THE ROARING FORTIES 107 



cordiality toward the United States. Ash- 

 burton reached Washington in April, 1842, and 

 on the 9th of August the famous Webster- 

 Ashburton treaty was signed. It was savagely 

 attacked in the British provinces, in Great Brit 

 ain itself, and in the United States. These 

 attacks were for the most part, however, mere 

 ebullitions of partisan spite or of that queer 

 conception of public duty which requires fault 

 to be found with every achievement of the 

 administration for the time being. 



So far as it went the Webster-Ashburton 

 Treaty was an extremely important step in 

 the development of pacific relations among the 

 English-speaking peoples. The convention it 

 self provided definitely a settlement of all open 

 questions about the boundary from the Atlantic 

 Ocean to the Rocky Mountains; it established 

 an unobjectionable, if not supremely efficient, 

 system of co-operation for the suppression of 

 the slave-trade; and it embodied an agreement 

 for the extradition of criminals that was urgently 

 demanded by the disturbed conditions along 

 the Canadian frontier. In the published corre 

 spondence between the negotiators were incor 

 porated a satisfactory expression of regret by 

 Great Britain for the violation of American ter- 



