The circumstances under which these recent attempts to enforce jurisdiction have been made show that in the most favorable aspect in which they can be regarded they were wholly indefensible.

The act for which Greely was arrested and imprisoned, so far from having been committed within the acknowledged dominions of the British Crown, and beyond the limits of the disputed territory, and therefore liable to be treated as a violation of territorial jurisdiction, took place, as appears by the statement of the governor of Maine, whilst he was employed within the limits of that State, and under its authority, in enumerating the inhabitants of the county of Penobscot.

By what authority, then, the provincial government of New Brunswick felt itself justified in exercising such acts of sovereign power the undersigned is at a loss to conceive, unless, indeed, upon the ground that the jurisdiction and sovereignty over the disputed territory pending the controversy rests exclusively with Great Britain.  If such should turn out to be the fact, it can hardly be necessary again to repeat the assurances which have been heretofore given that in any such claim of power the Government of the United States can not acquiesce.

Upon the consequences which would unavoidably result from attempting to exercise such jurisdiction it is needless to enlarge.  It must now be apparent that all such attempts, if persevered in, can produce only feuds and collisions of the most painful character, and besides increasing the feelings of international discord which have already been excited between the contending parties, they will close every avenue to an amicable adjustment of a controversy which it is so much the desire and interest of both Governments to accomplish.  Ought it not, then, to be the earnest endeavor of the two Governments to avoid doing anything which can have a tendency to lead to such mischievous consequences?

It is under this view of the subject that the undersigned has been instructed again to remonstrate against these proceedings of the authorities of New Brunswick, as a violation of the rights of Maine in the person of her agent, and to protest in the most solemn manner against the future exercise of all such acts of jurisdiction and sovereignty over the disputed territory or the citizens of the United States residing within its limits until a final adjustment of the controversy takes place.

The undersigned, therefore, can not and ought not to close this note without again invoking the early and earnest attention of Lord Palmerston and that of Her Majesty’s Government to this painful subject.