224 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
This description of the north line was repeated in all subsequent 
commissions down to 1782. 
Granted the position of the St. Croix, the position of this north 
line was unmistakable, and it is shown uniformly upon all maps of 
the next twenty years, types of which are found in the accompanying 
maps by Holland and by DesBarres (Nos. 14 and 15). Where this line 
joins the boundary along the highlands it forms nearly a right angle on 
most of the maps, and this angle is the “northwest angle of Nova 
Scotia” of which so much was heard later in connection with the in- 
ternational boundary disputes. 
It will be noted that Wilmot’s commission of 1763 contains the 
statement that Nova Scotia anciently extended and does of right ex- 
tend to the Penobscot, but this statement is omitted from all subse- 
quent commissions. The reasons for its insertion here and its sub- 
sequent omission are plain. Massachusetts and Nova Scotia had re- 
ferred their dispute upon their boundary to the Crown and no decision 
upon the merits of the case had yet (in 1763) been rendered, so these 
words were inserted to prevent the boundary here established being con- 
sidered a final decision upon the subject. This final decision appears 
however to have been given not upon the abstract merits of the case 
but upon a point of immediate practical convenience, which is explained 
by Gallatin: . He states that in 1764 the Agent of Massachusetts in 
England wrote to the General Court of Massachusetts that he had au- 
thority to state that if that Province would yield any right it might 
have under its charter to the lands along the St. Lawrence intended 
to be included by the Government in Quebec (1.e., the part north of 
the watershed), the Government would waive any dispute as to ‘the 
claim of Massachusetts to the territory between the Penobscot and the 
St. Croix, and the agent urges the acceptance of this offer, pointing 
out that this narrow strip beyond the watershed could not be of great 
value to Massachusetts, but it was necessary to preserve the integrity 
of the new Province of Quebec. Apparently Massachusetts accepted 
this proposition, for, although I have not been able to find any docu- 
ment to that effect, the watershed went without protest to Quebec, 
Massachusetts assumed undisputed control over Sagadahock, and all 
future commissions to Governors of Nova Scotia omitted the phrase 
relating to the former boundary of Nova ‘Scotia, and made the St. 
Croix and the north line the western boundary without any qualifica- 
tion. 
In giving up that part of her territory north of the watershed, 
Massachusetts thus received some compensation. Such ‘however was 
not the case with Nova Scotia, which yielded a very much larger terri- 
