Mr. Gallatin proposed that in order to avoid topographical disputes the two governments should agree on a general map of the country, and this proposal was accepted. On the 18th of August 1827 he addressed a note to the British plenipotentiaries, inclosing a project of a treaty of arbitration. At the seventeenth conference the British plenipotentiaries opened the subject, referring to Mr. Gallatin's note, and at the nineteenth conference a convention was agreed on. It was signed September 29, 1827. Receiving the approval of the President, it was transmitted to the Senate, whose advice and consent to the exchange of the ratifications was duly given.*

By this convention the contracting parties enConvention of 1827. gaged, as soon as its ratifications should have been exchanged, to proceed in concert to choose some friendly sovereign or state as arbiter, and to use their best endeavors to obtain a decision within two years after the arbiter should have signified his consent to act. But, for that part of the Treaty of Ghent which stipulated that the reports of the commissioners, if they disagreed, should be presented to the arbitrator, the convention substituted a new mode of procedure. The reports of the commissioners and the documents. thereto annexed being, said the convention, "so voluminous and complicated as to render it improbable that any sovereign or state would be willing or able to undertake the office of investigating and arbitrating upon them," it was agreed "to substitute for those reports new and separate statements of the respective cases, severally drawn up by each of the contracting parties, in such forms and terms as each may think fit." It was further agreed that these statements, when prepared, should be mutually communicated to each other by the contracting parties within fifteen months after the exchange of the ratifications of the convention, and that, after such communication had taken place, the parties should have the right to draw up definitive statements, which should be mutually communicated by each party to the other within twenty-one months after such exchange of ratifications.

In order that the statements of the contracting parties might be prepared with full knowledge, it was provided that each

Adams's Writings of Gallatin, II. 308, 309, 331, 361, 363, 369, 388.

2 Am. State Papers, For. Rel. VI. 643, 700-705.

3 Adams's Writings of Gallatin, II. 398.

For later comments on the convention by Gallatin, see Adams's Writings of Gallatin, II. 544-545.

party should, within nine months after the exchange of the ratifications of the convention, communicate to the other all evidence intended to be adduced in support of its claim beyond that which was contained in the papers of the commission under Article V. of the Treaty of Ghent, and that each of the parties should be bound, on the application of the other, made within six months after such exchange of ratifications, to give "authentick copies of such individually specified acts of a publick nature, relating to the territory in question, intended to be laid as evidence before the Arbiter, as have been issued under the authority, or are in the exclusive possession, of each party." It was further provided that no maps, surveys, or topographical evidence should be adduced by either party beyond what was stipulated in the convention itself, nor any fresh evidence other than that mutually communicated or applied for, and that each party should have full power to incorporate in or annex to either its first or second statement any portion of the reports and accompanying papers of the commissioners under Article V. of the Treaty of Ghent, or of the other evidence mutually communicated or applied for.

Official Maps.

The commissioners under Article V. of the Treaty of Ghent were unable to agree even on a general topographical map of the territory in dispute. The convention supplied this defect. It provided that Mitchell's map, by which the framers of the treaty of 1783 were "acknowledged to have regulated their joint and official proceedings," and a map marked A, which had been agreed on as a delineation of the water courses and of the disputed boundary lines, should be annexed to the statements of the contracting parties, and should be the only maps to be considered as evidence, mutually acknowledged by the contracting parties, of the topography of the country. The contracting parties were, however, permitted to annex to their statements other maps and transcripts of map A with lines representing the highlands or other features of the country as claimed by them, it being agreed that such maps and transcripts should be mutually communicated by each party to the other within nine months after the exchange of the ratifications of the convention, and be subject to such objections and observations as the other party might deem it expedient to make.

1 Map A appears at the beginning of this chapter.

Limitation of Time for Arbitration.

The period within which the completed statements of the contracting parties, with the accompanying documents, should be presented to the arbitrator was fixed at two years after the exchange of the ratifications of the convention, unless the arbitrator should not within that time have been selected and have consented to serve, in which case it was stipulated that the papers should be laid before him within six months after the time when he should have consented to act. It was also provided that the statements and accompanying documents should be laid by the contracting parties before the arbitrator jointly and simultaneously.

trator.

In order to facilitate the attainment of a Powers of the Arbi- sound and just decision the arbitrator was authorized, by a requisition simultaneously made to both parties, to call for further elucidation or evidence in regard to any specific point contained in any of the statements submitted to him; and in such case each party was permitted to bring further evidence, and to make a reply to the specific questions propounded by the arbitrator, such evidence and replies to be immediately communicated by each party to the other. To the same end it was stipulated that, in case the arbitrator should find the topographical evidence laid before him insufficient for the purposes of a sound and just decision, he should have the power to order additional surveys to be made of any portions of the disputed boundary line or territory as he might think fit; and that such surveys should be made at the joint expense of the contracting parties, and should be considered as conclusive by them.

