be accepted without disrespect to the previous decisions and just expectations of Maine. The President was far from attributing this proposition, the Secretary said, to the desire of His Majesty's Government to acquire territory. He doubted not that the offer, without regard to the extent of territory falling to the north or south of the St. John, was made by His Majesty's Government from a belief that the substitution of a river for a highland boundary would be useful in preventing territorial disputes in future; but although the President coincided in this view of the subject he was compelled to decline the boundary proposed as inconsistent with the known wishes, rights, and decisions of the State. The Secretary concluded by stating that the President, with a view to terminate at once all controversy, and without regard to the extent of territory lost by one party or acquired by the other, to establish a definite and indisputable line, would, if His Majesty's Government assented to it, apply to the State of Maine for its consent to make the river St. John from its source to its mouth the boundary between Maine and His Britannic Majesty's dominions in that part of North America. Mr. Bankhead acknowledged on the 4th March, 1836, the receipt of this note from the Department, and said that the rejection of the conventional line proposed in his previous note would cause His Majesty's Government much regret. He referred the Secretary to that part of his note of the 28th December last wherein the proposition of the President for a commission of exploration and survey was fully discussed, as it appeared to Mr. Bankhead that the Secretary had not given the modification on the part of His Majesty's Government of the American proposition the weight to which it was entitled. He said that it was offered with the view of meeting as far as practicable the wishes of the President and of endeavoring by such a preliminary measure to bring about a settlement of the boundary upon a basis satisfactory to both parties; that with this view he again submitted to the Secretary the modified proposal of His Majesty's Government, remarking that the commissioners who might be appointed were not to _decide_ upon points of difference, but merely to present to the respective Governments the result of their labors, which, it was hoped and believed, would pave the way for an ultimate settlement of the question. Mr. Bankhead considered it proper to state frankly and clearly that the proposition offered in the last note from the Department to make the river St. John from its source to its mouth the boundary between the United States and His Majesty's Province of New Brunswick was one to which the British Government, he was convinced, would never agree.