[GANONG] BOUNDARIES OF NEW BRUNSWICK 373 
to have been any doubt whatever as to the location of this lne except 
in the part near the head of Bay Chaleur (page 220). All of the maps 
of the time, and the tenor of all of the documents went to show that the 
boundary followed the highlands or watershed just south of the St. 
Lawrence (map No. 30). Such was the condition of this boundary 
when the Revolution ended, and New Brunswick was erected into a 
separate province. As the heir of Nova Scotia, she inherited the old 
northern boundary, and in the commission to Thomas Carleton of 
August 16, 1784, as first governor of New Brunswick, it is thus 
described :— 
Our Province of New Brunswick bounded on the Westward by the 
Mouth of the River Saint Croix by the said River to its source and by a line 
drawn due north from thence to the Southern Boundary of our Province 
of Quebec to the Northward by the said Boundary as far as the Western 
Extremity of the Bay des Chaleurs. . . . . 
(MS. in Provincial Seerctary’s office, Fredericton, New Brunswick.) 
It is, therefore, perfectly plain that this official establishment of 
the Northern boundary of New Brunswick made it coincident with the 
southern boundary of Quebec, and hence established it along the northern 
watershed. Moreover, the legal western boundary of New Brunswick 
was the due north line from the source of the St. Croix to the northern 
watershed, and she had no legal claim to any territory whatsoever to the 
westward of that line. Had the dispute over the international boundary 
never arisen, it is altogether probable that the northern boundary of 
New Brunswick would follow that watershed to-day, and the western 
boundary would be the due north line from the St. Croix to it (map 
No. 32). 
Thus was the northern boundary of New Brunswick legally estab- 
lished in 1784, and apparently with all needful clearness. But imme- 
diately a controversy over its location broke out between the two pro- 
vinces concerned. It appears to have been provoked by some remark 
made by the Surveyor-General of Quebec to the Surveyor-General of 
New Brunswick, for in a letter from the latter to the former, dated 21 
June, 1785, the following occurs :— 
By your letter you seem to think that the Tamasquata Lake, and the 
discharge therefrom (or the Madawaska River) fall into your province, surely 
some great mistake or misinformation must occasion this idea. New Bruns- 
wick is bounded on the northward by the bounds or line settled by Act of 
Parliament between Nova Scotia and Canada, which Act expressly men- 
tions the line between those provinces is to run on the height of land separat- 
ing those rivers that fall into the St. Lawrence from those that fall into 
the sea; therefore the Tamisquata waters discharging themselves by the 
Madawaska into the St. John, and by that river into the sea, render the 
business so clear that your error can only originate from a want of know- 
