A history of Canada, 1763-1812Lucas, Charles Prestwood, Sir
History
A history of Canada, 1763-1812
Lucas, Charles Prestwood, Sir
Canada -- History -- 1763-1867
‘according to justice and mutual convenience and in
conformity to the intent of’
the 1783 Treaty.
[Sidenote: The Convention of 1818.]
[Sidenote: First mention in the boundary agreements of the 49th
Parallel and the Rocky Mountains.]
The Fifth Article of the unratified Treaty of 1803 provided that a
direct line should be drawn from the North-West point of the Lake
of the Woods to the nearest source of the Mississippi, leaving it
to three Commissioners to fix the two points in question and to
draw the line. A further attempt at adjustment was made in 1806-7,
when the negotiators provisionally agreed to an Article to the
effect that the line should be drawn from the most North-Western
point of the Lake of the Woods to the 49th parallel of latitude,
and from that point due West along the parallel
‘as far as the respective territories extend in that quarter’.
This solution again was not carried into effect; and though the
subject was raised in the negotiations which preceded the Treaty
of Ghent in 1814, no mention was made of it in the Treaty itself.
Eventually, however, on the 20th of October, 1818, a Convention was
signed in London, the Second Article of which ran as follows:--
‘It is agreed that a line drawn from the most North-Western
point of the Lake of the Woods along the 49th parallel of
North latitude or, if the said point shall not be in the
49th parallel of North latitude, then that a line drawn
from the said point due North or South, as the case may be,
until the said line shall intersect the said parallel of
North latitude, and from the point of such intersection due
West along and with the said parallel, shall be the line
of demarcation between the territories of His Britannic
Majesty and those of the United States, and that the said
line shall form the Southern boundary of the said territories
of His Britannic Majesty and the Northern boundary of the
territories of the United States from the Lake of the Woods
to the Stony Mountains.’[241]
Here the Rocky Mountains, under the name of the Stony Mountains,
first come in, their existence having been unknown, except by vague
report, when the Peace of 1783 was signed.[242]
[Sidenote: The boundary line as far as the Rocky Mountains finally
determined by the Ashburton Treaty.]
[Sidenote: The Ashburton Treaty finally determined the points
arising out of the wording of the Treaty of 1783.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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