[GANONG ] BOUNDARIES OF NEW BRUNSWICK 309 
& 
than to provide for the appointment of a third commissioner [in addition to 
the two to control the running of the north line] as in article five of the 
Treaty of 1794; and to authorize the three to determine on a point most 
proper to be substituted for the description in the second article of the 
Treaty of 1783, having due regard to the general idea that the line ought to 
terminate on the elevated ground dividing the rivers falling into the Atlantic 
from those emptying into the St. Lawrence. 
(State Papers, II., 555.) 
This letter and Sullivan’s were made public, and while the former 
does not question that the north-west angle of Nova Scotia must lie 
on the watershed between St. Lawrence and Atlantic rivers, it never- 
theless was an official American statement that the north-west angle 
cannot be found according to the words of the treaty of 1783, and 
therefore it was of very great advantage to the British when they later 
made the came claim.* 
We turn next to examine what opinions were held on the British 
side at this time as to the position of the north-west angle of Nova 
Scotia. We have already seen, and the evidence will be set forth in 
full in the discussion of the Quebec-New Brunswick boundary later in 
this work, that Lord Dorchester as early as 1787 perceived that if the 
boundary between Quebec and New Brunswick was fixed upon the 
highlands just south of the St. Lawrence, the international boundary 
would be on the same highlands, for he recognized that the north-west 
angle of Nova Scotia and the north-east angle of Massachusetts must, 
legally, lie at the same point. He advocated therefore, partly for this 
reason and partly in the interests of Quebec, a more southerly 
boundary for the provinces, namely the highlands south of the Grand 
Falls, practically the Mars Hill range of Highlands afterwards claimed 
by Great Britain. This claim was not, however, put forward as a legal 
right, but on the ground of expediency, for the Council of Quebec in 
an address to Lord Dorchester in 1787, submits “ whether such a line 
would not be to the advantage of both governments,” but makes no 
legal claim to it. Such a boundary was, however, utterly scouted by 
New Brunswick, who from the first mention of the subject in 1785 
down to the final settlement of that controversy in 1851, contended for 
a boundary on the northern highlands, exactly where the Americans 
always said it should be. New Brunswick, moreover, went farther 
than this and vigorously claimed, though without adducing any 
legal evidence therefor, territory west of the due north line. At 
the same time, as the following documents will show, opinion in New 
Brunswick was apparently unanimous that the due north line, accord- 

1 And it was greatly regretted afterwards by the Americans. Compare 
Moore, 68. 
