[GANONG] BOUNDARIES OF NEW BRUNSWICK 335 
raised the American flag, declared that region to belong to the United 
States, and had otherwise made himself active in the promotion of 
American interests. The United States immediately demanded his 
release on the ground that New Brunswick was assuming jurisdiction 
in American territory ; the release was refused, and Baker was tried 
and convicted at Fredericton and served out his sentence.* 
In the meantime Maine had been taking steps to promote her inter- 
ests, but the case of John Baker apparently gave an added stimulus to 
her zeal. In 1827 she made application to the Department of State for 
copies of all documents relating to the subject, which were supplied, and 
on Jan. 26, 1828, a special committee of eight members presented to the 
State legislature a very strong statement of the case from the point of 
view of Maine (printed in full in the State Papers, VI., 893-913). This 
able document takes that extreme partizan view which characterizes the 
position of Maine throughout the controversy, a position which never 
admitted the smallest question as to the possibility of there being any 
other view of it than her own, and which assumed as final and unques- 
tionable that the disputed territory was hers by all right, and that she 
was being unjustly kept out of it. Her attitude towards the United 
States Government, as shown by various communications to the Presi- 
dent and Secretary of State (State Papers, VI., 923-932) was equally 
firm, and this unswerving persistence of hers proved a great obstacle to 
the Federal Government in its efforts to adjust the question. 
During this interval, from 1822 until the decision of the King of 
the Netherlands was rendered, no new surveys were undertaken, nor other 
similar operations of importance to our present subject. 
The statements of the two nations were submitted to the King of 
the Netherlands in April, 1830; and on Jan. 10, 1831, he rendered his 
decision. The decision (a document of 6 folio pages) is in French, but 
is usually printed with a translation. After a preamble, it summarizes 
the evidence offered by both sides as to the north-west angle of Nova 
Scotia to the conclusion that it has not been proven that the bound- 
aries established by the treaty were identical with the ancient boundaries 
of the British provinces. Then he continues :— 
That, after what precedes, the arguments adduced on either side, and the 
documents exhibited in support of them, cannot be considered as suffi- 
ciently preponderating to determine a preference in favour of one of the 
two lines respectively claimed by the High Interested Parties, as the bound- 

1 An immense correspondence, a special Presidential message, official 
investigations by United States and Maine agents, collecting of evidence, 
etc., followed, as set forth in detail in the State Papers, VI., 625-636, 838-855. 
These papers contain several matters of interest to the history of Madawaska 
(including also the Report on page 936). The case is described briefly in the 
“Remarks upon Disputed Points of Boundary,” St. John, 1839. 
