The reason why the St. John and Restigouche were not permitted to determine the question of boundary in favor of the United States is understood to have been, not that they were to be wholly excluded as rivers not falling into the Atlantic Ocean, as Mr. Fox appears to suppose, but because in order to include them in that genus of rivers they must be considered in connection with other rivers which were not divided _immediately_, like themselves, from the rivers falling into the St. Lawrence, but _mediately_ only; which would introduce the principle that the treaty of 1783 meant highlands that divide as well mediately as immediately the rivers that empty themselves into the river St. Lawrence from those which fall into the Atlantic Ocean--a principle which the arbiter did not reject as unfounded or erroneous, but which, considered in connection with the other points which he had decided, he regarded as _equally realized by both lines_, and therefore as constituting an equal weight in either scale, and consequently affording him no assistance in determining the dispute between the respective parties. The arbiter appears to the undersigned to have viewed the rivers St. John and Restigouche as possessing both a specific and a generic character; that considered _alone_ they were _specific_', and the designation in the treaty of "rivers falling into the Atlantic" was inapplicable to them; that considered _In connection with other rivers_ they were _generic_ and were embraced in the terms of the treaty, but that as their connection with other rivers would bring them within a principle which, according to the views taken by him of other parts of the question, was equally realized by both lines, it would be hazardous to allow them any weight in deciding the disputed boundary. It has always been contended by this Government that the rivers St. John and Restigouche were to be considered in connection with the Penobscot and Kennebec in determining the highlands called for by the treaty, and the arbiter is not understood to deny to them, when thus connected, the character of "rivers falling into the Atlantic Ocean." This construction of the arbiter's meaning, derived from the general tenor of the context, it will be perceived, is not invalidated by the next succeeding paragraph cited by Mr. Fox, in which the bays of Fundy and Des Chaleurs are spoken of as _intermediaries_ whereby the rivers flowing into the St. John and Restigouche reach the Atlantic Ocean, inasmuch as such construction admits the opinion of the arbiter to have been that the St. John and Restigouche do not fall _directly_ into the Atlantic, and that they thus constitute a _species_ by themselves, while it denies that they are therefore excluded by the arbiter from the genus of "4' rivers falling into the Atlantic." The undersigned avails himself of this opportunity to renew to Mr. Fox the assurance of his distinguished consideration. JOHN FORSYTH. _Mr. Forsyth to Mr. Fox_.