that he would rather encounter the odium of his fellow-citizens than run the risk of being charged with partiality toward them.  Colonel Barclay, the British commissioner, who concurred in choosing him as umpire, had been his schoolfellow and youthful associate, and it is believed in the United States that he concurred in, if he did not prompt, the nomination from a knowledge of this feature of character.  Had he, as is insinuated by Messrs. Featherstonhaugh and Mudge, been inclined to act with partiality toward his own country, he had most plausible grounds for giving a verdict in her favor, and that he did not found his decisions upon them is evidence of a determination to be impartial, which his countrymen have said was manifested in a leaning to the opposite side.  Those who suspect him of being biased by improper motives must either be ignorant of the circumstances of the case or else incapable of estimating the purity of the character of Egbert Benson.  His award, however, has nothing to do with the question, as it was never acted upon.  Both parties were dissatisfied with the conclusions at which he arrived, and in consequence a conventional line in which both concurred was agreed upon, and the award of the commissioners was no more than a formal act to make this convention binding.

If, then, both Governments should think it expedient to unsettle the vested rights which have arisen out of the award of 1798, there is a strong and plausible ground on which the United States may claim the Magaguadavic as their boundary, and the meridian line of its source will throw the valley of the St. John from Woodstock to the Grand Falls within the limits of the State of Maine.  While, therefore, it is maintained that it would violate good faith to reopen the question, there is good reason to hope that an impartial umpire would decide it so as to give the United States the boundary formerly claimed.

Note V.

The angle made by the southern boundary of the Province of Quebec with the due north line from the source of the St. Croix first appeared in an English dress in the commission to Governor Wilmot.  This was probably intended to be identical in its meaning with the terms in the Latin grant to Sir William Alexander, although there is no evidence to that effect.  If, therefore, it were a false translation, the error has been committed on the side of Great Britain, and not on that of the United States.  But it is not a false translation, as may be shown to the satisfaction of the merest tyro in classical literature.

The words of the grant to Sir William Alexander, as quoted by Messrs. Featherstonhaugh and Mudge, are as follows, viz: