I io THE ROARING FORTIES 



that claimed by the British as designated by 

 the treaty of 1783. Webster showed a copy of 

 this map to the governor of Maine, suggesting 

 how awkward it would be to go into a new arbi 

 tration with the possibility that the map might 

 come before the arbiter. Maine gave in her 

 adhesion to the project of a conventional line. 

 Webster refrained from showing the red-line 

 map to Lord Ashburton, and further directed 

 Everett, the minister at London, to abandon all 

 searching for maps that might have been used 

 in the negotiations of 1782-3. 



Under all the circumstances, this abstention 

 from further map-hunting was a dictate of 

 elementary prudence. It was made ridiculous 

 by what became known a little later. In the 

 British Museum lay the actual map used in 

 the negotiations of 1782 by Oswald, one of the 

 British commissioners, and on this map the 

 boundary agreed to was marked by a line that 

 followed very closely what was claimed by the 

 United States. If Everett had continued his 

 search and happened upon this map, Webster s 

 way with Great Britain, if not with Maine, 

 would have been materially smoothed. 



Neither the red-line map nor Oswald s map 

 came forth from retirement till Webster and 



