is set forth, as it was understood at the time, on a map in Dodsley's Annual Register for 1763.

Such were the British definitions of the boundaries when in 1782 the American and British plenipotentiaries entered at Paris on negotiations for a treaty of peace. Let us examine, now, the instructions of the American plenipotentiaries and trace the course of the negotiations.