378 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
springs of rivers falling into the River St. Lawrence may be in the other 
way, but it is not these springs, much less any particular spring by which 
the Boundary can be ascertained. 
(US. in possession of Rev. W. O. Raymond.) 
The importance of Lord Dorchester’s statement as to the conec- 
tion between the interprovincial and international boundaries has 
already been pointed out.t As to its claim for the southern high- 
iands as a boundary for Quebec, we cannot fail to recognize in its 
somewhat vague and generalizing tone the familiar sound of special 
p'eading for a weak cause. We cannot, however, doubt the diplomatic 
wisdom of his plea for the southern boundary between the provinces, 
and had his influence prevailed, and had Governor Carleton been 
willing to subordinate the particular interests of New Brunswick to 
the larger interests of the Empire as a whole (as Lord Dorchester 
evidently wished), the entire St. John Valley and the Aroostook as 
well, might to-day be British soil. When New Brunswick is blaming 
Lord Ashburton for his course in the treaty of 1842 she might well 
recall that it was she who in 1787 placed her own interests in the 
way of a plan which promised to give the whole of the disputed terri- 
tory to Great Britain. This, however, is the utilitarian view of the 
situation. Morally, I do not believe Lord Dorchester’s proposition 
was sound, and hence New Brunswick did right not to fall in with 
ii, though I fear her reasons for her course were far from purely 
moral. 
In the meantime New Brunswick had assumed jurisdiction over the 
Madawaska district, for on Jan. 7 of that year (1787), she granted 
licenses of occupation to a number of Acadians to occupy lands at 
Madawaska, and these licenses were made good by grants passed in 
1790. At first sight this action of New Brunswick may seem illegal, 
but in reality it was not so, for at that time, and until 1798, it was 
believed in New Brunswick that the due north line would run from 
the source of the Scoodic (not from the source of the Chiputneticook) 

1 According to a statement by Baillie, (Supplementary Report of 1844), 
this argument was urged by Holland and Finlay at their conference with 
Sproule in July; but no doubt Lord Dorchester was the prompter of the 
argument. 
Again, in a letter of Ward Chipman to Henry Gouldburn of March 27, 
1818, he says, ‘‘I think it is extremely to be regretted that the Boundary 
between this Province and Lower Canada as claimed on the part of the latter 
in 1797 particularly designated in the inclosed paper No. 1, was ever resisted 
on the part of the former, but unfortunately all the Territory on the Rivers 
St. John and Madawaska then in dispute between the two provinces, was after- 
wards granted by the Province of New Brunswick and the claim of Lower 
Canada has not since been prosecuted. (MS. in the Chipman papers in pos- 
session of W. O. Raymond.) 
