"be supposed capable of bias, both Houses of Congress, after full and repeated consideration, have affirmed the validity of the American claim, by a unanimity experienced on very few "other subjects; and the general judgment of "the whole people seems to be the same way.' And again:

"The question before us, is whether these "confident opinions, on both sides, of the rightful nature and just strength of our respective claims, will permit us, while a desire to pre"serve harmony, and a disposition to yield libeIrally to mutual convenience so strongly incites us, to come together and to unite on a line 'by agreement."

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It now becomes necessary, to state that the sincere conviction entertained by Her Majesty's Government, of the justice of the British claim, was not solely founded upon the accordance of the physical geography of the country in dispute with the second article of the Treaty of 1783, as established in the Report which was laid before Parliament in 1840; but was confirmed by documentary evidence, and by certain ancient maps, upon which the Boundary, established at the Peace of 1783, was laid down precisely as it is in Map A in the Report of 1840, that is to say, south of the St. John.

It was well known also that authentic maps

of this kind had existed, but unfortunately they could not be found, many of the public and private papers, connected with the Treaty of 1783, having disappeared during the various changes in the departments of the Government about that period. Shortly, however, after the departure of Lord Ashburton, an ancient map, which had apparently been hid away for near sixty years, was discovered in one of the public offices, with a red line drawn upon it, exactly conforming to the British claim; and upon a careful consideration of all the circumstances connected with it, no doubt was entertained that that map was one of the maps used by the Negotiators of the Treaty of 1783, and that the red line marked upon it designated the direction of the Boundary they had established. But this map was not signed, and could not be authenticated. A map, however, engraved in 1785, only a year perhaps after the ratification of the Treaty, by W. Faden, Geographer to the King, was taken to the United States by Lord Ashburton: this was evidently copied from an official map, and probably from the one last mentioned: it had the Boundary line traced in the copper, and was coloured, exactly in the same direction with the red line on the map that could not be authenticated, running from the St. Croix, along the Highlands, south of the St. John, and thence to the Lake

of the Woods, according to the terms of the Treaty. This map of Faden's was strong evidence of what was considered to have been the established boundary at that time, and deserved much consideration from the circumstance of its being a semi-official map which had never been objected to by the Government of the United States at any time after its appearance. In a letter of the Maine Commissioners to Mr. Webster, dated Washington, June 29th, 1842, it appears that this map had been submitted to them, and in long passage respecting it, remarkable for its sneers, they seem to be satisfied with impeaching its value as evidence, in the following words:

"The map (Faden's) referred to is a small one, of small pretensions."

The reader will now be prepared for an extract from the Washington Globe the late official newspaper of Presidents Jackson and Van Buren. It is from the speech of Mr. Rives, a senator from Virginia, delivered in a Secret Session of the Senate of the United States, held for the purpose of discussing the ratification of the late Treaty. This gentleman was Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, the most responsible situation in that body. It is evident from this speech, which is an extremely long one of five columns, that he was labouring to overcome the reluctance of many members of that

body to vote for the ratification of the Treaty; and the principal argument he relies upon is, that if they do not consent to receive what is conceded to them by Lord Ashburton's Treaty, they will compel the dispute to be referred to a second arbitration, with very great danger of their losing the whole; Mr. Webster, the Secretary of State, having communicated to him, to be laid before the Senate, a copy of an original map presented by Dr. Franklin to Count de Vergennes, with the Boundary as agreed upon in the Treaty of 1783, traced by himself upon it with a strong red line, south of the St. John, and exactly where the red line appears in the ancient maps which have been alluded to, and where it was demonstrated in the Report laid before Parliament in 1840, to have been the intention of the Negotiators of the Peace of 1783 to establish it.

Any comment upon this transaction would be almost superfluous: the speech of Mr. Rives, from which the extract is taken, was authorized to be published by the Senate itself when it dissolved the injunction of secresy. There being no room, therefore, to doubt its authenticity, we are unavoidably brought to a conviction that whilst the highest functionaries of the American Government were dealing with Lord Ashburton with a seeming integrity, they were, in fact, deceiving him; and that whilst they were pledging

the faith of their Government for a perfect conviction of the justice of their claim to the territory which was in dispute, they had the highest evidence in their possession which the nature of the case admitted of, that the United States never had had the slightest shadow of right to any part of the territory which they have been disputing with Great Britain for near fifty years. Thus confirming what was stated in the Report laid before Parliament in 1840,

"That the conclusions upon which the Ame"rican case rests,' instead of being the legitimate "results of practical investigation, are unsub"stantial inventions brought forward in the ab66 sence of all real investigation; conveying erroneous ideas of the nature of the country, and "calculated to mislead public opinion in the "United States and in Europe, as to the merits "of this question."

Extract from the Washington Globe, from the speech of Mr. Senator Rives, delivered in Secret Session of the Senate of the United States, August 17, 19, 1842.

It appears to the committee, therefore, in looking back to the public and solemn acts of the Government, and of its successive administrations, that the time has passed, if it ever existed, when we could be justified in making the precise line of boundary claimed by us the subject of a sine qua non of negotiation, or of the ultima ratio of an assertion by force. Did a second arbitration,