CHAPTER III.

THE NORTHEASTERN BOUNDARY:

COMMISSION

UNDER ARTICLE V. OF THE TREATY OF GHENT.

The decision of the commissioners under Line in Dispute. Article IV. of the Treaty of Ghent, the history of which is narrated in the preceding chapter, marked little actual progress in the determination of the boundary line which the treaty of peace of 1783 had estab lished. By that treaty the boundaries of the United States were, as we have seen,' declared to run: "From the northwest angle of Nova Scotia, viz. that angle which is formed by a line drawn due north from the source of Saint Croix River to the Highlands; along the said Highlands which divide those rivers that empty themselves into the river St. Lawrence, from those which fall into the Atlantic Ocean, to the northwesternmost head of Connecticut River; thence down along the middle of that river, to the forty-fifth degree of north latitude; from thence, by a line due west on said latitude, until it strikes the river Iroquois or Cataraquy; East, by a line to be drawn along the middle of the river St. Croix, from its mouth in the Bay of Fundy to its source, and from its source directly north to the aforesaid Highlands, which divide the rivers that fall into the Atlantic Ocean from those which fall into the river St. Lawrence." The line thus defined comprises that section of the boundary which was involved in what came to be known as the Northeastern Boundary Question-a dispute which, first arising as to what constituted the "northwest angle of Nova Scotia" and the "Highlands," spread from point. to point till it embraced substantially the whole of the line. from the source of the St. Croix River, as determined by the commissioners under Article V. of the Jay Treaty, to the point Chapter I.

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where the forty-fifth parallel of north latitude strikes that part of the St. Lawrence which was called by the Indians the Iroquois or Cataraquy.

An attentive examination of the clauses The "Highlands." above quoted will show that, in running the line in question, the basal fact to be determined was the position of the highlands. The northwest angle of Nova Scotia is said to be formed by a line "drawn due north from the source of the Saint Croix River to the Highlands," and it is along these highlands that the line to the north westernmost head of the Connecticut River is to run.

On Mitch

ell's map no such range of highlands as the treaty contemplates appears, but the negotiators apparently assumed that a continuous or practically continuous ridge of ground would be. found to divide the rivers emptying themselves into the River St. Lawrence from those falling into the Atlantic Ocean.

Views of Mr. Sulli

van.

On a map published in 1795 in a work by James Sullivan,' who subsequently acted as agent for the United States under Article V. of the Jay Treaty, there is a continuous ridge of mountainous territory running almost in a straight line along the River St. Lawrence, and marked "High Lands being the boundary line between the United States and the British Province of Quebec." But, in his argument before the commissioners under the Jay Treaty, Mr. Sullivan declared that the question of the highlands was "yet resting on the wing of imagination," and that the "point of locality of the northwest angle" was "to be the investigation of the next century"-a prophecy remarkably fulfilled.

2

In 1802 Mr. Sullivan returned to the subject in a letter to Mr. Madison, who, as Secretary of State, was then contemplating a negotiation with Great Britain for the settlement of the boundaries. The line north from the source of the St. Croix crossed the St. John, said Mr. Sullivan, a great way south of any place which could be supposed to be the highlands; but, where the line would come to the northwest angle of Nova Scotia and find its termination, it was not easy to discover. The boundary between Nova Scotia and Canada was described in the King's proclamation in the same manner as in

History of the District of Maine.

2 May 20, 1802, Am. State Papers, For. Rel. II. 587.

*

the treaty of peace,' but the commissioners who were appointed to settle that line had traversed the country in vain to find the highlands designated as a boundary. "I have seen one of them," continued Mr. Sullivan, "who agrees with the account 1 have had from the natives and others, that there are no mountains or highlands on the southerly side of the St. Lawrence, and northeastward of the river Chaudière. That, from the mouth of the St. Lawrence to that river, there is a vast extent of high flat country, * being a morass of millions of acres. That the rivers originating in this elevated swamp pass each other wide asunder, many miles in opposite courses, some to the St. Lawrence and some to the Atlantic Sea. Should this description be founded in fact, nothing can be effectively done, as to a Canada line, without a commission to ascertain and settle the place of the northwest angle of Nova Scotia, wherever that may be agreed to be: if there is no mountain or natural monument, an artificial one may be raised. From thence, the line westward to Connecticut river may be established by artificial monuments erected at certain distances from each other; Though there is no such

chain of mountains as the plans or maps of the country represent under the appellation of the highlands, yet there are eminences from whence an horizon may be made to fix the latitude from common quadrant observations."

Instructions of Mr.
Madison.

