On the 22d day of April last I had the honor to transmit to Your Excellency certain resolves passed by the legislature of this State relative to the northeastern boundary, and in behalf of the State to call upon the President of the United States to cause the line to be explored and surveyed and monuments thereof erected.  That this call, made by direction of the legislature, did not extend to the expulsion of invaders, but merely to the ascertainment of the treaty line, will, I trust, be viewed as it was designed to be, not only as an evidence of the continued forbearance of Maine, but as a testimonial of the confidence she cherished that the Federal Executive would protect the territory after its limitation should be ascertained.  That this application would meet with favor from the Federal Executive was expected, more especially as Congress had made a specific appropriation for the purpose.  I will not attempt to conceal the mortification I have realized that no reply has been made to that communication nor any measures taken, so far as my information extends, for effecting the object proposed.

It now remains that in the exercise of that faithfulness for which I stand solemnly pledged to the people of Maine I should again commend to the attention of the National Executive this apparently unwelcome but really important subject.

I have, therefore, the honor again to request that the President will cause the treaty line upon the northeastern limits of Maine to be run and marked, and I can not but hope that on a reexamination of the subject Your Excellency will concur with this State in relation to the rightfulness and the necessity of the measure proposed, as well as to all the remedies to be adopted for restoring to Maine the invaluable rights from which she has so long been debarred.

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

ROBERT P. DUNLAP.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,

Washington, August 17, 1837.

His Excellency ROBERT P. DUNLAP,

Governor of the State of Maine.

SIR:  Your letter of the 28th ultimo to the President was duly received.  It has been referred to this Department with instructions to make a suitable reply.

Your excellency is of opinion that the Federal Government has for a series of years failed to protect the State of Maine in the exercise of her jurisdictional rights to the extent of her boundary, and complains that these rights have been in consequence thereof subverted, the lands of the State ravaged of their most valuable productions, and her citizens subjected to imprisonment in a foreign jail.  Your excellency particularly objects to the course of the Federal Government for having, without the knowledge of the State, put entirely at hazard the title of Maine, admitted by the Government of the United States to be perfect, to the territory