was amenable to his own government, not to that of New Brunswick; and he demanded his immediate release, and full indemnity for the injuries that he had suffered. He also earnestly protested against the exercise of any exclusive authority by Great Britain over any part of the disputed territory before the final settlement of the question of right; and added, that the president expected that Mr. Vaughan would make such representations as would prevent in future any such jurisdiction being exercised.

These reclamations being without effect, and the British minister having intimated his intention to transmit the correspondence to his government, Mr. Clay, by his instructions of the thirty-first of March, 1828, directed the American chargé d'affaires at London to address an official note to the British government to the same effect. This was accordingly done on the fifth of May following.

Lord Aberdeen's answer of the fourteenth of August, 1828, to Mr. Lawrence, after justifying the particular proceedings in the case referred to, confines the extent of the obligations imposed upon both parties by the treaty of Ghent to doing no act within the disputed territory by which the claim of the other as it stood might be prejudiced, or by which the country might be rendered less valuable to that state to which the possession of it might be ultimately awarded. He denies that Great Britain has ever been divested of the possession which he says she had anterior to the revolution. The ground is taken which was previously assumed by Mr. Vaughan, and which has been put forward on all subsequent occasions, of claiming the exclusive jurisdiction for the British government over every portion of country included in our original boundaries, until our title to the same should be affirmatively established and the territory set off to us; thus resting the claims of the United States exclusively upon the treaty of 1783, and which would imply that we held all our territorial rights, as well as the independence of the United States, as a grant or cession from Great Britain.

The note of Lord Aberdeen was answered by the chargé d'affaires of the United States on the 22d of the same month. That no inference might be drawn from the fact of the territory in dispute as well as the adjacent state and province having been, before the independence of the United States, the property of a common sovereign, it was shown by a reference to the writers on public law that when a nation takes possession of a distant country and settles a colony there, that coun

try naturally becomes a part of the state, equally within its ancient possessions. From this principle, the inference, it was contended, was unavoidable that, when a division of the empire takes place, the previous rights of the common sovereign, equally affecting both states, accrue as well to the one as to the other. From the possession of the disputed territory by His Britannic Majesty anterior to 1776, might, therefore, a title be asserted with the same propriety for Massachusetts or Maine as for Nova Scotia or New Brunswick.

The note then proceeded to deny that the United States rest their claim to the territory upon the treaty of 1783, which was one of partition and boundaries as well as of peace, in any other sense than that in which Great Britain founds on the same treaty her pretensions to New Brunswick. The right of the United States had existed from the settlement of the country. The title to the district in controversy, as well as to all the territory of the original states, was founded, independently of treaty, on the rights which belonged to that portion of His Britannic Majesty's subjects who settled in his ancient colonies, now embraced in the American Union, and upon the sovereignty maintained by the United States in their national character since the fourth of July, 1776. The language of the treaty was also appealed to as forbidding all idea of cession, or any thing implying inequality in the high contracting parties. As to a delivery of possession to the United States, it was remarked that, were any necessary, considering that the country was an uncultivated wilderness, every thing had been done of which the property was susceptible; but from the possession of the common sovereign, "before the division of the empire," independent of the provincial authority, no title could have been derived to Nova Scotia that would not have accrued to Massachusetts. For that colony was deduced from the charter of 1691, when Nova Scotia was a part of it,-a constructive possession of the disputed territory anterior to any which Nova Scotia or New Brunswick can allege, and of which she has never been divested in favor either of France in 1697, or of the provincial government subsequently established there, by any act more formal than the treaty of peace presents in her behalf.

After referring to the restriction on the rule of forbearance inculcated by the two governments, and which Lord Aberdeen applied to the exercise of their rights as proprietors of the soil, not as sovereigns of the country, Mr. Lawrence cited, as sustaining the American view, the suggestion in 1827 of

Mr. Canning, who was then prime minister, "of abstaining, on both sides, pending the suit, from any act of sovereignty over the contested territory."*

In 1829, the construction by the United States of a military road over Mars Hill was discontinued at the request of the British government, while, on the other hand, there were continual complaints by us of the cutting of timber by British subjects, and of other acts of trespass. The same disposition to conciliate, however, which was manifested by Mr. Livingston and his immediate successor in discussing the question of right, seems to have prevailed as to the exercise of jurisdiction. In the case of the settlers on the Madawaska, who were taken in 1831 from their homes in the disputed territory, and tried in New Brunswick for holding a meeting for the election of municipal officers under the authority of Maine, Mr. Livingston confined himself to asking, as a favor from the provincial authorities, a remission of the sentence, without demanding any disavowal of the proceeding. In 1834, also, Mr. McLane acknowledged with apparent satisfaction the receipt of a note from Sir Charles Vaughan, in which he accounted for the seizing of timber from the custody of the land agent of Maine, by its having been taken possession of "by the British agent intrusted with the preservation of the disputed territory, . . . the proceeds of the sale to be appropriated to the party to which the territory may be adjudged."

