238 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
the River. And indeed there is not the least Vestages of the French Settle- 
ments in any other part of the Bay, but upon Moose Island, Fish Island, the 
Island St. Croix, and the Point on the West side Scoodick River called point 
Pleasant, where the French had a fort, and part of the Ditches and Ramparts 
still appear and a Branch of the River St. Croix [i.e., North of Moose Island] 
communicating with it.? 
The River St. Croix is the Assigned Boundary of Nova Scotia, and a Meri- 
dian line from the North West Branch, will strike the River St. Johns about 
Ten Miles above Opack,”? from whence the River St. Johns Runs North-North- 
West about Two Hundred Miles. These would form very natural Boundaries 
for the Province of Nova Scotia, and greatly would tend for the Interest of 
the British Nation, if the Lands West of that line to Piscataqua River, were 
erected into a separate and distinct Province. 
(MS. in Public Record Office, London, B.T.N.S., Vol. 21, N. 127.) 
In the light of this map and report we can the better understand 
Morris’s Remarks given upon Governor Bernard’s Observations. It 
seems to us very surprising that so skilled a geographer as Morris is 
known to be could have reconciled the notes from Champlain sent him 
by Governor Bernard scanty though they were, with the idea that the 
Cobscook was the St. Croix. It seems like a case of very special plead- 
ing ‘on the part of Morris, who naturally would want the boundary of 
Nova Scotia as far west as possible, and were it not for his unimpeach- 
able record for uprightness and efficiency, we could hardly help ques- 
tioning his account of the testimony of the Indians, but this we have 
no right to do, and we must give it the same credence we give to Mit- 
chel. The fact that only one year after Indians had told Mitchel that 
the Magaguadavic was known to them as the St. Croix, Indians (pre- 
sumably others) told Morris that the Cobscook was the St. Croix, shows 
of how little worth was Indian testimony in such a case. Very likely 
in both instances the idea was more or less unconsciously put into the 
minds of the Indians that their respective patrons at the time wanted 
to believe that their respective rivers were known as the St. Croix, and 
they gave the statements they thought pleasing to their questioners 
and then kept stoutly to them, something which is in my experience 
entirely consistent with the character of the Indians of this region. 
It is not to be supposed that either Mitchel or Morris cross-examined 
their Indians too closely. 


1 These French “ vestages’’ were of course those of the French settlers 
here between 1686 and 1704 ; see preceding Monograph of this series, 266. That 
Morris did not discover the remains of Champlain’s settlement on Dochet Id. 
is explained by the fact given in Wright’s testimony in 1797 that the Island 
was wooded. 
? This is the first of several aberrent lines north from the source of the 
St. Croix, of which others will later be considered. 
