The odds were greatly against the British negotiator. His principal adversary was Daniel Webster, Secretary of State, who in one of his letters said: "I must be permitted to say that few questions have arisen under this government in regard to which a stronger or more general conviction was felt that the country was in the right than this question of the northeast boundary." He reiterated his own belief in "the justice of the claim which arose from our honest conviction that it was founded in truth and accorded with the intention of the negotiators of the treaty of 1783." The whole of the disputed territory amounted to 6,750,000 acres. At last a compromise was effected which granted to Great Britain 3,337,000 acres, and to the United States 3,413,000 acres, and acknowledged the title of England to all the military positions upon the frontier, and 700,000 acres more was awarded her than was assigned to her by the King of the Netherlands. But the decision of the Commissioners suited neither party. The factions in England pronounced Lord Ashburton to have been sold, and those in America declared that Webster had been bought. The most violent opposition to the treaty was made; every part of it was denounced, and it became at last doubtful if the Senate would ratify it. That final consummation was, however, suddenly effected in a most remarkable manner, the Senate coming to its decision by an unexpected majority of thirty-nine to nine, after several days of secret debate. The sanction of the Queen and the British government had been given without hesitation and the people on both sides of the Atlantic were well satisfied with the termination of the long and virulent dispute, and the Northeastern Boundary Question would have sunk into the archives of diplomatic history, but truth like murder will out, and it so happened that Mr. Thomas Colley Grattan, British Consul for Massachusetts[99] who, at the request of the commissioners, had accompanied them to Washington to assist them in their negotiation, had the fortune to discover after the treaty was signed, the duplicity of the Senate during their secret debates leading to the ratification of the treaty. He says: "My informant gave unmeasured expression to his indignation, which he assured me was fully shared in by his friends, Judge Story and Dr. Channing. Judge Story expressed himself without reserve on Webster's conduct as a 'most disgraceful proceeding.'" Other gentlemen of Boston entirely coincided in these opinions. [99] For full particulars see his work, "Civilized America," Vol. I, Chap. XXI, XXII, XXIII. [Illustration: Map of the Boundary Line between Maine and New Brunswick.]