It is believed that this is the first instance in which the term narrow has ever been applied to a triangle almost right angled and nearly isosceles, and it is not a little remarkable that this very expression was relied upon in the statement to the King of the Netherlands as one of the strongest proofs of the justice of the American claim.

Admitting, however, for the sake of argument, that the Crown did demand this territory, and that the mere advice of an agent without powers was binding on Massachusetts, the fact would have no direct bearing upon the point under consideration.  The relinquishment by Massachusetts of the whole of the territory west of the meridian of the St. Croix would not have changed the position of the northwest angle of Nova Scotia, nor the title of the United States collectively under the treaty of 1783 to a boundary to be drawn from that angle, however it might have affected the right of property of that State to the lands within it.

And here it is to be remarked that the Government of the United States is two-fold—­that of the individual States and that of the Federal Union.  It would be possible, therefore, that all right of property in unseated lands within a State’s jurisdiction might be in the General Government, and this is in fact the case in all the new States.  Even had Massachusetts divested herself of the title (which she has not) the treaty of 1783 would have vested it in the Confederation.  She had at least a color of title, under which the Confederation claimed to the boundaries of Nova Scotia on the east and to the southern limits of the Province of Quebec on the north, and this claim was allowed by Great Britain in the treaty of 1783 in terms which are at least admitted to be identical in meaning with those of the proclamation creating the latter Province.[51]

[Footnote 51:  Report of Messrs. Featherstonhaugh and Mudge, p. 6.]

To illustrate the subject further: 

Of the seventeen British colonies in North America, thirteen succeeded in asserting their independence; the two Floridas were conquered and ceded to Spain; while of her magnificent American domain only Quebec and Nova Scotia were left to Great Britain.  The thirteen colonies, now independent States, claimed all that part of the continent to the eastward of the Mississippi and north of the bounds of Florida which was not contained within the limits of the last-named colonies, and this claim was fully admitted by the boundary agreed to in the treaty of 1783.  Within the limits thus assigned it was well known that there were conflicting claims to parts which had more than once been covered by royal charters; it was even possible that there were portions of the wide territory the right to which was asserted by the United States and admitted by Great Britain that had not been covered by any royal grant; but the jurisdiction in respect to disputed rights and the title to land not conveyed forever ceased to be in the British Crown—­first by a successful assertion of independence in arms, and finally by the positive terms of a solemn treaty.