322 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
it, however, not on the score of legal right, but of convenience.* It 
remained for Chipman to sustain it on the former basis. He pro- 
ceeded to show that the words of the treaty of 1783, so far as the descrip- 
tion of the north-west angle of Nova Scotia is concerned, do not fit 
any locality whatsoever, since the due north line from the source of the 
St. Croix does nowhere meet with highlands separating rivers flowing 
into the River St. Lawrence from those flowing into the Atlantic Ocean, 
but only watersheds separating St. Lawrence from Bay Chaleur waters 
and Bay Chaleur waters from the St. John, a point in which any map 
will show he is perfectly correct. The words of the treaty cannot there- 
fore be fulfilled literally. He naturally makes much of Sullivan’s 
scouting of the definite location of the north-west angle in the argu- 
ments before the commission in 1798. First as to Highlands of the 
treaty ; these he contends, and cites Sullivan and Madison in support, 
cannot refer merely to a watershed, which may be flat or low, but must 
refer only to distinct elevations recognizable as a ridge or range of hills. 
He quotes the reports of the various surveyors to show that the water- 
shed south of the St. Lawrence, where it is claimed by the Americans 
that the north-west angle lies, by no means can be described as highlands, 
being in fact in many places swampy and flat, even though consider- 
ably above the sea. Hence these could not be the highlands of the 
treaty. On the other hand, he quotes the surveyors to show that south 
of the Aroostook and running westward through Maine lies a true range 
of highlands of which Mars Hill is a part, which included just such 
broken and elevated ridges and ranges as fit the description of “ High- 


1 Speaking of the highlands at the westward he says :—‘‘ The main 
ridge, continuing its northeasterly direction, is intersected by an imaginary 
line prolonged in a course astronomically due north from the head of the 
river St. Croix, and which ridge is supposed to be the boundary between 
Lower Canada and the United States; at least such appears to be the way 
in which the treaty of 1783 is construed by the American government, but 
which ought to be more fairly understood, as follows, to wit: the astronom- 
ical line running north from the St. Croix should extend only to the first 
easterly ridge, and thence run westerly along the crest of the said ridge 
to the Connecticut, thereby equitably dividing the waters flowing into the 
St. Lawrence from those that empty into the Atlantic within the limits of 
the United States, and those which have their streams within the British 
Province of New Brunswick.” It will be seen that this is merely a sugges- 
tion, and without doubt simply follows the proposal of Lord Dorchester in 
1787 later to be considered. I think, therefore, it is very misleading, if not 
erroneous, to speak of this as the first “distinct foundation of the British 
claim,” as Winsor does in America, VII., 176; and it certainly is not, as he 
says ‘authoritative representation of the conclusions which by 1815 the 
British Government had reached” and which ‘they ever after continued 
to press.” As we have seen above the claim was not formulated until 1818, 
and it was by Ward Chipman. 
