appointed, sworn, and authorized, to act exactly in the manner directed with respect to those mentioned in the next preceding article. The said Commissioners shall meet at St. Andrew's, in the province of New Brunswick, and shall have power to adjourn to such other place or places as they shall think fit. The said Commissioners shall have power to ascertain and determine the points above mentioned in conformity with the provisions of the said treaty of peace in 1783; and shall cause the Boundary aforesaid, from the source of the river St. Croix, to the river Iroquois or Cataraquy, to be surveyed and marked according to the said provisions; the said Commissioners shall make a map of the said Boundary, and particularizing the Latitude and Longitude of the North West angle of Nora Scotia, of the North Westernmost head of Connecticut river, and of such other points of the said Boundary as they may deem proper. And both parties agree to consider such Map and declaration as finally and conclusively fixing the said Boundary. And in the event of the said two Commissioners differing, or both or either of them refusing, declining, or wilfully omitting to act, such Reports, Declarations or statements shall be made by them, or either of them, and such reference to a

friendly Sovereign or State shall be made in all respects, as in the latter part of the fourth article is contained, and in as full a manner as if the same was herein repeated."

Increasing difficulties, and the improbability of ever arriving at any definite conclusion, by the Reports of Commissioners, induced the Governments of Great Britain and the United States to refer the question of the boundary line to the King of the Netherlands, according to the terms of the two articles above cited, and a map containing the boundary lines as claimed by Great Britain and the United States, as well as a map used in the formation of the Treaty of 1783, and called Mitchel's map; were appointed to be received in evidence by the arbitrater.

In the convention of reference signed at London, on the 29th of September, 1827, the Ist ARTICLE states, "It is agreed that the points of difference which have arisen in the settlement of the Boundary between the British and the American dominions, as described in the fifth article of the Treaty of Ghent,* shall

* No one viewing the question with common fairness, can doubt what was the true meaning of these words; especially when it is remembered, that many of the questions in agitation, at the time of the ratification of the treaty of

be referred as therein provided to some friendly Sovereign or State, who shall be invited to investigate, and make a decision upon such points of difference ;" and in the seventh article it is declared that, "The decision of the arbiter when given shall be taken as final and conclusive, and it shall be carried without reserve into immediate effect by Commissioners appointed for that purpose by the Contracting Parties."

These are the only words made use of in any of the treaties or articles of reference, which define the question that was to be referred to arbitration; and it is upon some pretended want of precision on this point, that the United States founded their resistance to the decision of the King of the Netherlands.

That Monarch bestowed great and scrupulous

Ghent, had been set at rest before the signature of the convention of reference; and that it was therefore necessary to point out distinctly, that the part of the boundary to be decided upon, was that referred to in the Vth article of the treaty of Ghent. It is a great pity that in drawing up the convention, the good old English form of locution had not been adhered to, and then the article might have stood thus: "It is agreed that the points of difference which have arisen in settling that part of the boundary, between the British and American dominions, described in the fifth article of the treaty of Ghent."

pains on the investigatiion of the facts, and at length gave his decision at the Hague, on the 10th of January, 1831. By that decision the King of the Netherlands declared that neither of the two lines, claimed respectively by Great Britain and America, were the line of boundary intended by the Treaty of 1783; that various points mentioned in that treaty could not by any possibility be obtained geographically, or historically; and that the line of Boundary by his decision should be such as he traced upon the maps submitted to him, which line was considerably more in favor of the American claim than of the British claim.

Great Britain expressed her determination to submit at once to the decision of the King of the Netherlands. The Minister of the United States, however, at the Court of the Hague, instantly protested against that decision, contending, that the King of the Netherlands had arbitrated on a matter not submitted to his arbitration, and asserting that the sole question submitted to arbitration by the convention of September 1827, was the definition of the line intended by the treaty of 1783, and that no authority whatsoever was conferred upon the Arbiter to assign any other boundary whatsoever than that. The articles which we have cited from the con

vention of arbitration, are the only ones which fix in any degree the powers of the Arbitrator; and by these it will be found that the powers conferred were general, and by no means SO distinctly limited as the American minister assumes; so that very little doubt can exist that the real intention of the Plenipotentiaries, by whom the Convention of Reference was signed, was to refer the whole matter in dispute to arbitration, and not to limit the functions of the arbiter to the settlement of certain abstract geographical questions.

Now the question to be submitted to the arbitration of a friendly power, as defined in the fourth article of the treaty of Ghent,* (which is declared by the fifth article to be the real explanation of the clause of reference in that fifth article also) does not state that it is certain geographical points which are to be submitted to arbitration; but that it is the report or reports of commissioners, previously appointed by the fourth and fifth articles, which are to be so submitted in case of difference, and it is in regard to those reports, that the Arbiter is to

* It is in reality, as I have before said, by the IVth Article of the treaty of Ghent, not the Vth, that the question is principally affected, as it is by it that the manner and extent of the arbitration is declared.