Britain, which have been before alluded to, could not fail to have seriously engaged the attention of Her Majesty's Government towards the close of the year 1841, and to justify them in adopting that pacific mission to America from which Lord Ashburton has successfully returned. The period also was well-chosen. The Government of the United States, embarrassed in an unusual manner by the derangement of their finances, could not be otherwise than desirous of extinguishing all the causes of discontent that had menaced an interruption to the friendly relations of the two countries, and that seemed to render peace uncertain. It was important to them to give their citizens an opportunity of restoring the wounded credit of their country, by placing peace with Great Britain upon a basis that would inspire some confidence with our commercial capitalists, a quarter to which it was evident they were looking with anxiety. There was the further encou raging circumstance also, that since the appearance of the British Report in 1840, symptoms of a very unambiguous kind had appeared in the United States, of a desire to recede from every claim of an exclusive character, and to enter into a fair compromise of the controversy respecting the disputed territory. We heard of no more pledges to unite in maintaining

their exclusive claim, and propositions for the first time appeared in the legislative proceedings of the State of Maine itself offering to compromise the dispute*.

On the other hand, it had become more difficult for Her Majesty's Government, at this time, to succeed in making an equitable compromise of the question than it might have been previous to the year 1839, on account of the state of things existing in the disputed territory itself. Before that period the whole district in dispute had been, with the exception of a very few settlers from both governments, on the Roostuc, an uninhabited wilderness. This was no longer the case. The State authorities of Maine had not only caused surveys of numerous townships of land to be made in various parts of the country betwixt the Roostuc and the St. John, but had caused one fortified blockhouse to be erected on the Roostuc, another at the mouth of Fish River, and a good road to be opened between the Roostuc and the St. John. These operations were of course attended with a corresponding influx of settlers, and nothing was wanting but a little more time to place all that portion of the disputed territory which lies between the last-mentioned rivers, in the

* Vide Reports of the Land Agent of Maine, 1841, 1842.

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actual possession of hardy settlers from the State of Maine. This state of things had been brought about in a manner that was not to be prevented without having recourse to such forcible means as would inevitably have led to the collisions it was so desirous to avoid. monstrances against these encroachments had been constantly made by the British authorities to the Federal Government, and if they were not reluctantly attended to, at least in no instance was satisfaction promptly given, as may very well be supposed, from the fact that all communications of that nature were submitted to the authorities of Maine before any answer was given. To have prevented these encroachments, in the first instance, might, by possibility, have been done, provided all parties had concurred in a determination to do it; but the question of dispossessing all these people by force, when Her Majesty's present Ministers came into power, was a most serious one; and, as must be perceived, was a thing only to be accomplished by a state of war. Lord Ashburton's mission, therefore, as respected the Boundary question, was in fact to effect the compromise of a territorial question under adverse possession, an exceedingly disadvantageous position both in public and private controversies.

On his Lordship's arrival at Washington, he was met by satisfactory assurances, on the part of the Federal Goverment, of a sincere desire to co-operate with him in giving effect to his mission. This friendly feeling, unequivocally seconded as it was by public opinion in every part of the United States, would probably have led at once to an amicable settlement of the Boundary question, but for that anomaly in Government which has been before alluded to, and which, practically, left the executive branch of the United States without power to give any effect to what was deemed by that department consistent with the public welfare.

By the Federal constitution of that Government, the power of negotiating with Foreign countries is exclusively vested in the executive branch, subject to the ratification of the Senate, but as in this matter of the Boundary question the Federal Government had concurred with the State of Maine, as to the validity of its claim, it was barred by its own act from concluding any agreement with Great Britain to vary what had been assumed to be the Boundary line intended in the Second Article of the Treaty of 1783, without first obtaining the consent of the State or States interested in maintaining the American claim. An official invitation was therefore addressed to the Governors of the

States of Maine and Massachussets, by Mr. Webster, the Federal Secretary of State, dated April 11, 1842, in which he urges upon them "the propriety of their co-operation, to a cer"tain extent, and in a certain form, in an "endeavour to terminate a controversy already "of so long duration." And adds:

"The President proposes, then, that the "Government of Maine and Massachussets "should severally appoint a Commissioner or "Commissioners, empowered to confer with the "authorities of this Government upon a con"ventional line, or line by agreement, with its

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terms, conditions, considerations, and equiva"lents, with an understanding that no such "line will be agreed upon without the consent of such Commissioners.”

Upon this invitation the legislative authorities of these States delegated Commissioners to attend at Washington during the progress of the negotiation, with power to give the assent of their respective States to a compromise of the Boundary question, it being provided, however, by the legislative authorities of Maine, that no conventional line was to be agreed upon "without the unanimous assent of their four Commissioners."

Amongst the Maine Commissioners was Mr. William P. Preble, the gentleman who,

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