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ward of that chain or range of highlands, it will be found that the highlands, in running eastward, fork and divide themselves into two branches thus:

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and that the space between those two branches is almost entirely occupied by the head waters of the St. John, the principal river of New Brunswick, on which Frederickton, the capital is situated, and of which the mouth is eastward of the whole course of the St. Croix, and well within the limits of the Bay of Fundy. When a line, therefore, is drawn due north from any source of the St. Croix, the first highland it reaches is a part of the southern branch of the eastern continuation of the highlands mentioned in the treaty, but at a point where some of the upper streams of the Penobscot are turned westward and southward into the Atlantic Ocean; but no river is turned into the St. Lawrence. Here, the British say, the line to the highlands is accomplished, and must stop, if we are to attempt to establish a line by the words of the treaty; but the State of Maine goes "further north," and would carry on the line to the northern fork of the highlands, and stop at a point where the river Ristigouche is turned eastward into the bay of Chaleurs, and the sources of the St. John are turned southward into the Bay of Fundy, and the Metis is turned into the river St. Lawrence, but no river at all is turned into the Atlantic Ocean: the true state of the case being, that those who framed the treaty of 1783 contemplated in their imaginations, assisted by some maps of an unexplored country, a form and a point of the highlands which never existed in fact.

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IV.

THE WEST INDIES.

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HAPPILY the House of Commons, by the vote of Monday last, the 28th of May, has given an assurance that, being steadily bent upon accomplishing, within the appointed period, the freedom of the negro race in the West Indian colonies, it will not be driven, by popular impulse or excitement, into a departure from the engagements of the imperial legislature, which might afford to the West Indian planters any excuse for receding from the performance of the conditions for which they have received the consideration, in hard money, and in pounds sterling, with arrears of interest. But it would be worse than foolish, to think that a good determination of purpose all that is required, and to close our eyes against the sea of difficulties which must be passed, before the real freedom of the negroes can be established throughout the West Indies. Of this unhappy race, the numerical majority of the people consists; they have the superiority of physical strength; the sense and resentment of oppression; the promise of absolute freedom on an appointed day. Of late years, the Baptist and Methodist missionaries have gone amongst them, and have kindled in their hearts and minds the light of religion, which is seldom entirely separated from its fire; they have made themselves the patrons of the negroes, and, in winning the affections of these new clients, and rousing their halfawakened energies, they have alarmed and irritated the

former masters of them. Planters of the Anglo-Saxon temperament, who, in a tropical, or in an arctic climate, or amidst the difficulties of any uncleared territory, or any unorganised population, find themselves committed to a system from which they have been led to expect that wealth for which they have abandoned home, and risked health and life, bear, with impatience, those attempts to break up the system, no matter what it is, which are made by men who sit at home, or by others, who are sent out as their agents, and are supported by them. Both the West and the East Indies, and the banks of the Mississippi, and of the Red River, and of the St. Lawrence, and the shores of Ontario, and the border warfare of Southern Africa, bear witness of the fact. Unless the statements which have been made in parliament are grossly exaggerated, the feeling of irritation against the interference, by the parliament of the United Kingdom, and by the missionaries and their supporters at home, is so universal in some of the principal islands of the West Indies, as to have banded all the resident owners and managers of property in one league of opposition to them.

In these circumstances, the owners of West Indian estates, who are resident in England, and the Crown and government of the United Kingdom, have great difficulties before them. So long as the influence at home of the non-resident owners is of use to them, the residents on the islands may respect their interests. But if a convulsion of society takes place, the property of the non-resident owners will be the most obvious, and the most desired, sacrifice. The parliament and government of the United Kingdom have an awful task to accomplish. They have promised the freedom, this summer, of the non-prædial negroes; and of the prædials, two years hence. They have made the British people pay twenty millions sterling for it. The privy council has certified, that the colonial legislatures have done all that is required on their part,

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