380 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
boundary which Quebec subsequently claimed as a legal right, and, 
continued to claim without intermission to the end of the controversy. 
Incidentally it is also the first formal appearance as a boundary of 
these central highlands which became so prominent later in the inter- 
national controversies, and it is notable that the chief argument used 
to give validity to those highlands as a boundary, namely, their con- 
tinuity from the Chaudiére to Bay Chaleurs, is here cleverly 
worked into the wording of the proposal. That the highlands here 
mentioned are said to cross the St. John at Grand Falls, while the 
Mars Hill range was the one that later became prominent is imma- 
terial, for their precise location was at that time not known and ob- 
viously the same range is meant, (Map No. 32). 
This report was transmitted to the Home Government as shown 
by a reference in a letter cited below, but otherwise nothing was done 
during the next two or three years. But in 1790, Oct. 1, Governor 
Carleton writing to Lord Granville, says, after speaking of the desire 
of the Acadians to remain under the New Brunswick Government : 
I am persuaded both from my own observations! made on the spot, withi 
a view to this very question, and from an actual survey made with the 
same view by Mr. Sproule, Surveyor General of this Province, that the High 
Lands which in this part of the country form the present boundary between 
the two provinces, are so easily to be ascertained and so strikingly distin- 
guishable, as to leave no doubt concerning them in the mind of any intelli- 
gent person who has viewed the ground. These high lands cross the great 
portage between Lake Tamasquata and the River Saint Lawrence at the 
distance of not less than sixty miles beyond the Acadian Settlement above 
mentioned ; and as the intermediate tract of country is almost without 
exception unfit for cultivation or settlement of any sort, I think the bound- 
ary may safely be left as it is at present established, but if it should be 
thought advisable to fix a more accurate partition I would beg leave to 
propose that it might run from the western extremity of the Bay of Chaleurs 
by the River Restigouche to its source, and from thence by a direct line 
through the middle of the lake Tamasquata to be continued westwardly till 
it reaches the same range of highlands that form the present boundary.” 
(MS. in possession of W. O. Raymond: Archives, 1895, N.B., 23). 
This letter is of interest both for its reiteration of the New 
Brunswick claim combined with the usual ignoring of the fact that 

1 He had walked on snowshoes to Quebec early in 1788. (Archives, 1895, 
NÉE, 15) = 
2 It is of some interest to note that at this time New Brunswick was: 
given an opportunity to enlarge her boundaries by the annexation of Gaspé.. 
In the same letter here cited Governor Carleton refers to the suggestion 
“whether the fishing settlement of Gaspé might not with advantage be 
annexed to the Government of New Brunswick rather than left as a part 
of Lower Canada.” He gives a number of good reasons why it should remain: 
attached to Quebec. 
