[aanona ] BOUNDARIES OF NEW BRUNSWICK 259 
the identity of the St. Croix of Mitchell’s map, the reason why the 
Chiputneticook and not the Scoodic is the proper source of the St. 
Croix. 
We note first the reasons why the St. Croix was the river chosen 
by the treaty as the boundary instead of the Penobscot or some other. 
On this we have happily the best of information, for the testimony of 
Adams, Jay and of Franklin, already cited and to be quoted on a later 
page agrees that although the Penobscot and other rivers to the west- 
ward were mentioned as possible boundaries by the British commission- 
ers, and the St. John was mentioned by the American commissioners, 
the St. Croix was finally selected because it was the old eastern boundary 
of Massachusetts Bay, that is, the ancient boundary between Massachu- 
setts and Nova Scotia, and all testimony agrees as to this! It was 
unquestionably a most fair line of division under the circumstances, for 
naturally it would be desired to place in the United States the revolted 
colony of Massachusetts and to keep in British America the loyal Pro- 
vince of Nova Scotia, and yet some writers upon the subject have claimed 
that the rightful boundary was the Penobscot, on the ground that this 
was the ancient boundary between New England and Acadia, whose 

1 In a letter of Oct. 25, 1784, John Adams says :—‘‘ I knew that the French 
in former times had a practice of erecting a holy cross of wood upon every 
river they had a sight of, and that such crosses had been found on the banks 
of all the rivers in this region, and that several rivers, for this reason, were 
equally entitled with any one to the appellation of St. Croix. St. John’s river 
has a number of these crosses, and was as probably meant in the grant to 
Sir William Alexander and in the charters of Massachusetts as any other. I 
would accordingly have insisted on St. John’s as the limit. But no map or 
document called St. John’s St. Croix, nor was there one paper to justify us in 
insisting on it. The charters, the grant to Alexander, all the maps and other 
papers agreed on this that St. Croix was the line between Massachusetts and 
Nova Scotia. My colleague thought they could not be justified in insisting on 
a boundary which no record or memorial supported, and I confess I thought 
so too after mature reflection.” 
This seems a most remarkable passage to come from the pen of John 
Adams. The statement about the crosses on the St. John is a pure fiction of 
his own with no genuine historical basis, while as to the concluding sen- 
tence one wonders whether its writer could have had any glimmer of a sense 
of humour! The statement as to the possibility of the St. John being the St. 
Croix of Alexander’s grant shows an almost incredible ignorance of history. 
But he makes the statement again in 1811 (Works, I., 666), when he says :— 
‘* But we insisted upon the St. Croix, which I construed to mean the River St. 
John’s, for St. John’s had as many holy crosses upon it as any other river in 
that region, and had as often been called St. Croix River.” One wonders if it 
was such reasoning as this which induced Oswald to consent to the St. John 
as the boundary as he at first did ? As a matter of fact the St. John never 
was called the St. Croix, even though it had one or more crosses upon it. 
Probably these statements of Adams are the original of Jay’s statement in 
