ART. VIII. The right of the United States of America to the Northeastern Boundary claimed by them. Principally extracted from the statements laid before the King of the Netherlands, and revised by ALBERT GALLATIN, with an Appendix and eight maps. New York: 1840.

Ar the present period of the world, when all Christendom has enjoyed, with unimportant exceptions, a continuous peace of a quarter of a century, and when those principles of Political Economy, which teach that every nation is benefited by the prosperity of every other with which it maintains commercial relations, are recognised as a rule of conduct, it is not for a moment to be tolerated that the tranquillity of the world should be disturbed by those unessential matters which in by-gone times might have been deemed legitimate grounds for engaging in long and bloody wars. Among the subjects, however, with reference to which a proud and independent people may well be sensitive, we cannot but regard every attempt to encroach on their territorial domain. While we would repudiate any suggestion to infringe on the just rights of our neighbors, we feel bound to leave no means untried to transmit unimpaired to our posterity the inheritance that we have derived from our ancestors. The title-deeds of our national patrimony cannot, therefore, be an uninteresting topic to any who justly appreciate the distinction of American citizens; while ignorance of them in persons in high public trusts may lead to the most disastrous results, as we shall see in the sequel that on occasions not very remote it was but too likely to have done. Regarding a plain narrative of facts, provided it can obtain access to the attention of those enlightened ministers to whom the determination of the controversy, on the part of Her Britannic Majesty, appropriately belongs, as alone sufficient to avert the calamity of a hostile collision, already more than once menaced, with that power with which of all others we are most intimately connected, and to lead to a final settlement of the points at issue, the country cannot too highly appreciate their obligations to the venerable diplomatist who, in opposing unanswerable demonstration to the random conjectures and falsified facts of that amphibious being, the soi-disant United States Geolo

gist-British Commissioner,* has given, in the most emphatic manner, the sanction of his authority in every form to the right of the United States to the boundary on their northeastern frontier as claimed by them.

In looking through our public annals, we shall find that no small portion of our negotiations with foreign powers have had reference to our territorial boundaries. Besides the questions growing out of the partition of the empire between us and our transatlantic brethren when the United States separated from Great Britain, (more than one of which, after being submitted to commissions established under the treaty of Ghent, is still unsettled,) we have had discussions with that power as to the limits of our subsequent acquisitions. With Spain, before the treaty of Louisiana, as well as with her and the new states of Mexico and Texas since the occurrence of that event, which has so materially augmented our territorial claims, our diplomacy has been frequently brought into action. We have been obliged to investigate the subject of boundaries with the Russian autocrat, and our statute-book contains a convention of delimitation with a power the supposed distance of whose dominions, a few years since, would have precluded the idea of any possible contact.

Nor is it at all surprising that doubts as to limits should exist, when we take into consideration the origin of the European establishments in America, not only the very conflicting pretensions of different powers, founded on occupation, priority of discovery, and treaty stipulations, but the inaccurate definition of boundaries in grants, emanating even from the same sovereign, as to territory wholly or in a great degree unexplored. At the epoch of the revolution, the limited population of the colonies was principally confined to the seaboard. With the exception of the line between the provinces of New York and Quebec, along the 45th degree of north latitude, from the Connecticut to the St. Lawrence, and which it is contended was by the treaty of Ghent subjected to a new survey, no portion of the exterior limits of the colonies recognised as the United States of America by the treaty of 1783 had been practically marked out. In one

*It is understood that Mr. Featherstonhaugh, the author of the late report presented to the British Parliament, who is an Englishman by birth, but for 30 years a resident, if not a citizen, of this country, passed direct from the service of the United States, by whom he had been employed in making some explorations in our western territories, under the direction of the War Department, to that of Great Britain.

part, indeed, of the boundaries, (to wit, that which was to extend from the northwesternmost point of the Lake of the Woods due west to the Mississippi,) a line impracticable in its execution, the source of the river being south of the abovementioned point, was prescribed.

It is not, however, intended to treat the subject of the boundaries of the United States generally, or even those between us and Great Britain, which latter would in themselves occupy more space than an article of this nature could command. Our object is, with the aid of such documents as we have had within our reach, to give a succinct account of what has already been done, or been proposed to be done, with reference to the line between that portion of the old colony of Massachusetts Bay which is now the state of Maine and the contiguous British provinces. And before concluding, we shall endeavor to notice the several temporary arrangements attempted to be made to prevent those collisions, almost unavoidable, when population begins to extend itself over a territory the boundaries of which are disputed.

The first embarrassments arose precisely in that part of the boundary where we should have supposed that the line intended by the plenipotentiaries of 1783 would have been fully understood, as well on account of the actual settlement there made, at least to some extent, before the revolution as of the attempts at colonial demarcation between England and France, when the latter power contended for the possession of this continent, and of the subsequent discussions in relation thereto between Massachusetts and the British crown.

The commencement of the eastern boundary of the United States, by the treaty of peace, is "a line to be drawn along the middle of the St. Croix, from its mouth in the Bay of Fundy to its source." The article concludes by "comprehending all islands within two leagues of any part of the shores of the United States, and lying between lines to be drawn due cast from the points where the boundaries between Nova Scotia, on the one part, and East Florida, on the other, shall respectively touch the Bay of Fundy and the Atlantic Ocean, excepting such islands as now are, or heretofore have been, within the limits of the said province of Nova Scotia."

So early as 1784, complaints were made to the old Congress of encroachments having been commenced on our eastern borders. Not only was there a question, under the last