The powers differed as to the locality of the “highlands” designated by the treaty, and a “disputed territory” of twelve thousand square miles lay between the competing boundary-lines. For sixty years angry debate raged over this territory, and the strife at one period came to the perilous verge of actual war. The people of New Brunswick exercised the privilege of felling timber on the disputed territory. [Sidenote: 1839 A.D.] The Governor of Maine sent an armed force to expel the intruders, and called out ten thousand militiamen to assert the rights of America. The Governor of New Brunswick replied by sending two regiments, with a competent artillery. Nova Scotia voted money and troops. But the time had passed when it was possible for England and America to fight in so light a quarrel as this. Lord Ashburton was sent out by England; Daniel Webster, on the part of America, was appointed to meet him. [Sidenote: 1842 A.D.] The dispute was easily settled by assigning seven thousand square miles to America and five thousand to New Brunswick. Newfoundland was the earliest of the British settlements on the northern shores of America, and it was also, down to a late period, the most imperfectly known. Even from the time of its discovery by Cabot the value of its fisheries was perceived. English fishing-vessels followed their calling on the Newfoundland coast during the reign of Henry VIII., and the trade then begun was never interrupted. England had always asserted proprietary rights over the island; but she did not at first attempt to enforce exclusive possession of its shores, and the ships of all European nations were at liberty to fish without obstruction. But the vast importance of those fisheries became more and more apparent. It was not merely or chiefly the liberal gain which the traffic yielded. Of yet greater account was the circumstance that the fisheries were a nursery in which was trained a race of hardy and enterprising sailors, capable of upholding the honour of the English flag. A century after Cabot’s voyage, the sovereignty of Newfoundland and the exclusive right to fish on its shores were claimed for England; and the claim was enforced by the confiscation of certain foreign ships, which were peacefully returning home, laden with the gains of a successful season. About the middle of the seventeenth century there were upon the island three hundred and fifty families, scattered in fifteen or sixteen petty settlements. By this time the persons who resorted to the fisheries had become sensitively alive to the preservation of the trade, and looked with disfavour upon the increase of a permanent population. They were able to obtain from the reckless Government of Charles II. an order that the settlers should depart from the island; and the barbarous edict was enforced by burning down the houses and wasting the fields of the inhabitants.