a river for a highland boundary could not fail to
be recognized was apparent from the fact that Mr.
Bankhead’s note of 28th December, 1835, suggested
the river St. John from the point in which it is intersected
by a due north line drawn from the monument at the
head of the St. Croix to the southernmost source of
that river as a part of the general outline of a conventional
boundary. No difficulty was anticipated on the
part of Her Majesty’s Government in understanding
the grounds upon which such a proposal was expected
to be entertained by it, since the precedent proposition
of Mr. Bankhead, just adverted to, although professedly
based on the principle of an equal division between
the parties, could not be justified by it, as it would
have given nearly two-thirds of the disputed territory
to Her Majesty’s Government. It was therefore
fairly presumed that the river line presented, in
the opinion of Her Majesty’s Government, advantages
sufficient to counterbalance any loss of territory
by either party that would follow its adoption as
a boundary. Another recommendation of the river
line, it was supposed, would be found by Her Majesty’s
Government in the fact that whilst by its adoption
the right of jurisdiction alone would have been yielded
to the United States over that portion of New Brunswick
south of the St. John, Great Britain would have acquired
the right of soil as well as of jurisdiction of the
whole portion of the disputed territory north of the
river. It is to be lamented that the imposing
considerations alluded to have failed in their desired
effect—that the hopes of the President in
regard to them have not been realized, and consequently
that Her Britannic Majesty’s Government is not
prepared at present to enter into an arrangement of
the existing difference between the two nations upon
the basis proposed.
It would seem to the undersigned, from an expression
used in Mr. Fox’s late communication, that some
misapprehension exists on his part either as to the
object of this Government in asking for information
relative to the manner in which the report of a commission
of exploration and survey might tend to a practical
result in the settlement of the boundary question
or as to the distinctive difference between the American
proposal for the appointment of such a commission and
the same proposition when modified to meet the wishes
of Her Majesty’s Government. Of the two
modes suggested, by direction of the President, for
constituting such a commission, the first is that which
is regarded by Her Majesty’s Government with
most favor, viz, the commissioners to be chosen in
equal numbers by each of the two parties, with an umpire
selected by some friendly European sovereign to decide
on all points on which they might disagree, with instructions
to explore the disputed territory in order to find
within its limits dividing highlands answering to
the description of the treaty of 1783, in a due north
or northwesterly direction from the monument at the