New Brunswick is the latest born of the American settlements. For many years after the conquest her fertile soil lay almost uncultivated, and her population was nothing more than a few hundred fishermen. It was at the close of the American War of Independence that the era of progress in New Brunswick began. Across the frontier, in the New England States, were many persons who had fought in the British ranks, to perpetuate a system of government which their neighbours had agreed to reject as tyrannical and injurious. These men were now regarded with aversion, as traitors to the great cause. Finding life intolerable amid surroundings so uncongenial, they shook from their feet the dust of the revolted provinces, and moved northwards with their families in quest of lands which were still ruled by monarchy. Five thousand came in one year. They came so hastily, and with so little provision for their own wants, that they must have perished, but for the timely aid of the Government. [Sidenote: 1785 A.D.] But their presence added largely to the importance of New Brunswick, which was now dissociated from Nova Scotia, and erected into a separate province. At this time, when she attained the dignity of an administration specially her own, her population was only six thousand, scattered over an area nearly equal to that of Scotland. But her soil was fertile; she abounded in coal and in timber; her fisheries were inexhaustibly productive. Her progress was not unworthy of the advantages with which Nature had endowed her. In twenty years her inhabitants had doubled. In half a century the struggling six thousand had increased to one hundred and fifty thousand. To-day the population of New Brunswick exceeds three hundred thousand. This rate of increase, although the numbers dealt with are not large, is greatly higher than that of the United States themselves. In the treaty by which England recognized the independence of her thirteen colonies, the boundary of New Brunswick and of Maine was fixed carelessly and unskilfully. It was defined to be, on the extreme east, a certain river St. Croix. Westward from the source of that river it was a line drawn thence to the highlands, dividing the waters which flow to the Atlantic from those which flow to the St. Lawrence. The records even of diplomacy would be searched in vain for an agreement more fertile in misunderstanding. The negotiators were absolutely ignorant of the country whose limits they were appointed to fix. Especially were they unaware that the devout Frenchmen who first settled there were accustomed to set up numerous crosses along the coast, and that the name La Croix was in consequence given to many rivers. In a few years it was found that the contracting powers differed as to the identity of the river St. Croix. The Americans applied the name to one stream, the British to another. That portion of the controversy was settled in favour of Britain. But a more serious difficulty now rose to view.