[GANONG ] BOUNDARIES OF NEW BRUNSWICK 241 
(1)—THE INTERNATIONAL BOUNDARY. 
The treaty of peace which closed the war of the Revolution was 
signed at Paris, September 3rd, 1783 ; it thus described the boundaries 
of the United States, so far as they have any concern with our present 
subject : — 
Article 2. And that all disputes which might arise in future on the sub- 
ject of the boundaries of the said United States may be prevented, it is hereby 
agreed and declared, that the following are and shall be their boundaries, 
viz.: from the north-west angle of Nova Scotia, viz.: that angle which is 
formed by a line drawn due north from the source of the 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 Atlan- 
tic Ocean, to the northwesternmost head of Connecticut River; thence.... 
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. 
(Statement on the Part of the United States, etc., Appendix, 12.) 
Probably there never was an article of any treaty drawn in better 
faith, and with a more earnest desire “that all disputes . . . may 
be prevented,” nor any article of any treaty which gave rise to more 
prolonged and more serious disputes than this. Three principal local- 
ities are here mentioned, namely the north-west angle of Nova Scotia 
on certain highlands, the source of the Saint Croix, and a line from 
its mouth in the Bay of Fundy to its source. Yet all these points, 
and others too, were soon in dispute and required successive commis- 
sions and immense labour and expense to settle them, while in nearly 
every case they were settled not by the words of the treaty but by 
compromises based upon the expediency of the time. Naturally the 
first point to arise was as to the identity of the River St. Croix of this 
treaty, which carried with it the question as to the position of its 
source and its mouth. These points were settled in 1798, but, owing 
to the peculiar geography of the region, the latter question left unde- 
termined the ownership of the Passamaquoddy Islands, which required 
yet another commission which completed its labours in 1817. In the 
meantime, the question as to the position of the north-west angle of 
Nova Scotia had arisen, but this was not settled, nor without a most 
devious history, until 1842. There was still left a portion of the water 
boundary in Passamaquoddy which remains undetermined to this day. 
These various boundary disputes play no small part in the history of 
New Brunswick for the first fifty years of her existence, and I shall 
try to trace them and their effects in the following pages. 
