[GANONG ] BOUNDARIES OF NEW BRUNSWICK 305 
instructed under no circumstances to cede any part of any of the 
Thirteen States, a contention on which they could absolutely insist 
since they were the victors in the war just closed. We now know 
very fully the circumstances attending the peace negotiations of 
1782-1783,! and the accounts do not mention that any consideration 
was given to this point. It is true that the British negotiators were 
far inferior in ability and diplomatic skill to the Americans, but so 
clear would the right of Massachusetts seem to all parties at that 
time to the country in question that it is impossible to believe that 
the very ablest and most) skillful diplomats Great Britain has ever 
produced could have wrested from victorious Massachusetts any 
cession of territory, and this was absolutely indispensable to securing 
a better line for Great Britain. 
But in fact it was not with Great Britain simply a question of 
a certain amount of territory that was at stake, but a vastly more 
important interest, namely, that this angle of the United States, 
thrust far up into British America, interrupted the communication 
between Canada and Nova Scotia, and in winter between Canada and 
England, a subject whose importance could only be known to those 
having an intimate local knowledge of the conditions. The entire 
country in the region of the boundaries in question was at that time 
a vast uninhabited, densely forested, very rough wilderness, every- 
where practically impassable except along the watercourses. Now of 
these watercourses there is but one, a single one, forming a practic- 
able communication between Quebec and Nova Scotia, namely, that 
including the River St. John, the Madawaska and Lake Temiscouata, 
whence the communication with the St. Lawrence is comparatively 
easy by a road following an ancient Indian trail. This route had 
been used in the earliest times by the Indians, was extensively used 
later by the French, was adopted by the English at the time of the 
Revolution, and soon after was partially settled by them. Not only 
is it the most direct and much the easiest route, but it was positively 
the only one available except the very long roundabout difficult and 
well nigh impracticable route by the Bay Chaleur and the Metapedia 
valley, now followed by the Intercolonial Railway, but then so dis- 
tant and through such a savage country .as to be practically out of 
the question. The importance of the communication along the St. 
John and Madawaska, however, consisted not simply in its being by 
far the shortest and most direct route from Quebec to Nova Scotia, 
but also in the fact that it was the only possible route in winter when 
the navigation of the St. Lawrence was closed by ice ; and therefore 

1 They are traced fully and clearly by Jay, in Chapter II. of Vol. VII. of 
Winsor’s ‘ America.”’ 
