branch, thence due north to the Colorado, up that river to its source, and thence to the forty-second parallel of latitude in such wise as to head all the tributaries of the Arkansas and Red rivers Poinsett might offer a sum proportionately less.

Should Mexico refuse to sell so great a piece of Texas, he might propose as a boundary the Colorado from its mouth to its source, or the Rio Brazos from its mouth to the head of its most westerly branch, and in either case around the tributaries of the Red and the Arkansas rivers to the parallel of forty-two degrees.

The present boundary was objectionable not only because of the nearness of the Sabine to New Orleans, but because it was a shallow stream, navigable only by small craft, and never likely to become the channel of enough commerce to justify the establishment of a custom-house on its banks. For lack of such restraint, the frontier was and would remain the resort of smugglers and outlaws and the home of a most disreputable population.

The want of confidence and attachment between the Government of Mexico and the inhabitants of Texas lured there by the land-grant owners was notorious. In the short space of five years this antipathy had displayed itself in four revolts, of which one had for its avowed object the independence of the country. The United States had lost no time in assuring Mexico that the resistance to her lawful authority was without aid or countenance, direct or indirect, from us. Yet the recurrence of such scenes could not but tend to excite suspicion of our motives and produce heart-burnings ruinous to that cordiality which ought to exist between neighbors.

These and many other considerations made it most desirable that Texas, or at least a part of it, should be acquired by the United States. The small value placed on the country by Mexico, its remote and disconnected situation, the unsettled state of Mexican politics, the depressed and languishing condition of her finances, and, above all, the threatening attitude of Spain, were, in Van Buren's opinion, so many reasons why Mexico should willingly part with the province for a proper consideration.

Mexico, however, was fully determined to retain Texas,

1828.

BOUNDARIES OF MAINE AND OREGON.

463

and the line as defined in the treaty of 1819 remained unchanged for sixteen years.

Quite as unavailing were the efforts of the administration to bring Great Britain to an agreement on the boundaries of Oregon and Maine. Forty years and more had passed since the signing of the definitive treaty of peace, yet the old dispute over the meaning of its terms was as far from settlement as ever. At the close of the French and Indian War Great Britain came into possession of Canada, and, for purposes of government, marked out the Province of Quebec. As set forth in the King's proclamation of 1763, its limit on the south was the forty-fifth parallel from the St. Lawrence eastward to the highlands which separate the waters flowing into the St. Lawrence from those which fall into the sea; along the highlands and the north shore of Chaleur Bay and the coast of the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Cape Rozier, and thence across the St. Lawrence by the west end of Anticosti to the mouth of the river St. John. Hitherto, Maine and Nova Scotia extended northward to the waters of the St. Lawrence. One effect of the proclamation of 1763 was, therefore, to move this boundary southward from the bank of the St. Lawrence to the sources of the rivers which flowed into it -the Chaudière, Ouelle, Greene, Metis, and the tributaries of Lake Memphremagog—and part them from the waters of the Connecticut, the Androscoggin, the Kennebec, Penobscot, Restigouche, and St. John.

East of Maine was the province of Nova Scotia, whose western limit, as described in the commissions of her governors, was a line from Cape Sable across the Bay of Fundy to the mouth of the river St. Croix, the river to its source, and a meridian to the south boundary of the Province of Quebec.

Long before the Revolution, therefore, the extent of Maine, both northward and eastward, had been defined with what seemed to be precision. But to describe it in proclamations and commissions was one thing, and to locate it on the ground was quite another, for nobody knew just which river was the St. Croix.

In the early days of discovery and exploration Pierre

du Guast, Sieur de Monts, Gentleman in Ordinary of the King's Chamber, obtained a patent to Acadie, a vast stretch of North America from the fortieth to the forty-sixth degree of northern latitude. He was made lieutenant-general, was given viceroyal authority, a monopoly of the fur trade, and power to impress vagabonds and idlers as settlers for his colony. With such material and Champlain for pilot, De Monts sailed from Havre de Grace one April day in 1604, reached the southern coast of Nova Scotia, passed around Cape Sable, spent two weeks in St. Mary's Bay, discovered Annapolis river, explored the Bay of Fundy, named the St. John river, and finally dropped anchor in Passamaquoddy Bay.

