to the subject is highly appreciated by the President.  The question therein presented for consideration was not, as your excellency supposed, whether the State of Maine should “take the lead in abandoning the treaty and volunteer propositions for a conventional line,” but simply whether the government of Maine would consent that the General Government should entertain a direct negotiation with the British Government for a conventional line of boundary on the northeastern frontier of the United States.  Had that consent been given it would have been reasonable to expect the proposition of a line from Great Britain, as it was that power which particularly desired the resort to that mode of settling the controversy.  It was also the intention of the President so to arrange the negotiation that the approbation of Maine to the boundary line agreed upon should have been secured.  It was with this view that in the application to the State of Maine for its assent to a negotiation for a conventional line express reference was made to such conditions as she might think proper to prescribe.  To all such as were, in the opinion of the President, required by a proper regard for the security of Maine and consistent with the Constitution he would have yielded a ready assent.  Of that character was he disposed to regard a condition that in a negotiation for the final establishment of a new line, with power on the part of the negotiators to stipulate for the cession or exchange of territory as the interests and convenience of the parties might be found to require, the State of Maine should be represented by commissioners of her own selection and that their previous assent should be requisite to make any treaty containing such stipulation binding upon her.

These suggestions are not now made as matter of complaint at the decision which the State of Maine has come to on a matter in which she was at perfect liberty to pursue the course she has adopted, but in justice to the views of the President in making the application.

I am instructed to announce to your excellency that by direction of the President, upon due consideration of the result of the late application of the General Government to the State of Maine on the subject of the northeastern boundary and in accordance with the expressed wishes of her legislature, I have informed Mr. Fox of the willingness of this Government to enter into an arrangement with that of Great Britain for the establishment of a joint commission of survey and exploration upon the basis of the original American proposition and the modifications offered by Her Majesty’s Government, and to apprise you that Mr. Fox, being at present unprovided with full powers for negotiating the proposed convention, has transmitted my communication to his Government in order that such fresh instructions may be furnished to him or such other steps taken as may be deemed expedient on its part.

I have the honor to be, with great respect, your excellency’s obedient servant,