For the undersigned has to observe that not only is the extensive system of encroachment which was denounced and remonstrated against by the undersigned in his official note of the 2d of last November still carried on and persisted in by armed bands employed by the authorities of Maine in the districts above the Aroostook and Fish rivers, but that acts, as above stated, of a character yet more violent and obnoxious to the rights of Great Britain and more dangerous to the preservation of the general peace are with certainty meditated by the inhabitants of that State.  The existence of such designs has for months past been a matter of notoriety by public report.  Those designs were plainly indicated in the recent message of the governor of Maine to the legislature of the State, and they are avowed in more explicit terms in the letter addressed to the President of the United States by the governor of Maine on the 21st of November, which letter has within the last few days been communicated to Congress and published.

The undersigned, it is true, has been assured by the Secretary of State, in his note of the 16th instant, that the General Government see no reason to doubt the disposition of the governor of Maine to adhere to the existing arrangements and to avoid all acts tending to render more difficult and distant the final adjustment of the boundary question; but in face of the above clear indications of the intentions of Maine as given out by the parties themselves the Secretary of State has not given to the undersigned any adequate assurance that Maine will be constrained to desist from carrying those intentions into effect if, contrary to the expectation of the General Government, the legislature or the executive of the State should think fit to make the attempt.

The undersigned not only preserves the hope, but he entertains the firm belief, that if the duty of negotiating the boundary question be left in the hands of the two national Governments, to whom alone of right it belongs, the difficulty of conducting the negotiation to an amicable issue will not be found so great as has been by many persons apprehended.  But the case will become wholly altered if the people of the State of Maine, who, though interested in the result, are not charged with the negotiation, shall attempt to interrupt it by violence.

Her Majesty’s authorities in North America have on their part no desire or intention to interfere with the course of the pending negotiation by an exertion of military force, but they will, as at present advised, consult their own discretion in adopting the measures of defense that may be rendered necessary by the threats of a violent interruption to the negotiation which have been used by all parties in Maine and which the undersigned regrets to find confirmed by the language (as above referred to) employed by the highest official authority in that State.

The undersigned avails himself of this occasion to renew to the Secretary of State of the United States the assurance of his distinguished consideration.