328 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
Commissioners to whom the decision of the said points is referred, hereby 
states to Mr. Van Ness, the other Commissioner, that on the question as to 
the Northwest angle of Nova Scotia, he is of opinion that that point ought 
to be established at or near the mountain or hill called Mars Hill distant 
about forty miles on a due north line from the source of the river St. Croix, 
and about thirty-seven miles south of the river St. John. . . . . . 
THOS. BARCLAY. 
New York, October 4th,1821. 
The arguments of the Agents under the 5th Article of the Treaty of 
Ghent on the points in controversy having closed, Mr. Van Ness, one of the 
Commissioners to whom the decision of the said points is referred, hereby 
states to Col. Barclay, the other Commissioner, that on the question as to 
the northwest angle of Nova Scotia, he is of opinion that that point ought 
to be fixed at a place about one hundred and forty-four miles due north 
from the source of the river St. Croix, and about sixty-six miles north of 
the river St. John 
C. P. VAN NESS. 
The two commissioners, therefore, came to precisely opposite con- 
clusions, the British commissioner, Barclay, taking the extreme British 
view, fixing the north-west angle of Nova Scotia at Mars Hill, while 
the American commissioner took the extreme American view, fixing 
it on the highlands near the St. Lawrence. It was now their duty, 
in accordance with the requirements of the article under which the 
commission was constituted, for them to make full reports to their 
respective governments upon the reasons which led them to their 
respective conclusions. These reports were prepared and handed in to 
the governments in April, 1822, and exist among the boundary MS. ; 
and extracts from them, embracing the essential points, have been 
printed in the Case of the United States laid before the King of the 
Netherlands. That of Van Ness isa document of 76 pages, but that of 
Barclay is very much longer, 524 folio pages. They include, of course, 
their opinions upon all of the points in controversy. 
Thus closed the attempt to settle the north-west angle question 
by the agency of a commission. It resulted in no advance whatever 
towards a settlement, but it did define with the greatest clearness the 
positions of the two nations, doing this so effectually that, so far as 
I can find, nothing substantially new was afterwards added. 
Before leaving this part of the subject, however, some comments 
should be made upon the arguments of the two agents in relation to 
the rights of the case as we can view them in the perspective of dis- 
tance, in the calm following the passing of the storm, and in the 
knowledge that these questions no longer have any other than a purely 
academic interest. In the light of the documents of the time, of the 
maps, of our knowledge of the negotiations leading up to the treaty, 
