INTRODUCTION xxiii 



high spirit on both sides, had brought Europeans 

 to respect the American people, and had given 

 that people itself new martial deeds to be proud 

 of, deeds of a valor which had not been directed 

 against the old country. 



Besides these unpleasant memories there were 

 also controversies over important material in 

 terests that emerged from time to time. The 

 northeastern frontier of the United States where 

 the State of Maine borders on New Brunswick 

 and Lower Canada had been left uncertain by 

 the treaty of 1783, and also by that of 1814, and 

 as the country began to be settled the disputes 

 over it became threatening. After this question 

 had been disposed of by the Webster-Ashburton 

 treaty of 1842 another boundary quarrel arose 

 for the possession of the region then called 

 Oregon. Each nation had a legal case, and for 

 many months neither seemed likely to give way. 

 Even after the treaty of 1846 had fixed the 

 forty-ninth parallel of latitude as the frontier 

 line all the way to the shores of the Pacific, the 

 diplomatists of both countries were harassed by 

 a dispute relating to the ownership of the 

 island of San Juan in the Straits of Juan de 

 Fuca, and after that dispute had been referred 

 to the German Emperor, and determined by 



