determination by the arbiter of the point just mentioned observed that it could not but appear from further reflection to Sir Charles that the declaration that the rivers St. John and Restigouche could not be alone taken into view without hazard in determining the disputed boundary was not the expression of an opinion that they should be altogether excluded in determining that question; or, in other words, that they could not be looked upon as rivers emptying into the Atlantic.  The remarks presented by Mr. Fox in the note to which this is a reply are designed to shew a misconception on the part of the undersigned of the true meaning of the passage cited by him from the award and to support the construction which was given to it by Sir Charles Vaughan.  Whether the apprehension entertained by the one party or the other of the opinion of the arbiter upon this minor point be correct is regarded by the undersigned as a matter of no consequence in the settlement of the main question.  The Government of the United States, never having acquiesced in the decision of the arbiter that “the nature of the difference and the vague and not sufficiently determinate stipulations of the treaty of 1783 do not permit the adjudication of either of the two lines respectively claimed by the interested parties to one of the said parties without wounding the principles of law and equity with regard to the other,” can not consent to be governed in the prosecution of the existing negotiation by the opinion of the arbiter upon any of the preliminary points about which there was a previous difference between the parties, and the adverse decision of which has led to so unsatisfactory and, in the view of this Government, so erroneous a conclusion.  This determination on the part of the United States not to adopt the premises of the arbiter while rejecting his conclusion has been heretofore made known to Her Majesty’s Government, and while it remains must necessarily render the discussion of the question what those premises were unavailing, if not irrelevant.  The few observations which the undersigned was led to make in the course of his note to Sir Charles Vaughan upon one of the points alleged to have been thus determined were prompted only by a respect for the arbiter and a consequent anxiety to remove a misinterpretation of his meaning, which alone, it was believed, could induce the supposition that the arbiter, in searching for the rivers referred to in the treaty as designating the boundary, could have come to the opinion that the two great rivers whose waters pervaded the whole district in which the search was made and constituted the most striking objects of the country had been entirely unnoticed by the negotiators of the treaty and were to be passed over unheeded in determining the line, while others were to be sought for which he himself asserts could not be found.  That the imputation of such an opinion to the respected arbiter could only be the result of misinterpretation seemed the