I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant,

JOHN FORSYTH.

EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT,

Augusta, February 27, 1840.

His Excellency M. VAN BUREN,

President United States.

SIR:  Having received the report of Benjamin Wiggin, esq., the agent referred to in my last communication, dispatched by me to the disputed territory to obtain exact information of British military movements in that quarter and of the existing state of things, I hasten to lay the same[65] before you, accompanied by his plan[65] of the British military post at the head of Lake Temiscouata.  It will be perceived that it goes to confirm in every essential particular the evidence already forwarded in the depositions of Messrs. Varnum, Bartlett, and Little, and is directly opposed to the statement contained in the letter of Mr. Fox to Mr. Forsyth under date of 26th of January last.

The course thus clearly proved to have been pursued by the British Government upon the disputed territory is utterly inconsistent with the arrangement heretofore subsisting, and evinces anything but a disposition to submit to an amicable termination of the question relating to the boundary.

Permit me to add that the citizens of Maine are awaiting with deep solicitude that action on the part of the General Government which shall vindicate the national honor and be fulfilling in part a solemn obligation to a member of the Union.

I have the honor to be, with high respect, your most obedient servant,

JOHN FAIRFIELD,

Governor of Maine.

Mr. Forsyth to Mr. Fox.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,

Washington, March 6, 1840.

HENRY S. FOX, Esq., etc.: 

By the directions of the President, the undersigned, Secretary of State of the United States, communicates to Mr. Fox, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of Great Britain, the inclosed copy of a report[65] made to the governor of the State of Maine by the agent commissioned on the part of the authorities of that State to ascertain the precise character and extent of the occupation of parts of the disputed territory by troops of Her Britannic Majesty and of the buildings and other public works constructed for their use and accommodation.

By that report and the three depositions which the undersigned informally communicated to Mr. Fox a few days since he will perceive that there must be some extraordinary misapprehension on his part of the facts in relation to the occupation by British troops of portions of the disputed territory.  The statements contained in these documents and that given by Mr. Fox in his note of the 20th of January last exhibit a striking discrepancy as to the number of troops now in the territory as compared with those who were in it when the arrangement between Governor Fairfield