[GANONG | — BOUNDARIES OF NEW BRUNSWICK 391 
The discussion, complicated by the lumbering and other interests 
involved, now waxed warmer, and New Brunswick took steps to im- 
prove her title by exercising jurisdiction over the disputed territory 
through surveys of land as far as the St. Francis, and by including it 
in a new county erected (but for a time suspended by the Imperial 
government) in 1844. Early in 1845 (Jan. 13), Governor Colebrooke 
in a letter (Blue-book, 63), points out that the question of the boundary 
whatever its original merits now resolves itself into a question of pos- 
session. This statement is of interest as showing some weakening in 
the New Brunswick claim to the disputed territory as a legal right, 
and its replacement by one based upon possession. Indeed from, this 
time on the legal right to that territory does not reappear in the New 
Brunswick argument. Governor Colebrooke goes on to point out that 
the Restigouche to its source will form a very inconvenient boundary, 
and he adds :— 
Such a circuitous and prolonged line would be attended with much incon- 
venience to both provinces, without any corresponding advantages to either ; 
and, adverting to the views of Her Majesty’s Government in the conventional 
settlement of the American boundary, by the Treaty of Washington, it ap- 
pears to me that the most direct line which can be drawn from the junction 
of the American line on the St. Francis (a tributary of the St. John) to the 
angle above the highest Canadian settlements on the Restigouche, where 
the river changes its direction, would, at once, be the shortest and most 
equitable division of the territory. Such a line would obviate, as far as 
practicable, the inconvenience of a prolonged river boundary, and without 
encroaching on any settlement formed on either side. . . . (Blue-book, 63). 
In April, 1845, Lord Metcalfe and the Executive Council of 
Quebec proposed the Restigouche River to its junction with the north 
line and along that southward (Blue-book, 97), which later in the same 
year was modified to give the Madawaska settlement to New Bruns- 
wick. (Blue-book, 65.) 
The next step was taken by Canada. Lord Metcalfe, in July, 1845, 
deputed Hon. W. H. Draper and Hon. D. B. Papineau to proceed to 
Fredericton, where they were met by Messrs. Street and Saunders, ap- 
pointed by Governor Colebrooke. The Canadian commissioners pub- 
lished a report on their return, which, however, I know only through 
the references in the Blue-book, 90, 92. In this report, Messrs. 
Draper and Papineau appear to have renewed the old claim of Quebec 
to the central highlands, and to have sketched out a line from Dal- 
housie to Mars Hill, as shown on Map No. 32. At this conference 
various lines of boundary were proposed. (See Map No. 33). Thus, 
Messrs. Street and Saunders proposed the line of Sir William Cole- 
brooke just mentioned, with a modification giving all of Lake Temis- 
