The undersigned has been instructed to add to this communication that Her Majesty’s Government are only waiting for the detailed report of the British commissioners recently employed to survey the disputed territory, which report it was believed would be completed and delivered to Her Majesty’s Government by the end of the present month, in order to transmit to the Government of the United States a reply to their last proposal upon the subject of the boundary negotiation.

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

H.S.  FOX.

Mr. Forsyth to Mr. Fox.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,

Washington, March 25, 1840.

HENRY S. FOX, Esq., etc.: 

The undersigned, Secretary of State of the United States, acknowledges to have received Mr. Fox’s communication of the 13th instant, in reference to the boundary negotiation and the affairs of the disputed territory.  The information given in the closing part of it—­that a reply to the last proposition of the United States upon the subject of the boundary may be expected in a short time—­is highly gratifying to the President, who has, however, given directions to the undersigned, in making this acknowledgment, to accompany it with the expression of his profound regret that Mr. Fox’s note is in no other respect satisfactory.

After the arrangements which in the beginning of last year were entered into on the part of the two Governments with regard to the occupation of the disputed territory, the President had indulged the hope that the causes of irritation which had grown out of this branch of the subject could have been removed.  Relying on the disposition of Maine to cooperate with the Federal Government in all that could lead to a pacific adjustment of the principal question, the President felt confident that his determination to maintain order and peace on the border would be fully carried out.  He looked upon all apprehensions of designs by the people of Maine to take possession of the territory as without adequate foundation, deeming it improbable that on the eve of an amicable adjustment of the question any portion of the American people would without cause and without object jeopard the success of the negotiation and endanger the peace of the country.  A troublesome, irritating, and comparatively unimportant, because subordinate, subject being thus disposed of, the President hoped that the parties would be left free at once to discuss and finally adjust the principal question.  In this he has been disappointed.  While the proceedings of Her Majesty’s Government at home have been attended with unlooked-for delays, its attention has been diverted from the great subject in controversy by repeated complaints imputing to a portion of the people of the United States designs to violate the engagements of their Government—­designs which have never been entertained, and which Mr. Fox knows would receive no countenance from this Government.