It is worthy of note that Mr. Buchanan, the last President of the United States, did his very best to maintain the propriety of the deceit. Mr. Calhoun is supposed to have appreciated the importance of the discoveries, and to have felt the injury to American diplomacy which Mr. Webster’s suppressions of truth might create on future occasions. The Americans actually made use of the weakness of the English Minister as an argument that they had been cheated themselves, and Mr. Webster’s ability in concealing the truth was considered evidence that he had not gone far enough in the same line, and his reputation as a skilful and successful negotiator was considered not to stand very high. The action of Sir Robert Peel, however, prevented any endeavour to obtain the legitimate advantages which the discovery of these maps ought to have produced. The decision arrived at affected the State of Maine and the pretensions of its people, but it had little to do with the prosperity or military strength of the whole of the Union: whilst it weakened Canada in its weakest point, and conferred most signal advantage on the only enemy it had to fear: it bit in to the substance of the Provinces, and at the same time cut the vein of communication with the sea for five long winter months. Strange that a line drawn upon a piece of paper by the hand of a man gathered to his fathers for so many years, should for a time at least decide so much of a nation’s happiness and prosperity--for a time only, because it must soon be that the increasing power or failing resources of the United States, or of Canada, will cause a modification of the present frontier, more in accordance with the commercial and military exigencies of the two States. The Canadians feel that Imperial diplomacy has done them a great wrong, possibly very much as France feels in respect to her Rhenish boundary; but in a military point of view, perhaps the cession of Rouse’s Point has been the most serious of all the circumstances affecting the relations for aggressive purposes of the United States with the Provinces. In order that we may appreciate the importance of Mr. Webster’s achievement, let us quote his own description of it in the great debate which took place in the Senate on the Washington Treaty. Mr. Webster, in noticing some of the many charges made against him in reference to the treaty, dealt with the question of military concession in the following manner:--