It was in the sense of this letter that Mr. Madison on the 8th of June 1802 instructed Rufus King, then minister of the United States at London, to enter upon negotiations for the adjustment of the boundaries. In fixing the terminus of the line to be run due north it had been found, said Mr. Madison, that the "highlands" had no definite existence; and he therefore suggested the appointment of a commission similar to that under Article V. of the Jay Treaty, "to determine on a point most proper to be substituted for the description in the second

Mr. Sullivan refers to the royal proclamation of October 7, 1763, in relation to the countries ceded by France to Great Britain by the Treaty of Paris of that year. By that proclamation the province of Quebec was bounded on the south by a line which, "crossing the River St. Lawrence, and the Lake Champlain in forty-five degrees of north latitude, passes along the highlands, which divide the rivers that empty themselves into the River St. Lawrence, from those which fall into the sea."

2 Am. State Papers, For. Rel. II. 585.

article of the treaty of 1783, having due regard to the general idea that the line ought to terminate on the elevated ground dividing the rivers falling into the Atlantic, from those emptying themselves into the St. Lawrence. The commissioners may," the instructions continued, "be also authorized to substitute for the description of the boundary between the point so fixed, and the northwesternmost head of Connecticut river, namely, a line drawn along the said highlands, such a reference to intermediate sources of rivers or other ascertained or ascertainable points, to be connected by straight lines, as will admit of easy and accurate execution hereafter, and as will best comport with the apparent intention of the treaty of 1783."

Mistake as to the "Highlands."

This suggestion, which originated with Mr. Sullivan and accorded with his long-cherished assumption that highlands meant a mountainous ridge of land, conveyed the first official intimation that the line of the treaty of 1783 was incapable of execution and that a new line might be substituted for it. Though the idea underlying the intimation obviously was, that the substituted line should be drawn as nearly as possible through the region where the "highlands" had been supposed to exist, yet the letter of Mr. Sullivan and the instructions of Mr. Madison, having been communicated to Congress and thus made a matter of public record, conceded a point which it was never possible to regain.'

King-Hawkesbury
Convention.

On the 12th of May 1803 Mr. King and Lord Hawkesbury concluded a convention by the second article of which provision was made for the appointment of a commission similar to that under Article V. of the Jay Treaty "to ascertain and determine the said northwest angle of Nova Scotia pursuant to the provisions of the said treaty of peace: and likewise to cause the said boundary line between the source of the River St. Croix, as the

1 Mr. Gallatin in a letter to Charles S. Davies of June 14, 1839, said: "Governor Sullivan's blunder in that respect was the source whence arose our difficulties, and which led our Government to declare, in fact, that in its opinion there were, in the topography of the county, obstacles to the execution of the treaty." (Adams's Writings of Gallatin, II. 546.) By the act of April 3, 1802, the sum of $10,000 was appropriated to defray the expense which might be incurred "in negotiating with the government of Great Britain, for ascertaining and establishing the boundary line between the United States and the British Province of Upper Canada." (2 Stats. at L. 148.)

same has been determined by the commissioners appointed for that purpose, and the northwest angle of Nova Scotia, to be run and marked according to the provisions of the treaty aforesaid." Provision was also made for the ascertainment of other parts of the line between the United States and the British possessions. But, in consequence of an amendment which the cession of Louisiana caused the Senate of the United States to adopt, the convention never was ratified. A similar attempt to effect a settlement by Messrs. Monroe and Pinkney and Lords Holland and Auckland in 1807 also suffered defeat by reason of an extrinsic cause.2

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Thus it happened that when the American Revision of Boundary and British commissioners met at Ghent in 1814 Proposed at Ghent. to conclude a second treaty of peace no progress had been made toward the determination of the northeastern boundary. At the first conference, which was held on the 8th of August 1814, the British commissioners proposed a revision of the boundary line between the British and American territories, with a view to prevent future uncertainty and dispute;" a proposition which, in a note to the American commissioners, they explained as embracing “such a variation of the line of frontier as may secure a direct communication between Quebec and Halifax." To this proposition the American commissioners replied that they had "no authority to cede any part of the territory of the United States; and to no stipulation to that effect will they subscribe." The British commissioners explained that "the boundary of the District of Maine" had "never been correctly ascertained; that the one asserted, at present, by the American Government, by which the direct communication between Halifax and Quebec becomes interrupted, was not in contemplation of the British Plenipotentiaries who concluded the treaty of 1783;" and that all they required to be "ceded" to Great Britain was "that small portion of unsettled country which interrupts the communication between Quebec and Halifax, there being much doubt whether it does not already belong to Great Britain."3 It must be admitted that the propositions and the explanations of the British commissioners did

'Am. State Papers, For. Rel. II. 584.

2 Am. State Papers, For. Rel. III. 162-165.

3 The negotiations at Ghent are detailed in Am. State Papers, For. Rel. III. 695-748; IV. 808-811.