24 



QUEEN'S QUARTERLY. 



goods indiscriminately from each counter w.thout bemg harassa by 

 Custom House officers. They were nearly all rcc traders m pra- 

 tice at least, in those days on both sides of the hne-hv.ng m a s ate 

 of Arcadian simplicity that hostile tariffs ended years ago. Such 

 the peaceful condition of at least a part of the rural boundary 



was 



on the land. , 



The immense bodies of fresh water which separate the wo 

 countries have for nearly a century presented a spectacle o a like 

 freedom from all warlike demonstration or display. In April, 1817, 

 without a formal treaty, or even a convention, by a simple inter- 

 change of short letters between the British Minister, Mr. Bagot, and 

 Mr. Rush, the American Acting-Secretary of State, which did not 

 require or receive the sanction of the Senate of the United States, it 

 was agreed that the naval force to be maintained on the Lakes form- 

 ing the boundary should be confined to the following :— On Lake 

 Ontario to one vessel not exceeding 100 tons and armed with an 

 18-lb. cannon. On the Upper Lakes to two vessels not exceeding 

 the like burden and armed with like force ; and on Lake Champlain 

 to one such vessel. It was a simple stipulation that might be ter- 

 minated by either country' on six months' notice. To their credit be 

 it said that the two countries not only kept strictly within the agreed 

 limit, but actually dispensed with war vessels entirely, and that this 

 pacific condition has continued for ninety years. !May the day be 

 far distant when any contrary policy may obtain. 



The first treaty defining the boundary between the t\vo coun- 

 tries was that of Paris in 1782, by which the independence of the 

 13 States was acknowledged by England. Since then different por- 

 tions of it have from time to time been settled or defined by the fol- 

 lowing conventions or treaties, and by arbitrations under them, viz. : 

 The Treaty of London, 1794; Ghent, 1814; London, 1818 and 1827; 

 Washington, 1846 and 1871, and finally the Convention-Treaty of 

 Washington of 1903 under»which the boundary between Alaska and 

 the Yukon Territory was settled by arbitration. 



So far as I am aware the above Treaty of London of 1794 was 

 the first treaty providing for the settlement of a vexed question by 

 international arbitration. It provided for two such Boards — one to 

 determine what was really the St. Croix river, which was by the 

 treaty of Paris to form in part the boundary between what is now 

 the State of Maine and the province of New Brunswick; the other 

 to settle the respective claims of the subjects or citizens of the two 

 countries against the government of the other. The negotiators of 



