384 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



by Winsor in his chapter on the peace negotiations of 1782-1783 

 (America, VII.), and especially in his "Cartographical Histor}- of the 

 Northeastern Boundary Controversy." 



Durinc; this period a considerable advance in the maps, particularly 

 of the Peninsula of Nova Scotia, was made through the more numerous 

 observations for latitude and longitude. These were taken by officers 

 of French ships of war on the coast. In 1750-51, as Green tells 

 us M. Chabert was sent out in a frigate by the French Government, and 

 provided with the best instruments, to take numerous observations. This 

 important expedition did not touch our present province of New Bruns- 

 wick. In 1753, however, as Bellin tells us in his " Eeraarques sur la Carte 

 du Golfe Saint Laurent," the ^'Thetis," King's frigate, made observations 

 in Bay Verte. Morris, in 1749, determined the latitude and longitude of 

 Mill Island, near Cape Enragé, 45° 40', given on his Ms. map in the 

 Public Eecord oifice, but these are the only such observations that I 

 have noted in New Brunswick up to 1770. 



This period does not end abruptly, but interlocks closely with the 

 following, for many of its features persisted long after good surveys had 

 improved other parts of the province. 



for this great error belongs with them. This is, however, but one side of the ques- 

 tion. On the other is the fact that the Americans, when it became plain that they 

 had gained a great advantage, and that the value of the land in that wedge was but 

 little to them in comparison with its value to Great Britain (for, while giving them a 

 strategic advantage to which they were not in any other than an accidental way 

 entitled, it cut oflF entirely direct communication between the two parts of an 

 empire) ; then, backed by that lower standard of morals which prevails between 

 nation and nation, as compared with that between man and man, they insisted upon 

 the letter of the law, and upon its fulfilment to the uttermost. They could not rise 

 to such a conception of international relations as would have yielded that wedge to 

 a country that needed it more than did they, nor probably could they or any other 

 nation even to-day, for Christian nations do not yet treat one another as Christian 

 man is expected to treat a fellow-man. What would be applauded in the latter case 

 would be viewed with wonder and disapprobation in the former. Great Britain 

 would not yield the American claim, but set up a counterclaim, and maintained that 

 the north line was intended to stop at Mars Hill far south of the St. John, and to fol- 

 low the highlands west from there. The actual present boundary splits tlie differexice 

 roughly between the two extreme claims. The statement is often made in New 

 Brunswick, and is passed on without investigation and repeated from generation to 

 generation, that New Brunswick was robbed of a great parcel of territory, including 

 the Aroostook valley, by the sharpness of American diplomacy ; and Lord Asliburton, 

 the British commissioner in the final settlement of the boundary as it now runs, is 

 viewed as having sacrificed British interests. As a matter of fact, it is extremely 

 lucky for New Brunswick that the difference was split as it was, and she really pos- 

 sesses to-clay far more territory than the treaty of 1783 allotted to her. Technically, 

 the Americans were right in their extreme claim ; New Brunswickers, when they 

 feel aggrieved, should blame the British commissioners who negotiated the treaty of 

 178:3. \est it be considered that my judgment has been warped by long residence in 

 the United States, and, as well, in justice to one of the foremost of Canadian his- 

 torians, I wish to add, that this view is taken l)y Mr. Hannay, wliom no one will 

 accuse of too great partiality to the United States, and he lias repeatedly aflirmed it 

 in newspaper articles, though I do not know that it appears in any of his more per- 

 manent writings. 



