[GANONG ] BOUNDARIES OF NEW BRUNSWICK 327 
instructions to the negotiators contemplated the St. John as a 
boundary from mouth to source, and that hence no boundary was to 
cross it, his answer is somewhat involved.! In answer to the British 
claim that the St. John did not flow into the Atlantic, he pointed out 
that the earlier documents from which the words of the treaty are 
largely adopted use the word sea, which applies as well to the Bay of 
Fundy as to the Atlantic. But other points in Chipman’s arguments 
are fully considered and answered. 
The arguments of the agents were closed on Oct. 24, 1821, and 
on that day the commissioners delivered their opinions to one another 
in notes. So far as they relate to the New Brunswick boundaries 
they were as follows (Boundary MS.; in full in Moore, 81) :— 
New York, 4th October, 1821. 
The arguments of the Agents under the 5th Article of the Treaty of 


lands, this point was answered in another way, namely that the source of 
the St. John here meant is that lying on the due north line as shown on 
Mitchell’s map, viz., the source of the Madawaska branch. To my surprise 
this view seems to be accepted as correct by Moore in his Arbitrations 
(page 96). I think this is a mistake, and that the instructions did 
mean the true westerly source of the St. John, though it was not then sup- 
posed to be so far west. This seems to me apparent not only from the whole 
tenor of the discussion of the instructions (as given in the Statement of 
1829, 251-255), which never mention the documents, (the Proclamation of 
1763 and Act of 1774 and the Commissions of Governors of Nova Scotia, 
which really determined the northwest angle as adopted by the Treaty, and 
of which the Committee seems to have been ignorant,) but also by the argu- 
ment in one of the closing paragraphs. Discussing the place called St. 
Croix in the Grant of Sagadahock, they say : — ‘‘ The place, therefore, called 
St. Croix, adjoining to New Scotland, was most likely intended to describe 
the lands between the rivers St. Croix and St. John’s. History does not 
inform us that any particular part of them was known as St. Croix. [An 
error, but one of no consequence to our present subject]. But as the first 
course of the grant to the Duke of York plainly runs from Nova Scotia to 
Massachusetts along the sea coast, it is probable that it was to begin at 
the first point in the country of St. Croix on the coast. This must have 
been on St. John’s river. And as the last line of the grant is not closed, 
it is more agreeable to the usage of these days to adopt a natural boundary. 
For this purpose St. John’s River was obvious as far as its head, and after- 
wards a line to the great river of Canada.” The fact is the framers of the 
instructions were not informed as to the true boundaries in this region and 
seemed to think them undefined ; hence they suggest the St. John as a good 
natural boundary. There is not the least evidence that they had Mitchell’s 
map before them, as the theory advanced in the statement and approved 
by Moore assumes, instead of some one of the many others of the time 
which did not show the Madawaska source lying on the north line. 
(Compare note on this subject in footnote page 356). 
