[ H2 ] [FEB, 



NORTH-EAST BOUNDARY OF AMERICA.* 



WE beg our readers not to be alarmed. Our heading has a dry, 

 uninviting aspect, we know ; but the subject, we assure them, is one of 

 growing importance, and already involves practical consequences. It 

 requires to be distinctly understood too, for it must quickly become 

 matter of public discussion. Attractive we may not be able to make it; 

 but it shall not weary by its length. Without farther preluding then we 

 begin. 



For three and forty years, with some interruptions, has this question of 

 boundary been in the hands of negotiators. Why, was not, it will be 

 asked, the matter of boundary among the very first articles of the 

 treaty of 1783, between defeated England and her triumphant colonies ? 

 Yes, it constitutes the subject of the second article of that humbling 

 treaty. Then, what occasions the existing dispute ? Some ambiguity in 

 the terms ? No ; the terms are unambiguous enough, but those terms 

 direct the boundary to be drawn through regions then unexplored. The 

 treaty speaks of highlands, the existence of which was conjectural, and 

 their direction unknown. It proceeds upon presumptions, instead of facts. 

 The American commissioners themselves knew little of the country, and 

 the English still less. With an extensive tract of unsettled country 

 intervening between the cultivated parts of each empire, it was originally 

 of little importance where precisely the line of demarcation was drawn ; 

 and the framers of the treaty, therefore, ran the boundary through the 

 middle of the unsurveyed territory, just as they ran it through the centre 

 of the lakes. But colonization has rapidly progressed : and is now 

 actually working up, on both sides, towards the boundary-region, and it 

 becomes, of course, an object of practical importance to determine the 

 claims of each country. The Americans are impatient; they are 

 assailants the British resisting encroachments. 



We will first look to the terms of the treaty, and then see what has 

 been done towards settling the points in dispute. The boundary in 

 question is thus described in the original treaty: 



" From the north-west angle of Nova Scotia, viz. that angle, which is 

 formed by a line drawn due north from the source of St. 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 north-western-most head of the Connecticut 

 river." 



Well, what are the grounds of dissension? 1. The St. Croix itself: 

 2. The true source of the St. Croix ; 3. The supposed highlands running 

 between the waters which flow into the St. Lawrence, and those which 

 flow into the Atlantic. 



Of the St. Croix the river fixed upon as the eastern boundary 

 between the now separated nations all was unascertained from its mouth 

 to its source. A river had been thus named ; but which was this river, 

 and how it was to be distinguished from some other streams, were undeter- 

 mined? Weil, what was to be done ? After long canvassing, the 

 question by the treaty of 1794 was referred to commissioners. The 

 commissioners disagreed. They were empowered to appoint an umpire. 



Considerations of the Claims and Couduct of the United States, respecting their North 

 Eastern Boundary, &c. 1820. 



