There was perhaps some little anachronism in the use thus made of this term by him, for the northwest angle of Nova Scotia, in the strict sense in which it was employed by the framers of the treaty, did not properly exist, eo nomine, until it was formed by the political arrangements beforementioned of 1763. But true it is, that anterior to, and independent of, those authoritative provisions, the limits of the territory of the Massachusetts government, in that quarter, were always allowed and considered to extend to the St. Lawrence. The western line of Sir William Alexander's original grant of Nova Scotia went to the shore of the great river of Canada; and the grant of the Sagadahock territory to the Duke of York, afterwards James II., annexed to the province of Massachusetts Bay by the Charter of William and Mary, had the same extent. The treaty of peace acknowledged the political and territorial sovereignty of Massachusetts among the original thirteen states. Suffice it. to say, that if the limitation of 1763, afterwards adopted by the treaty of 1783, and which was not very willingly acquiesced in before the revolution by the good people of Massachusetts, should now be repealed and removed, it would be quite as reasonable, that the original boundary so long insisted on should be restored, as that the line should be arbitrarily discontinued, or sent off at a tangent.

The United States want nothing of the treaty, however, but what it is; and we confess we do not see what was to be gained, going upon the ground of the treaty, by departing from the due north line from the St. Croix, and abandoning the northwest angle of Nova Scotia. On the other hand we are somewhat astonished that the British government should have demurred to adopting the experiment, supposing it was seriously considered by them as authorizing a deviation from the due north line. A very inviting diagram was certainly presented by Mr. Livingston-departing from that line at something like an angle of forty-five degrees; and so it would seem to have been interpreted and understood by Sir Charles R. Vaughan-that is, as offering a more liberal running of the line in an oblique direction to the westward, until it should meet with some such highlands as might answer the description of the treaty. For while he learned to be sure both from Mr. Livingston and Mr. McLane, " that insuperable constitutional difficulties imposed upon the government of the United States a restriction to treat only of a line of boundary according to the terms of the treaty of 1783," he seems to have well understood and inferred "that the only deviation, therefore, which could be admitted in tracing the boundary from the strict terms of the treaty was an abandonment of the direct due north line from the St. Croix, which had hitherto been followed in search of

the highlands of the treaty," in order to extend that search in a more oblique western direction. A line thus drawn to those highlands, wherever in rerum natura they might be found,as Sir Charles R. Vaughan gravely observes, "would be such a compliance with the description of the boundary laid down in the treaty, as to remove all constitutional difficulties in the way of the government of the United States, and enable it to fix that line as the line of boundary!"

There seems to be an industrious and significant iteration, by Sir Charles R. Vaughan, of expressions which he had carefully and, as he submitted to Mr. M'Lane, correctly culled from the communications of Mr. Livingston and himself, denoting and implying that he regarded it rather in the light of an available diplomatic expedient to avoid the constitutional difficulty raised on account of the state of Maine; and in that respect he seems to have been disposed to look at it all round very carefully, to see how far it was likely to answer the purpose. From a conversation referred to with Mr. Livingston, and a small map produced by him-probably something corresponding to the diagram-Sir Charles R. Vaughan first received the favourable impression, "that the highlands to be sought in the manner he proposed would probably be found north of the St. John, but some miles to the westward of the river St. Francis!" A subsequent conversation or explanation with Mr. M'Lane left the general impression only, that the view of the latter was that attention should be directed to an examination of the country along the line assumed by the American commissioners to be the boundary under the Treaty of Ghent. This was certainly an improvement upon the idea imputed, we know not how precisely, to Mr. Livingston. But at any rate we do not quite see how it was that Sir Charles R. Vaughan should come so clearly to the conclusion which he conveyed to Mr. M'Lane, that an assent to the proposal of Mr. Livingston would give to the government of the United States nearly all they had claimed, and place the government of Great Britain in a much worse condition than they would have been by accepting, as they were willing to do, the limited portion of territory assigned to them by the arbiter;-that is to say, provided there were no highlands, as they contended, in the direction contemplated by the treaty, north at once of the St. Croix and the St. John. Indeed, we can hardly account for the hesitation as to this offer, if it was ever considered as distinctly made, except upon the perfectly conceivable ground, that, upon a fair and open survey of the whole country in question, to see how far it admitted of a correct application of the treaty description of the boundary in that quarter, the supposed possible deviation might, after all, nearly or quite vanish-and the proposed pursuit,