Arbitrator.

The ratifications of the convention were King of the Nether- exchanged at London on the 2d of April 1828. lands Chosen as It was carefully drawn, and its provisions were ample for the purposes for which it was designed. No stipulation was wanting to enable the arbitrator to reach "a sound and just decision." As arbitrator the contracting parties agreed on the King of the Netherlands,' who duly consented to act.

Statements of the
Parties.

The statements and definitive statements of the contracting parties were duly submitted to the arbitrator, those of the United States being prepared by Mr. Gallatin, with whom was associated

Am. State Papers, For. Rel. VI. 643.

William Pitt Preble, a citizen of Maine. Seldom has a question been so thoroughly discussed as was this disputed boundary. On January 5, 1828, a joint select committee of the legislature of Maine made a report on it, which was very full and exhaustive. Within three years, the unpublished reports and documents under the Treaty of Ghent having been cast aside as "so voluminous and complicated" as to discourage investigation, new statements, composed with great ability and learning, were substituted for all that had gone before. These statements, which were printed but not published, were bound up in a volume of which there are only a few copies in existence. In order to understand the case in its various aspects as it came before the King of the Netherlands, it is necessary, in addition to the history of the commission under Article V. of the Treaty of Ghent, which is narrated in the preceding chapter, to present a brief account of the origin of the questions at issue, and a summary of the statements submitted by the contracting governments to the arbitrator.

of 1783.

It was the design of the treaty of peace of Design of the Treaty 1783 to leave the United States in the possession of the boundaries which properly belonged to them when they were colonies under the British Crown. This design was, as will hereafter be shown, the basis of the definition finally adopted; and it is therefore necessary, in order that the subject may be understood, to recur to the British acts in which the lines originated.

Ancient Grants.

By the grant made by James I. to Sir William Alexander on September 10, 1621, Nova Scotia was bounded on the west by the river "commonly called St. Croix," and from the most remote source or spring on its western side by an imaginary direct line toward the north to the nearest ship road, river, or spring emptying itself into the great river of Canada (the St. Lawrence), and "from thence proceeding eastwardly along the seashores of the said river of Canada," along a course described. By a charter of April 3, 1639, Charles I. granted to Sir Ferdinando Gorges the province or county palatine of Maine, which, bounded on the west by the River Piscataqua, extended northeast along the seacoast to the River Sagadahock, the name of the

1 Gallatin says he devoted nearly two years to the subject, bestowing on it more time than he ever did on any other question. (Adams's Writings of Gallatin, II. 549.)

2 Am. State Papers, For. Rel. VI. 893-945.

Kennebec below the confluence of the Androscoggin, and up the Sagadahock to the "Kynybecky" (Kennebec) River, and from thence along a described course. The territories included in this grant were conveyed by Gorges to John Usher on March 13, 1677, and were by the latter conveyed on the 15th of the same month to the Massachusetts Bay Company.

It will be observed that between the terriSagadahock. tories thus granted there is a region, lying between the St. Croix and the Kennebec, of considerable dimensions. It is called on the old maps, including Mitchell's, Sagadahock, the name by which the lower waters of the Kennebec were designated. This region, which the name of Maine afterward came to include, was granted on March 12, 1664, by Charles II. to his brother James, Duke of York, by the description-"all that part of the maine land of New England beginning at a certaine place called or knowne by the name of St. Croix next adjoyning to New Scotland in America and from thence extending along the sea coast into a certain place called Petuaquine or Pemaquid and so up the River thereof to the furthest head of ye same as it tendeth northwards and extending from thence to the River Kinebequi and so upwards by the shortest course to the River Canada northward." On the 29th of June 1674 the Duke of York obtained a confirmation of this grant from Charles II., and on the accession of the Duke to the throne as James II. it was merged in the Crown. The reason for this confirmation was the fact that by the Peace of Breda of July 21, 1667, the King of Great Britain agreed to restore to the King of France the territory of Acadia, or Nova Scotia. The confirmation affirmed the fact that, according to the British view, Nova Scotia did not extend to the westward of the St. Croix.

On the 7th of October 1691 William and Charter of Massachu- Mary, Great Britain and France being then at setts Bay. war, granted the charter of the province of Massachusetts Bay. By this charter they will and ordaine that the Territories and Colonyes commonly called or knowne by the names of The Colony of Massachusetts Bay and Colony of New Plymouth the Province of Main The Territory called Accadia or Nova Scotia and all that Tract of Land lying between the said territories of Nova Scotia and the said Province of Main be united erected and incorporated. And Wee Doe by these Presents unite erect and incorporate the same into