316 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
its great disadvantage to them made it seem necessary to secure an 
alteration bÿ some negotiation. Such an alteration could, however, 
only be effected by a cession of territory, and the action of the United 
States negotiators showed that it was hopeless to look for relief from 
that source. The territory in question, therefore, quite invaluable to 
Great Britain, must be saved to her in some other way. This was 
the difficult problem which faced Ward Chipman, the British agent, 
when he undertook the work in 1818, a task rendered for him the more 
difficult in the face of his earlier words granting the claim of his 
opponents. 
We now return to consider the steps taken after the decision of 
the St. Croix Commission had fixed the position of the River St. Croix, 
to determine the position of the north-west angle of Nova Scotia. 
Acting under the instructions of Madison, already considered (page 
286), negotiations were opened by the American minister in London, 
and in a convention of May 12, 1803 (State Papers, I, 584), provision 
was made for running the line from the St. Croix and for fixing the 
north-west angle of Nova Scotia by commissioners. This convention 
was, however, not ratified, and failed, as did a similar convention 
arranged in 1807. Nothing further was done in the matter until after 
the war of 1812, when, in the treaty of Ghent of 1814, (the same 
whose fourth article provided for the commission to determine the 
ownership of the Passamaquoddy Islands), it was provided in the fifth 
article that a commission should be appointed to determine the north- 
west angle of Nova Scotia and to settle other matters very important 
to both nations, not pertinent to our present inquiry. The constitu- 
tion of this commission was similar to that of the Passamaquoddy 
Island Commission, and it was to have power to ascertain and deter- 
mine the points above mentioned, and to cause the. boundary from 
the source of the St. Croix to the St. Lawrence to be surveyed and 
marked ; and it was to make a map of the country and to show the 
boundaries upon it, specifying the latitude and longitude of the north- 
west angle of Nova Scotia and other points. It was apparently 
thought by the two governments that the determination of the north- 
west angle would not be particularly difficult, and that the fixing of the 
remainder of the boundary was merely a matter of surveying. As in 
the other commission, if the commissioners agreed, their decision was 
to be final, but if they differed they were to make reports to their 
governments and the question was to be referred to some friendly 
sovereign or state. 
Thus began the first of the three attempts to settle the north-west 
angle of Nova Scotia, the attempt by a commission. 