While there, Champlain, in the course of his explorations, entered a river which he called Rivière des Etechemins, and not far from its mouth, found an island which he named St. Croix, and which De Monts decided to make the site of his colony. Landing with all speed, the emigrants, soldiers, sailors, artisans, and gentlemen went hard to work, and before the end of autumn had covered the north side of the island

with buildings in the form of a square. With the first fall of snow all the horrors of a northern winter began. Great blocks of ice, swept in and out by the tide, cut off the colonists from the mainland and deprived them of wood and water. The scurvy raged, and ere spring opened thirtyfive of the seventy-nine died. All thought of remaining at St. Croix was abandoned, and on the return of early summer De Monts and Champlain, with a party, explored the New England coast as far south as Cape Cod, and finding no better site, returned to St. Croix and moved the colony to Port Royal-or, as we know it, Annapolis-taking many of the buildings with them. The few left standing were demolished by Samuel Argall during his raid on the French in 1613, and the location of the place passed out of memory, while the name of the river remained. In time the St. Croix, wherever it might be, was made part of the line of demarcation between Nova Scotia and Maine, and at last, in 1755, a river called the St. Croix was placed, by John Mitchell, on a map of the British and French possessions in

1783.

WHICH RIVER IS THE ST. CROIX ↑

465

North America, which was used by the commissioners at Paris when framing the treaty of peace in 1783.

As neither Quebec nor Nova Scotia sided with us in the war for independence, no right to demand their cession existed, and in the definitive treaty the western boundary of Nova Scotia and part of the south line of Quebec were made the limits of the United States on the northeast.

The

The language of the treaty seemed plain enough. words are: "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, and from its source directly north to the aforesaid highlands, which divide the rivers that fall into the Atlantic Ocean from those which fall into the St. Lawrence."

But the definitive treaty had scarcely been framed, and had not yet been ratified and proclaimed, when complaint was made to the Continental Congress that the subjects of Great Britain were encroaching on the lands of the State of Massachusetts, and were planting a town and making settlements on the east bank of the Schoodic river. Congress referred the matter to the Governor of Massachusetts, who applied to the General Court, which promptly despatched Benjamin Lincoln and Henry Knox to see if encroachments had really been made, and, if so, to politely request the Governor of Nova Scotia to recall the intruders.

Repairing with all haste to Passamaquoddy Bay, the commissioners found that three rivers flowed into the bay; that the British considered the Schoodic, or most westerly of the three, to be the St. Croix; that all the lands to the eastward had been surveyed and granted to refugees who but a few months before had fled from the United States; that St. Andrews, on the eastern bank, was a town of three hundred houses; that at Schoodic, near the head of navigation, were a hundred more; and that other towns were already in process of forming. They examined the three rivers flowing into the bay-the Schoodic, the Copstock or Passamaquoddy, and the Magaguadavic-and gave it as their opinion that the latter was the St. Croix of the treaty, and that the British were encroaching on the territory of Massachusetts.

Governor John Hancock now requested the governor of

VOL. V.-31

the newly formed province of New Brunswick to recall the intruders, and was informed in reply that the Schoodic was the St. Croix of the treaty, that it was the only river large enough to be a boundary, and that the loyal refugees settled on its eastern bank would not be disturbed. But Massachusetts also claimed to own Moose, Dudley, and Frederick Islands, all lying to the west of the mouth of the Magaguadavic, had sold land on them, and was exercising jurisdiction over the few settlers they contained.

A

To test this right the provincial sheriff of Charlotte County repaired to Moose Island, one day in 1785, and summoned the male inhabitants to send jurors to the county court. A justice of the peace holding a commission from Massachusetts, hearing of the visit of the British sheriff, sailed over to the island and warned the people not to heed the summons. new complaint was now made to the Continental Congress, which sent the papers to Jay, who advised that Massachusetts, without noise or delay, garrison such places in her possession as were exposed to British attack. In this shape the matter stood when Washington was inaugurated.

Meantime, many acts of violence and of sovereignty were done by provincials on the disputed soil. On one occasion the Massachusetts deputy collector of imports and excises was arrested for debt and ordered to find bail or go to jail at St. Andrews. On another two vessels at anchor were seized by custom-house officers from New Brunswick. Yet neither - Congress nor the President could do anything toward mending matters till John Jay went to London, in 1794, to frame the memorable treaty which still bears his name, when he was charged with the settlement of the long-disputed question— Which river is the St. Croix?

But it could not be settled offhand at London. The matter was therefore referred for final adjustment to a commission, which was to do three things: "Decide what river is the river St. Croix intended by the treaty," and "particularize the latitude and longitude of its mouth and of its source." To determine the river proved an easy matter, for in 1797, on an island in the river so long claimed by the British as the true St. Croix, were found the remains of the little settle