therefore, of a more western highland monument prove entirely illusory. In this last point of view we can readily comprehend how the assent to the proposition before mentioned would concede to the government of the United States nearly all they had ever claimed; and it is quite intelligible that the English government should not, upon the whole, consider that an experiment worth trying. The truth evidently was, as it turned out in the sequel, that the British government was desirous of tying the American government down to certain distinct and deliberate concessions upon the most important disputed points, before they would enter upon any new experiment.

Respecting the constitutional scruple so strongly urged by Mr. Livingston, as having prevented the government of the United States from acquiescing in the recommendation of the King of the Netherlands, to wit-" that the federal government had no authority to agree to any other line of boundary than that which is described by the treaty, at least not to any other line which might imply a cession of any part of the territory to which the treaty might appear to entitle one of the component states of the Union"- -we cannot but think that it might have seemed to Sir Charles R. Vaughan a little superficial. We cannot, indeed, but acknowledge the language of that minister, in his remark upon the overture of Mr. Livingston in this point of view, to be equally distinguished by dignity and principle.

"But if this objection is insurmountable, as against the line recommended by the King of the Netherlands, would it not be equally fatal to that suggested by Mr. Livingston? Because, if the boundary was formed by a line drawn from the head of the St. Croix to highlands found to the westward of the meridian of that spot, that boundary would not be the boundary of the treaty; seeing that the treaty requires the boundary to be run along the meridian of the head of the St. Croix, and that the state of Maine might object to any deviation from the line of the treaty in a westerly direction, as justly as it could to any deviation from that line in a southerly direction. Nay, it might object, with more appearance of reason, to a westerly departure from a real meridian, which is distinctly specified in the treaty, than to a departure southward from an imaginary line, which is only described in the treaty, and the finding of which is a thing that has not yet been accomplished."

This singular error into which the respectable mind of Mr. Livingston was somehow or other led-that the due north line from the St. Croix might be deserted-was one that did not expire with his connection with the office of state, which he held only for a short time; but it necessarily, as we have remarked, run into and influenced the course pursued by his successor upon the same subject. Thus we find Sir Charles R. Vaughan, in a subsequent communication, understanding Mr. M'Lane as saying, "that should a new survey, freed from the restriction of following the due north line of the treaty, find

any where westward of that line highlands separating rivers, according to the treaty of 1783, a line drawn to them from the monument at the source of the St. Croix river would be such a fulfilment of the terms of that treaty, as that the president can agree to make it the boundary without reference to the state of Maine." We even find the same idea repeated and continued down to so late a date as April, 1835, in the correspondence of Mr. Forsyth, who certainly might have some apology for adopting a theorem which had been left him as sanctioned by his two distinguished predecessors—and which the president himself viewed as a rule of practical surveying which had prevailed in this country before the revolution.

