AND THE SENTIMENT OF UNION 399 



Mr. Webster then accepted the office of Secretary of 

 State in the Harrison-Tyler administration, and soon 

 showed himself as able in diplomacy as in other de- 

 partments of statesmanship. A complication of diffi- 

 culties with Great Britain seemed to be bringing us 

 to the verge of war. There was the long-standing 

 dispute about the northeastern boundary, which had 

 not been adequately defined by the treaty of 1783, and 

 along with the renewal of this controversy there came 

 up the cases of McLeod and the steamer Caroline, the 

 slave-ship Creole, and all the manifold complications 

 which these cases involved. The Oregon question, 

 too, was looming in the background. In disen- 

 tangling these difficulties, Mr. Webster showed rare 

 tact and discretion. He was fortunately helped by 

 the change of ministry in England, which transferred 

 the management of foreign affairs from the hands of 

 Lord Palmerston to those of Lord Aberdeen. Ed- 

 ward Everett was then in London, and Mr. Webster 

 secured his appointment as minister to Great Britain. 

 In response to this appointment, Lord Ashburton, 

 whose friendly feeling toward the United States was 

 known to every one, was sent over on a special mis- 

 sion to confer with Mr. Webster ; and the result was 

 the Ashburton treaty of 1842, by which an arbitrary 

 and conventional line was adopted for the northeastern 

 boundary, while the loss thereby suffered by the states 

 of Maine and Massachusetts was to be indemnified 

 by the United States. It was also agreed that Great 

 Britain and the United States should each keep its 

 own squadron to watch the coast of Africa for the 

 suppression of the slave-trade, and that in this good 

 work each nation should separately enforce its own 



