288 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
at St. Andrews on Sept. 22, 1816, and all connected with it were there 
sworn to the faithful performance of their duties. Certain routine 
business was transacted, it was agreed to accept as evidence the maps 
used by the St. Croix Commission, the preliminary claims of the agents 
were received, and the commission adjourned to meet at Boston, May 
28, 1817. In their memorials, the British agents claimed all the 
islands of Passamaquoddy Bay as included within the limits of the 
Nova Scotia of the Alexander grant of 1621, and as having been under 
the actual jurisdiction of Nova Scotia since then, while the American 
agent claimed all of these islands of Passamaquoddy Bay together with 
Grand Manan on the ground that they were annexed to Massachusetts 
with Nova Scotia in 1691, and never having been expressly relinquished 
by or removed from her, they still remained her property. 
The commission reassembled at Boston in June (1817), and the 
agents presented their memorials. These, with the Journals of the 
Commission, are preserved, in eight folio volumes (Moore, 63), of 
which several copies exist, distributed as are the Records of the St. 
Croix Commission. I have had the privilege of the use of the set 
formerly belonging to Ward Chipman, and now in possession of Rey. 
W. O. Raymond. The British agent’s memorial, a document of 135 
folio pages, dated Boston, June 11 (1817), claims all of the islands 
of Passamaquoddy Bay together with Grand Manan, as being within 
the limits of the Nova Scotia created in 1621, which was the same 
Nova Scotia as that of the treaty of 1783, and as under the jurisdic- 
tion of Nova Scotia as shown by grants of various islands, the exer- 
cise of civil authority, etc. The argument is sustained by certified 
copies of the various grants (already mentioned earlier, page 279) 
and by affidavits showing the exercise of jurisdiction. 
The Nova Scotia of 1621 as granted to Alexander was to include 
all islands within six leagues of the coast (or bounds) of Nova Scotia, 
and an important condition of the grant was that all cases of doubt 
were to be interpreted in favour of the grantee. He maintains that 
the Americans made no pretensions to a right to Grand Manan until 
1806, in which year Mr. Madison, then Secretary of State, wrote to 
the American minister in London claiming it as a part of the United 
States. Madison’s letter reads thus :— 
This island is of considerable extent, is clearly within the general limits 
of the United States, as fixed by the Treaty of Peace and is understood not 
to be within the exception made by the Treaty of Islands appurtenant to 
Nova Scotia, since all such islands must be either west, east or north of 
the coast of that Province and within six leagues thereof ; whereas the Island 
of Grand Manan is nearly due south of the nearest part of the coast, and 