But in 1837, we find the United States assuming higher ground, and successfully remonstrating against the construction of a railroad from St. Andrews to Quebec, which was, in consequence, discontinued by orders from England. The measures connected with the arrest the same year of the person employed by Maine in taking the census within the disputed territory, did not meet with so ready a concurrence of views. His liberation was demanded with earnestness and as a right, but was not accorded till he had been imprisoned several months; and in the correspondence to which the transaction gave rise between Mr. Stevenson and Lord Palmerston, the latter reiterated the doctrines put forth in 1828 by Lord Aberdeen.

So far, matters had been discussed without at least any military demonstrations. And it is due to our fellow citizens to state that, while the provinces belonging to England on this continent were convulsed with internal difficulties, and on a

*Cong. Doc. H. R. 20 Cong. 2 Sess. No. 90.

portion of our frontier a mistaken zeal for liberty had induced a violation of neutrality, no attempt was made by the people of Maine, injured in their rights as they were, to turn to their advantage the embarrassments of their neighbors. It was not till the winter of 1839 that events seemed to indicate the immediate approach of a hostile collision. The difficulties originated in the carrying into effect a secret resolution of the legislature of Maine to expel the trespassers on the public lands near the Restook. Resistance was made, and the land agent of the state was taken and carried to Frederickton. While the force of Maine under a civil officer was increased, demonstrations of a military character were made by Sir John Harvey, the lieutenant governor of New Brunswick. This officer took the ground broadly that the disputed territory was, by agreement, to remain under the exclusive jurisdiction of England until the determination of the question of right, and declared that his instructions obliged him to use the forces under his command to maintain that possession. Maine, in her turn, embodied her militia, and voted large appropriations of money, while she appealed to the general government for aid. A message was sent by the president to congress on the twenty-sixth of February, 1839, which body, by an unanimous vote of the senate, and with scarcely any dissentients in the house of representatives, besides making an appropriation for a special mission to England, placed at the disposition of the executive, to meet the contingency of an invasion, the resources of the nation.

The arrogant pretensions of England to the temporary possession, and for which, save in the inferences to be drawn from the course of Messrs. Livingston and McLane, no vestige of an assent could be found in our diplomatic annals, were not only fully repudiated in the senate by the distinguished senators from Massachusetts, with whom, in most particulars, the chairman of the committee of foreign relations (Mr. Buchanan) concurred, and in the house by Messrs. Evans and Cushing, representatives from the states immediately interested; but both Mr. Adams and Mr. Clay, in their respective positions, sustained, in debate, those principles, inseparable from our national honor, for which, while in the executive government, they had ever so ably contended. The latter, beside resisting the claim of jurisdiction, declared that it was impossible for Maine to have a clearer or more absolute right to that territory than she possessed; and that, if other

measures failed, he would as soon have recourse to the ultimate means of obtaining redress for her, as he would to repel a foreign foe in case Kentucky was invaded.

The venerable ex-president denied that we had ever surrendered our jurisdiction. He was in favor of arming. He only objected to the section of the bill before the house for a special mission. He would leave it to England to send a special minister to us. He was chagrined at the expression of regret by Mr. Forsyth, in his note to Mr. Fox, that Maine had taken her present position. He hoped that there was no disposition to abandon her. Maine, he argued, could take no other ground. He hoped that, if the minister was sent, the bill then under discussion (for arming, etc.) would be put at the head of his instructions, and that he would be ordered, as the diplomatists say, to communicate it in extenso to the British government. While, however, advocating decisive. measures as to England, Mr. Adams objected to the advice given by the president to Maine to negotiate with the provincial authorities, deeming such a course inconsistent with the constitution, which had confided all matters connected with foreign relations to the general government.

Before any measures were matured in congress, the apprehension of immediate collision was in a great degree removed by an arrangement, in the form of a memorandum, signed on the twenty-seventh of February by the American secretary of state and the British minister. This paper, after reciting the different views of the parties as to the question of jurisdiction, recommends to Maine and New Brunswick that, while the latter shall not undertake to expel by force the armed party sent to the Restook, it shall be withdrawn by Maine; and in case of any future necessity for removing trespassers, the operation shall be carried on either jointly or separately by agreement between Maine and New Bruns

wick.

This arrangement did not purport to be of an authoritative character. What was wanting however in its obligatory nature was supplied through the interposition of General Scott, of the United States army, who, in addition to the confidence which his character and position naturally commanded with the governor of Maine, had the advantage of possessing in the highest degree the personal esteem and friendship of the lieutenant governor of New Brunswick. Indeed, to the relations between these gallant officers, having their origin in the events