separate state to enter and clear on every trip to or from Boston; as a consequence, the separation measures were carried by large majorities this year, a constitution was framed by a convention which met at Portland in October, this was ratified by town meetings in December, and Maine applied for admission into the Union. Owing to the peculiar situation at the time in Congress, arising from the contest over the admission of Missouri, the question of the admission of Maine became an important one in national politics. By an Act of the 3rd of March 1820, however, Maine was finally admitted into the Union as a separate state, her admission being a part of the Missouri compromise (q.v.). The boundary on the north had not yet been ascertained, and it had long been a subject of dispute between the United States and Great Britain. The treaty of 1783 (Article II.) had defined the north-east boundary of the United States as extending along the middle of the river St Croix "from its mouth in the bay of Fundy to its source" and "due north from the source of St Croix river to the highlands; along the said highlands which divide those rivers that empty themselves into the river St Lawrence from those which fall into the Atlantic Ocean, to the north-westernmost head of Connecticut river; thence down along the middle of that river to the forty-fifth degree of north latitude." Great Britain claimed that the due north line was 40 m. long and ran to Mars Hill in Aroostook county, and that the highlands ran thence westerly 115 m. to the source of the Chaudière; the United States, on the other hand, claimed that the northerly line was 140 m. long, running to highlands dividing the Ristigouche and the tributaries of the Metis; and there was a further disagreement with regard to the side of the highlands on which the boundary should be, and as to what stream was the "north-westernmost head of Connecticut river." The fifth article of the Jay treaty of 1794 provided for a commission to decide what the St Croix river actually was, and this commission in 1798 defined the St Croix, saying that its mouth was in Passamaquoddy bay and that the boundary ran up this river and the Cheputnatecook to a marked monument. The treaty of Ghent in 1814 (Article IV.) referred the question of the ownership of the islands in Passamaquoddy bay to a commission which gave Moose, Dudley and Frederick islands to the United States; and the same treaty by Article V. provided for the survey (which was made in 1817-1818) of a part of the disputed territory, and for a general commission. The general commissioners met at St Andrews, N.B., in 1816, and in New York City in 1822, only to disagree; and when the king of the Netherlands, chosen as arbitrator in 1829 (under the Convention of 1827) rendered in 1831 a decision against which the state of Maine protested, the Federal Senate withheld its assent to his decision. In 1838-1839 the territory in dispute between