The treaty does not speak of mountains nor even hills, but of “highlands” that divide rivers flowing different ways.  It was well known that rivers did fall into the St. Lawrence and into the Atlantic, that these rivers would run down and not up, and it was consequently inferred that the land from whence these rivers flowed must of necessity be high, and unless there are to be found in that region geological phenomena which exist nowhere else on the face of the globe this inference is irresistible.

The truth is that these highlands have been known and well understood by the British themselves ever since the grant of James I to Sir William Alexander, in 1621.  The portion of the boundary there given which relates to this controversy is “from the western spring head of the St. Croix, by an imaginary line conceived to run through the land northward to the next road of Ships River or Spring discharging itself into the great river of Canada, and proceeding thence eastward along the shores of the sea of the said river of Canada to the road, haven, or shore commonly called Gaspeck” (Gaspe).

The cession of Canada by France made it necessary to define the limits of the Province of Quebec, and accordingly His Britannic Majesty, by his proclamation of 7th October, 1763, is thus explicit as to what affects this question:  “Passing along the highlands which divide the rivers that empty themselves into the said river St. Lawrence from those which fall into the sea, and also along the north coast of the Bay de Chaleurs and the coast of the Gulf of the St. Lawrence to Cape Rosiers” etc.

The act of Parliament of the fourteenth George III (1774) defines thus the south line of Canada:  “South by a line from the Bay de Chaleurs along the highlands which divide the rivers that empty themselves into the river St. Lawrence from those which flow into the sea.”  The north line of the grant to Alexander is from the source of the St. Croix to the “spring head” or source of some river or stream which falls into the river St. Lawrence, and thence eastward to Gaspe Bay, which communicates with the Gulf of St. Lawrence in latitude 49 deg. 30’, and would make nearly an east and west line.  The proclamation of 1763 defines the south line of the Province of Quebec as passing along the highlands which divide the rivers that fall into the St. Lawrence from those which fall into the sea, and also along the north coast of the Bay de Chaleurs to the Gulf of St. Lawrence.  This is the south boundary, and consequently in an east and west direction; but it passes north of Bay de Chaleurs, wherefore the south boundary of the Province must of necessity be north of Bay de Chaleurs.  The eastern boundary is northerly by the Gulf of Cape Rosiers, in about latitude 50 deg., longitude 64 deg. north of