While the latter province remained a colony, loyal to the King, and the former a dominion of the Crown, there was naturally no dispute over boundary lines. In the provisional peace treaty of 1782, between the United States and Great Britain, and in the definitive treaty of peace in 1783, it is declared that in order that “all disputes which might arise in future, on the subject of the boundaries of the said United States may be prevented, it is hereby agreed and declared that the following are and shall be their boundaries,” and in this embodiment of peaceful intent is to be found the origin of international controversies which lasted more than a half a century, and which were often provocative of much bitterness on both sides. The phrase in which reference is made to the line under consideration is as follows: “East by a line to be drawn along the middle of the river St. Croix, from its mouth in the Bay of Fundy to its source.” During the last days of the Revolutionary War many who had been loyal to the King during its continuance fled from the Colonies to Nova Scotia, and naturally they were not much in favor among those who had risked all in the founding of a new republic. It was believed by them that the loyalists were encroaching on the territory rightfully belonging to the province of Massachusetts, and even before the definitive treaty of peace had been proclaimed, Congress had been appealed to to drive them away from their settlement and claim what was assumed to be the property of the United States of America. There at once developed what proved to be one of the most interesting controversies in the history of boundary lines. It was discovered that although the St. Croix River had long served as a boundary, “between nations and individuals,” its actual identity was unknown. The treaty declared that the line of demarcation between the two countries should be “drawn along the middle of the river St. Croix from its mouth in the Bay of Fundy,” but it was found that there were several rivers debouching into this bay and that several of them had been, at one time or another, known as the St. Croix. In accordance with time-honored diplomatic practice, the English were for taking the most westerly of all these, and the Americans contended with much vigor and no small amount of justice that it was the most easterly. The St. John, a large river emptying into the Bay of Fundy, had been so long and so well known that it was out of the question. There remained three considerable streams, which, beginning with that farthest east, were known as the Magaguadavic, or popularly at the present day, the “Magadavy,” the Passamaquoddy and the Cobscook, all pouring their waters into the Passamaquoddy Bay.