[aanoxc] DOCHET (ST. CROIX) ISLAND 199 
represent Passamaquoddy Bay, and of these two the easternmost was 
named the St. Croix. We now know that the maps contained a very 
curious error in the supposed Passamaquoddy Bay which made them 
utterly misleading, and we now know further that the river named 
on them the St. Croix is really the present river of that name; 
but these facts were then unknown, and: the supposition that the 
Magaguadavic was the St. Croix was most natural under the circum- 
stances. The British claimed the present St. Croix as the St. Croix 
of the Treaty, chiefly ‘on the ground that it was the larger river and 
the most natural to be selected as the international boundary, but 
they had no positive historical evidence to offer in its support, and 
so far their case was weaker than that of the Americans. Such was 
the condition of affairs during the decade after the close of the revolu- 
tion, and much local friction and no little embarrassment to the two 
governments was caused by the uncertainty as to this boundary. 
Finally, the question became so pressing that in 1794 the United 
States and Great Britain entered into a Treaty, providing for leaving 
the question as to the identity of the River St. Croix meant by the 
Treaty of 1783, to a commission of three men, one to be appointed 
by each nation, and these two to choose a third, the decision of any 
two of them to be accepted as final. Accordingly, Great Britain 
chose Thomas Barclay, a prominent loyalist of Nova Scotia, and the 
United States chose David Howell, an eminent citizen of Rhode 
Island, and those two agreed upon Egbert Benson, a leading lawyer 
of New York, as the third commissioner. The British agent, to 
argue the British claim, was Ward Chipman, a leading loyalist of St. 
John, while the American agent was James Sullivan, one of the most 
eminent lawyers of his time in Massachusetts. The secretary of the 
commission was Edward Winslow, another New Brunswick loyalist. 
The commission assembled at St. Andrews, New Brunswick, in August, 
1796, transacted much routine business in connection with its organ- 
ization and the making of surveys, and gathered all the local inform- 
ation it could from residents and Indians. The members personally 
visited the Magaguadavic and the Scoodie (or present St. Croix), 
examined the various islands in them, and then adjourned to meet 
the next year in Boston. It was, of course, known to the commis- 
sioners from the start that the St. Croix river was named by de Monts, 
and that he had settled on an island within its mouth, but on their 
visits to the various islands they did not have with them Champlain’s 
original narratives and maps, but only some extracts from his narra- 
_ tives, quite insufficient of themselves to determine the identity of 
the island and river. The American agent endeavoured to convince 
the commissioners that an island, now called Hog Island, near the 
