394 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
are the views both of principles and of fact, on which the disputants on 
either side have proceeded. 
To render that intervention effectual, I have therefore thought it neces- 
sary to delegate the task of examining this dispute, and of reporting on it, 
to two officers of Her Majesty’s Royal Engineers, Captain Pipon and Lieuten- 
ant Henderson, assisted by Her Majesty’s Attorney-General of Nova Scotia. 
To the two former it will especially belong, to ascertain, by actual inspection, 
aided by their professional science, all the facts in dispute respecting the 
natural formation, and the military and other advantages of the territory 
in question. To these gentlemen, aided by their legal colleague, will then 
belong the duty of considering, and reporting for the information and guid- 
ance of Her Majesty’s Government, whether there is any line which could be 
drawn for the demarcation of the two provinces, which would satisfy the 
strict legal claims of each. If they should find it impossible to discover such a 
line, their next duty will be to consider and report how a line could be 
drawn which would combine the greatest amount of practical convenience 
to both provinces with the least amount of practical inconvenience 
to either ; adverting at the same time, to such interests (if there be any 
such), as the empire at large may have in the adjustment of this question. 
These reports, when complete, will be made to Her Majesty’s Government, 
and, I trust, will form the basis of an early and satisfactory decision of this 
controversy. 
(Blue-book, 1851, 61.) 
Nothing could be more direct, positive but withal diplomatic 
than the wording of this letter which is worthy of the great statesman 
who dictated it. It is interesting to note this connection of Glad- 
stone with our history ; it is no small service he rendered New Bruns- 
wick when he caused the British Government to intervene so skillfully 
and, as it finally proved, so effectually. 
It is of interest to notice how the two provinces received Glad- 
stone’s proposition. Governor Colebrooke of New Brunswick simply 
acknowledges the receipt of the despatch, but Earl Cathcart submits 
a report of a committee of the Executive Council of Lower Canada 
dated July 24, 1846 which is of no little interest to our present sub- 
ject. It reads in part thus (Blue-book 84) : 
The Committee of Council having carefully reflected on the above- 
mentioned Despatch [from Gladstone of July 2, 1846] which your Excellency 
was pleased to communicate for their information, beg leave respectfully to 
submit some observations thereon for your Excellency’s consideration. 
They have felt some little disappointment that a Commission should 
have been thought necessary in this matter, as from the Despatch of the 
8rd March last, they had, as it appears, erroneously supposed that ‘the 
Report therein alluded to was all that was required to enable Her Majesty’s 
Government to dispose of the question between the two Provinces. 
This feeling has, perhaps, been strengthened by the strong hope that 
was felt by the members of the Committee, that Her Majesty’s Government 
would have assumed the decision of a question involving only the import of 
the words of the Home Government, in erecting the Province of New Bruns- 
