104 THE ROARING FORTIES 



to where the northwest angle of eighteenth- 

 century Nova Scotia was situated. The gov 

 ernor of Maine, with his militia, stirred up the 

 diplomats as effectually as he did the lumber 

 men. Palmerston, the British foreign secre 

 tary, and Forsyth, the American secretary of 

 state, after some despatches manifesting more 

 acerbity than had characterized the correspond 

 ence since Canning s time, agreed in a recog 

 nition of each other s highly correct and amicable 

 intentions, and proceeded to institute a new 

 series of surveys and a new set of commis 

 sioners to guess out the location of the elusive 

 angle and highlands. For three years, 1839-42, 

 there was great activity in the search for the 

 boundary and vast ingenuity was displayed in 

 the construction of new theories about the mean 

 ing of the treaty and the topography of the dis 

 puted region. The country was so covered with 

 hills that a surveyor who knew it well could 

 construct a chain of highlands in nearly any 

 direction that suited his taste or his instruc 

 tions, and was as free to indulge his fancy 

 about the boundary as were the negotiators 

 in 1783, who knew nothing whatever about the 

 facts. 



In 1841 there was a change of administration 



