in the election must produce that feeling in a high degree.  A conviction can not take place without eliciting a decision from the bench declaratory of and enforcing the jurisdiction over the territory in dispute, which it is the present policy of both powers to avoid, at least for the short time that must elapse before the question can be finally settled.  If punishment should follow conviction, the passions that would be excited must inevitably be hostile to that spirit of conciliation so necessary where sacrifices of national feeling and individual interest are required for the common good.  It would be absurd here to enter into the question of title.  Both parties claim it.  No act that either can do is necessary to assist its right while there is hope of an amicable arrangement; and it was with this view of the subject that a mutual understanding has been had to leave things in the state in which they are until the question of the award is settled.

On the part of the Americans some individuals, in contravention of this understanding, have proceeded to do acts which if followed out would change the political state of part of the disputed land.  But it has not been so followed out; it is disavowed by the power whose assent is necessary to carry it into execution.  It is therefore of no avail, and can have no more effect than if the same number of men had met at Madawaska and declared themselves duly elected members of the British Parliament.  The act interferes with no right; it comes in actual collision with no established power.  Not so the punishment of the individuals concerned.  This is at once a practical decision of the question, and may lead to retaliating legal measures; for if the lieutenant-governor of New Brunswick feels himself obliged, as he says he does, to impose the authority of the law within which he thinks the boundaries of his Province, will not the same feeling incite the governor of Maine, under the same sense of duty, to pursue the like measures?  And thus the fruits of moderation and mutual forbearance during so long a period will be lost for the want of perseverance in them for the short time that is now wanting to bring the controversy to an amicable close.  It is therefore, sir, that I invite your interposition with his excellency the lieutenant-governor of New Brunswick to induce him to set at liberty the persons arrested, on their engagement to make no change in the state of things until the business shall be finally decided between the two Governments.

On our part, the desire of the General Government to avoid any measures tending to a change in the existing state of things on our northeast boundary has been fully and, it is believed, efficaciously expressed to the executive of the State of Maine, so that the actual relation of the State with the neighboring Province will not in future suffer any change.

I have great pleasure, sir, in renewing on this occasion the assurance of my high consideration.