[GANONG ] BOUNDARIES OF NEW BRUNSWICK 315 
The British Government never required that all that portion of the State 
of Massachusetts intervening between the Provinces of New Brunswick and 
Quebec, should be ceded to Great Britain ; but only that small portion of 
unsettled country which interrupts the communication between Quebec and 
Halifax, there being much doubt whether it does not already belong to Great 
Britain. 
(Statement of 1829, 325.) 
We have here at least a partial admission of the right of the 
United States to the region interrupting the communication between 
the provinces, for otherwise the words alteration of the line, and 
cession would not be used. But the United States negotiators were 
obdurate, and the subject was dropped, and the treaty provided for 
a commission to consider this boundary. 
It may seem at first sight that the opinion in New Brunswick 
granting thus the American claim to a boundary north of the St. 
John may have rested in part upon ignorance of the fact that the 
words of the treaty could not be literally fulfilled. This, however, 
was not the case, as the fact that the north line would cut across the 
waters of the Restigouche was known at least as early as 1796. Bar- 
clay in a letter of Nov. 9, 1796 (cited by Moore, 107), says :— 
By an inspection of Captain Sproules map it appears to me that a line drawn 
due north from the source even of the Chiputnaticook will strike the River 
Restigouche which runs into the Bay of Chaleurs, and of course falls into 
the Gulph of Saint Lawrence ; such a line therefore will not answer the des- 
cription of the Treaty 
He suggests that a line be run to determine this point, but this 
appears not to have been done, probably because it was not deemed 
necessary and because of its great expense. Sproule’s map, (the par- 
ticular one referred to is not known to me), undoubtedly used the 
survey of Von Velden of the Restigouche to its head made in 1786, 
of which a copy occurs in the Crown Land Office at Fredericton, and 
the knowledge on this point is represented no doubt by Bouchette’s 
map of 1815, made before any new surveys were undertaken, in which 
the north line crosses the head of the Restigouche. 
But the fact seems not to have been known though it was appre- 
ciated in England, for Gallatin, writing in 1814, says (Moore, 70), 
that he believed Great Britain hoped that the Restigouche would head 
so far back as to intervene between the St. Lawrence and St. John 
making it impossible for the north line to reach the highlands des- 
cribed by the treaty. 
Such appears to have been the British opinion when the commis- 
sion under the treaty of Ghent began its work. The American claim 
was apparently universally, or nearly so, admitted by the British, and 
