I have the honor to state to you in reply that my actual instructions were fulfilled by the delivery of the communication which I addressed to you on the 10th of January, and that I am not at present provided with full powers for negotiating the proposed convention. I will forthwith, however, transmit to Her Majesty's Government the note which I have had the honor to receive from you in order that such fresh instructions may be furnished to me or such other steps taken as the present situation of the question may appear to Her Majesty's Government to require. I avail myself of this occasion to renew to you the assurance of my high respect and consideration. H.S. FOX. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, _Washington, May 8, 1838_. His Excellency EDWARD KENT, _Governor of Maine_. Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt on the 22d ultimo of the communication addressed to this Department by your excellency on the 28th of March last, transmitting a printed copy of your message of the 14th of the same month to the legislature of Maine, together with certain resolves passed by that body, in relation to the northeastern boundary of the State. Although the answer thus given to the application made to you, by direction of the President, under date of the 1st of March last, to ascertain the sense of the State of Maine in regard to a conventional line of boundary may be regarded as conclusive, I still deem it proper, with reference to your excellency's message, to mark a misconception which appears to have existed on your part when communicating to the legislature the letter and documents received from this Department. This is done with the greater freedom since the frank and liberal manner in which your excellency invited the attention of that body to the subject is highly appreciated by the President. The question therein presented for consideration was not, as your excellency supposed, whether the State of Maine should "take the lead in abandoning the treaty and volunteer propositions for a conventional line," but simply whether the government of Maine would consent that the General Government should entertain a direct negotiation with the British Government for a conventional line of boundary on the northeastern frontier of the United States. Had that consent been given it would have been reasonable to expect the proposition of a line from Great Britain, as it was that power which particularly desired the resort to that mode of settling the controversy. It was also the intention of the President so to arrange the negotiation that the approbation of Maine to the boundary line agreed upon should have been secured. It was with this view that in the application to the State of Maine for its assent to a negotiation for a conventional line express reference was made to such conditions as she might think proper to prescribe. To all such as were, in the opinion of the President, required by a proper regard for the security of Maine and