304 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
disputes only settled by the compromise treaty of 1842. Had 
Mitchell’s map proven to be accurate, or had the commissioners had 
an accurate modern map before them so they could have made their 
description accurate, or had they annexed a marked copy of Mitchell’s 
map to the treaty, the controversies over the question could not have 
arisen, and Maine would, I believe, include the Madawaska 
region and would extend to the highlands south of the St. Lawrence. 
This could only have been avoided by some distinct and separate 
negotiation or bargain whereby an alteration would have been made 
in the boundary described by the treaty. 
We shall now endeavor to trace synoptically the steps in this 
remarkable, and for New Brunswick at least, historically most impor- 
tant question. Happily this is rendered the easier because of the 
remarkably clear and judicial discussion of the whole subject given 
us by Moore in his “ Arbitrations.” I shall not attempt to cover the 
ground from the legal and personal points of view as he has done, but 
to treat the subject, as before, fully from the point of view of our 
local history and geography. 
Hardly had the treaty been signed before the question of the 
northwest angle of Nova Scotia began to attract attention, not, how- 
ever, from the United States, but from the British side, the reason 
therefor, as usually in such cases, being an economic one. Any good 
map, either ancient or modern, will show that the British America 
left to Great Britain by the treaty of 1783, was partially divided in 
two by the part of Massachusetts, now Maine, thrust up between 
Nova Scotia (now New Brunswick) and Quebec, and this is more ex- 
treme on the contemporary maps than on our present maps (compare 
Maps Nos. 14 and 15 with 30). No doubt this unfortunate circumstance 
was observed by the British negotiators, indeed it could not but be 
evident as the lines were drawn out on the copies of the maps used 
by the negotiators, as we know they were. But it is understandable 
that, in the multiplicity of important matters claiming their atten- 
tion, the ownership of a comparatively small area of unsettled wilder- 
ness would seem to them of no great moment ; and even if it did, 
and if they had appreciated the fact that this angle meant far more 
than so much territory to Great Britain, it would appear to them 
hopeless if not absurd to ask the now triumphant and free State of 
Massachusetts to cede a part of her territory for the benefit of Great 
Britain. We must remember that the basis on which the bound- 
aries were here agreed upon was that of the separation of Nova 
Scotia from Massachusetts, and not that of the establishment of a 
new line of boundary ; and, moreover, the American negotiators were 
