‘by which the direct communication between Halifax and Quebec becomes interrupted, was not in contemplation of the British Plenipotentiaries who concluded the Treaty of 1783’,[233] and in a later letter, replying to the American representatives, the British negotiators wrote[234] ‘the British Government never required that all that portion of the State of Massachusetts intervening between the Province of New Brunswick and Quebec should be ceded to Great Britain, but only that small portion of unsettled country which interrupts the communication between Halifax and Quebec, there being much doubt whether it does not already belong to Great Britain’. The inference to be drawn from the correspondence is that, on the strict wording of the Treaty of 1783, apart from the intention of those who negotiated it, the American claim was recognized to be stronger than the British. [Sidenote: The Treaty of Ghent.] [Sidenote: A Boundary Commission appointed.] [Sidenote: The Commissioners disagree.] The Treaty of Ghent was signed on the 24th of December, 1814, and the Fifth Article provided that two Commissioners should be appointed to locate the North-West angle of Nova Scotia as well as the North-Westernmost head of the Connecticut river, between which two points the Treaty of 1783 provided that the dividing line along the Highlands was to be drawn. A map of the boundary was to be made, and the latitude and longitude of the North-West angle and of the head of the Connecticut were to be particularized. If the Commissioners agreed, their report was to be final; but if they disagreed, they were to report to their respective governments, and some friendly sovereign or state was to arbitrate between them. The Commission first met in 1816, much time was taken up in surveying the North line from the source of the St. Croix to the watershed of the St. Lawrence, and it was not until 1821 that the two representatives, having failed to agree, gave distinct awards, the British Commissioner placing the North-West angle at the Highlands known as Mars Hill nearly 40 miles south of the St. John river, and the American Commissioner locating it nearly 70 miles north of that river, either Commissioner adopting the extreme claim put forward by his side. [Sidenote: The Convention of 1827.] [Sidenote: Award given by the King of the Netherlands as Arbitrator.] [Sidenote: The award not accepted by the Americans.]