[&anonG] BOUNDARIES OF NEW BRUNSWICK 288 
gation into Passamaquoddy Bay. The events attending this incident are 
fully given in Avery’s letter printed in full in the State Papers (I, 95). 
The Council of Massachusetts on September 9, highly approved the 
action of Avery and claimed the islands. On the same day Governor 
Bowdoin of Massachusetts wrote Governor Carleton one of those 
dignified and diplomatic letters characteristic of the period, calling his 
attention to the action of the Sheriff of Charlotte County, which he is 
sure cannot be with Governor Carleton’s sanction, and assures himself 
that Governor Carleton will take steps to prevent any encroachments 
on the territories of the United States. (State Papers, I. 96). Con- 
gress was kept informed in these matters and on Sept. 22 (1785), the 
Secretary for Foreign Affairs, John Jay, advised that “the Common- 
wealth of Massachusetts be advised by Congress to proceed, without 
noise or delay, to garrison such places in their actual possession as may 
be most exposed. Your secretary proposes by these garrisons to sup- 
port the habitants in their allegiance, and to overawe New Brunswick 
peace officers, whom impunity might tempt to be insolent and trouble- 
some.” The suggestion as to fortification was not however adopted. 
On Oct. 13, Congress resolved that the papers in the case be transmitted 
to the American Minister at London with instructions to attempt a 
settlement by negotiation, or failing that, by commissioners mutually 
appointed for the purpose. This, however, produced no result until 
much later. The controversy remained in this state until 1791, in 
which year, as appears from letters in the Boundary MS., the State 
of Massachusetts surveyed Moose Island, divided it into lots and 
granted it to the occupants.* 
Such was the state of the controversy as to the islands when the 
St. Croix Commission began its deliberations in 1796. Naturally any 
further steps towards the determination of the ownership of the 
islands were suspended until that commission should render ‘its de- 

+ Letter of Ward Chipman to W. Odell, Aug. 8, 1814 (Boundary MS.) :—‘‘ I 
understand from my son that the whole island divided into 24 lots was granted 
by an act of the Legislature of Massachusetts in 1791 to grantees under whom 
the present titles are derived.” The steps leading up to this grant are related 
in an affidavit of Robt. Pagan, a magistrate of Charlotte County, among the 
Boundary MS. : ‘‘ The inhabitants of Moose Island were occasionally returned 
on the Sheriff’s panel to serve as jurors at the Courts in Saint Andrews until 
the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety-one when the Sheriff of the 
County of Washington in the district of Maine and State of Massachusetts 
called upon the inhabitants of Moose Island for their proportion of a tax 
levied in that county for building a gaol at Machias which the said inhab- 
itants at first refused to pay, but were at length induced to pay the same by 
distresses on their property and by promises made to them of obtaining 
grants of land on the same island from the State of Massachusetts, and from 