"The president is advised that it is a rule in practical surveying which prevailed in this country before the revolution, and has since been, and still is, considered obligatory, that when there is found in the location of the premises described in a deed, or any other instrument, a disagreement in the course of a given line, and the bearing of a natural object called for as its termination, the given course must be made to yield to the given object, and the line closed at the object, in a direction corresponding, as nearly as practicable, to the course prescribed, upon the principle that the natural object furnishes evidence of the true intention of the parties, which may be relied upon with more safety than the courseerrors in which constantly occur from the imperfection of the instruments used, or the want of knowledge of those in whose hands they may have been placed. He has thought that this rule might be rightfully and properly applied to the matter now in controversy, and is willing to agree that-if, upon a thorough examination, it shall appear to those appointed by the parties to make it that his majesty's government is correct in its assumption that the highlands hitherto claimed by the United States as those designated by the treaty do not answer that description, but that those highlands are to be found to the west of the due north line-that the boundary line should be closed according to the established rule in practical surveying. Whether there are highlands to be found in a northwesterly course from the source of the St. Croix, answering better to the description given in the treaty of 1783 than those heretofore claimed by the United States, and so clearly identified as to remove all reasonable doubt, remains to be ascertained. No enquiry into this fact, with a view to apply it to the respective and conflicting pretensions of the parties, has hitherto been made. It was under these circumstances, and with such impressions, that Mr. Livingston was authorized to propose to Sir Charles R. Vaughan, for the consideration of his government, that a new commission should be appointed, consisting of an equal number of commissioners, with an umpire selected by some friendly sovereign from among the most skilful men in Europe, to decide on all points in which they might disagree; or a commission entirely composed of scientific Europeans, selected by a friendly sovereign, to be attended in the survey and examination of the country by agents appointed by the parties. The adoption of this course would, it was urged, have the benefit of strict impartiality in the commissioners' local knowledge and high professional skill, which, though heretofore separately called into action, have never before been combined for the solution of the question."

It is due to Mr. M'Lane, however, to observe, that he stated

the proposition in a more careful and guarded manner than it was limited by Mr. Livingston, or than proved acceptable to Sir Charles R. Vaughan; thus-"In all questions of boundaries of tracts and countries designated by natural objects, the plain and universal rule of surveying is, first, to find the natural object, and then to reach it by the nearest direct course from any given point, and with the least possible departure from the particular course called for in the original deed or treaty." This, we think, serves to explain the practical difficulty found by Sir Charles R. Vaughan in closing with the original proposition of Mr. Livingston before he had fairly got hold of it; and we think it, at the same time, no more than just also to quote the full and well-considered reply which it is evident Sir Charles R. Vaughan was instructed to make to the rather strong statement respecting this universal rule of surveying.

"His majesty's government think it right, with regard to this proposition, in the first place to say, that, however just and reasonable the rule of surveying here stated by Mr. M'Lane may seem, they do not consider that rule to be so generally established and recognized as Mr. M'Lane assumes it to be. His majesty's government, indeed, do not recollect any case similar to the present in which the principle here asserted has been actually put in practice, but, on the contrary, they remember a case, not merely analogous to that which is now under discussion, but arising out of the same article of the same treaty of 1783, in which this supposed rule was inverted by the agents of the American government itself. The treaty of 1783 declared that the line of boundary was to proceed from the Lake of the Woods, "in a due west course, to the river Mississippi." It was afterwards ascertained, by actual survey, that even the sources of the Mississippi lie south of the latitude of the Lake of the Woods; and that, consequently, it would be impossible to reach the Mississippi by any line drawn due west from that lake. In order to escape from the difficulty thus encountered, it was urged by the American commissioners that the natural object, the Mississippi, should be wholly disregarded; and in the final settlement of that part of the boundary, as it was fixed by the second article of the convention of October 20, 1818, the principle now contended for by the American government was reversed; for, instead of the natural object being made the primary, and the connecting line the secondary guide, the natural object-namely, the river Mississippi was put out of consideration; and the connecting linenamely, the line to be drawn due west from the Lake of the Woodswas converted into a primary element of the boundary. It was demonstrated that such a line never could reach the Mississippi at all; but, instead of adhering to the source of the Mississippi, as one fixed point, and drawing a new connecting line to it from the Lake of the Woods, which was the other fixed point, the commissioners adhered to the arbitrary line to be drawn due west from the lake, and wholly abandoned the Mississippi, though that river was specifically mentioned in the treaty as a land-mark."

As a matter preliminary to any further proceeding, therefore --making no other reference to the last posture of the pending negotiation, and keeping always in view the necessity of the