THE ROARING FORTIES 109 



by her, and a little less than what was assigned 

 to her by the rejected arbitration of the King 

 of the Netherlands. As a solace she received 

 from the United States the sum of 150,000, 

 a like sum going to Massachusetts. The line 

 dividing Canada from Vermont and New York, 

 which, as we have seen, had been erroneously 

 run by the surveyors to the substantial advan 

 tage of the United States, was fixed by the 

 treaty in accordance with the now long-estab 

 lished error. 



The consent of Maine to the negotiation of 

 a conventional line was secured largely through 

 means that, when later disclosed, became the 

 focus of a heated controversy. Just when 

 Webster was getting his plans for the negotia 

 tion under headway his attention was called 

 to a map recently discovered in the French 

 archives which might be the one which Frank 

 lin was known to have sent to Vergennes in 

 1782 with the bounds of the United States, as 

 agreed upon by the negotiators of the treaty of 

 peace, marked upon it by a strong red line. 

 The new-found map bore no evidence as to its 

 identity, but the boundary of the United States 

 was marked on it with a strong red line, and the 

 line in the region of Maine followed very closely 



