[GANONG ] BOUNDARIES OF NEW BRUNSWICK 399 
In doing this, however, at once and without hesitation, it is thought 
right to observe— 
1. That by this recommendation it is proposed to take from New Bruns- 
wick 2,660 square miles, to which the Commissioners, having once settled 
the line of highlands, report New Brunswick to have an undoubted legal 
claim, whilst there are given to her in return 2,300 square miles of a terri- 
tory to which the claim of New Brunswick is, to say the least, as good as 
that of Canada. 
2. The Lieutenant-Governor and Council do not admit the soundness 
of the arguments by which the Commissioners seek to prove that New 
Brunswick has no legal claim to any territory west of the due north line. 
The Government of New Brunswick have, however, the fullest confidence 
in the justice of Her Majesty’s Government, and as they trust Her Majesty 
may be advised to act on the recommendation of the Commissioners, they 
do not think it expedient to discuss questions, which, in that case, would 
be purely speculative. (Blue-book, 101). 
They then ask for an early settlement of the question, a request 
often repeated by New Brunswick, and emphasized in an address to Her 
Majesty from the New Brunswick House of Assembly in April, 1849. 
It was not until March, 1850, that Canada returned any reply to the 
Home Office, and then she transmitted an extract from a report of a 
Committee of the Executive Council dated Feb. 23, 1850, which reads : 
The Committee of Council after giving to the subject their most careful 
consideration, find themselves unable to recognize the justice or equity of 
the recommendations of the Imperial Commissioners, which in their judgment 
would, if carried into effect, divest this province of a large and valuable 
portion of territory for the special benefit of New Brunswick. The Committee 
of Council feel it unnecessary to enter at any length into the subject, which 
has been most ably treated in the Report from the Commissioner of Crown 
Lands, in which the Committee concur so far as regards the merits of the 
respective claims to the disputed territory. (Blue-book, 104). | 
The report of the Commissioner of Crown Lands here referred to, 
is dated Jan. 20, 1850, and signed by J. H. Price, and occupies pages 
105-117 of the Blue-book. This lengthy document is a labored attempt 
to prove a right of Quebec to a boundary at the Mars Hill highlands, 
and it has all the familiar marks of the special pleading of a weak 
cause,—the involved arguments, the emphasis on intentions as distinct 
from expressions, upon the spirit as distinct from the letter of the laws, 
and the elaborate discussions of words. He goes back to Lescarbot 
and the early French writers for the ancient boundary between Acadia 
and Canada to show historical precedent for a boundary more southerly 
than the St. Lawrence watershed, and he argues that the intention of 
the Quebec Act of 1774 was to keep all the ancient French Canada, 
hence including seigniories, ete., within the limits of Quebec. He then 
makes much of the arguments of Featherstonhaugh and Mudge already 
considered, and sets forth with telling force the logical effect of Great: 
