A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 4, part 2: John Tyler
History
A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 4, part 2: John Tyler
Presidents -- United States; Tyler, John, 1790-1862; United States -- History -- Sources; United States -- Politics and government
It can not be denied that the line claimed by the United States fulfills
at least one of the conditions. The streams which flow from one side of
it fall without exception into the river St. Lawrence. The adverse line
claimed by Great Britain in the reference to the King of the Netherlands
divides until within a few miles of Mars Hill waters which fall into the
St. John from those of the Penobscot and Kennebec. The latter do not
discharge their waters directly into the ocean, but Sagadahock and
Penobscot bays intervene, and the former falls into the Bay of Fundy;
hence, according to the argument in respect to the Bay of Fundy, this
line fulfills neither condition.
The line of Messrs. Featherstonhaugh and Mudge is even less in
conformity to the terms of the treaty. In order to find mountains
to form a part of it they are compelled to go south of the source of
branches of the Penobscot; thence from mountains long well known, at
the sources of the Alleguash, well laid down on the rejected map of
Mr. Johnson, it becomes entangled in the stream of the Aroostook, which
it crosses more than once. In neither part does it divide waters at all.
It then, as if to make its discrepancy with the line defined in the
proclamation of 1763 apparent, crosses the St. John and extends to the
_south_ shore of the Bay of Chaleurs, although that instrument fixes the
boundary of the Province of Quebec on the north shore of the bay. In
this part of its course it divides waters which fall into the said bay
from those which fall into the St. John. But the proclamation with whose
terms this line is said to be identical directs that the highlands shall
divide waters which fall into the St. Lawrence from those which fall
into the sea. If the branches of the Bay of Chaleurs fulfill the first
condition, which, however, is denied, the St. John must fulfill the
latter. It therefore falls into the Atlantic Ocean, and as the identity
of the boundary of the treaty with that of the proclamation of 1763 and
act of 1774 is admitted, then is the St. John an Atlantic river, and the
line claimed by the United States fulfills both conditions, and is the
only line to the west of the meridian of the St. Croix which can
possibly do so.
The choice of a line different from that presented to the choice of the
King of the Netherlands is no new instance of the uncertainty which has
affected all the forms in which Great Britain has urged her claim.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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