298 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
Most conclusive of all, however, is the following passage in the in- 
structions given by Congress to the negotiators of the treaty of 1783. 
After instructing them to obtain the St. John River from mouth to 
source as a boundary, they add :— 
If the eastern boundary above described cannot be obtained, you are 
hereby empowered to agree that the same shall be afterwards adjusted by 
commissioners to be duly appointed for the purpose, according to such line 
as shall be by them settled and agreed on, as the boundary between that 
part of the State of Massachusetts Bay, formerly called the Province of 
Maine, and the Colony of Nova Scotia, agreeably to their respective rights. 
(Secret Journals of Congress cited in the ‘ Statement’ of 1829.) 
There appears to be no doubt, then, that the idea in the minds of 
the framers of the treaty, upon both sides, was to make the boundary 
of the United States in this region separate the new State of Massa- 
chusetts from the old Province of Nova Scotia, each of course retaining 
the territory to which it was legally entitled. I have not found the 
slightest evidence to show that there was any idea of creating a boundary 
line de novo, in whole or in part.* 
This brings us next to the important question, what understanding 
had the negotiators of the treaty as to the limits of Nova Scotia, Mas- 
sachusetts and Quebec at that time, namely, in 1782 ? In other words, 
what were the legal limits of the two at that time ? This subject we 
have already traced in our discussion of boundaries in the English 
Period. We there found that the original bounds of Nova Scotia were 
fixed by the charter of 1621 to Sir William Alexander which establishes 
as the boundary between Nova Scotia and New England the St. Croix 
River to its source, and a line thence northerly to the nearest waters fall- 
ing into the St. Lawrence. The first alteration in this was made by the 
Proclamation of 1763 which fixed as the southern boundary of Quebec 
a line from latitude 45° “passing along the Highlands which divide the 
rivers that empty themselves into the said river St. Lawrence from those 
which fall into the sea, and also along the north coast of the Bay des 
Chaleurs,” etc. Again this boundary was re-described in an Act of 
Parliament of 1774, where Quebec is described as bounded “on the 
south, by a line from the Bay of Chaleurs along the Highlands which 

1 The reason for this somewhat elaborate discussion of this seemingly 
very obvious point will appear presently. British partizans have always 
blamed the British negotiators for not obtaining a more favourable boundary 
between Nova Scotia and Maine, thus assuming that the negotiators estab- 
lished the line between these countries and ignoring the fact that the line was 
already established and beyond their power to change. Moreover, the posi- 
tive instructions from Congress to the negotiators were that Great Britain 
was not to be left in possession of any part of the Thirteen United States. 
(‘“ Statement ” of 1829, 252.) 
