FOOTNOTES:
[216] He belonged to the same family as the Earl of Crewe, Secretary of State for the Colonies.
[217] The Lieutenant-Governor in question was Mr., afterwards Sir, F. Burton. His commission was dated November 29, 1808, but he did not go out to Canada till 1822. He left Canada in 1828, but did not cease to be Lieutenant-Governor, as his commission was renewed on October 25, 1830—the year of King William the Fourth’s accession. An Act passed in 1782, 22 Geo. III, cap. 75, commonly known as Burke’s Act, provided against the holding of Patent offices in the Colonies and Plantations in America and the West Indies by sinecurists living in England. The operation of this Act was greatly extended, and the granting of leave restricted by a subsequent Act of 1814, 54 Geo. III, cap. 61.
[218] See Brymner’s Report on Canadian Archives for 1892, Introduction, p. xlix.
[219] The Canadian War of 1812.
[220] See the Memoir of Sir James Craig, quoted at length on pp. 343-5 of vol. i of Christie’s History of the Late Province of Lower Canada, 1848. The notice of Craig in the Dictionary of National Biography says that he was sent home with dispatches after the taking of Ticonderoga, which seems to be incorrect.
[221] Letter of August 6, 1810, Christie’s History of Lower Canada, vol. vi, p. 129.
[222] Letter of September 10, 1810, Christie’s History of Lower Canada, vol. vi, p. 157.
[223] The departments of War and the Colonies were combined under one Secretary of State in 1801. This lasted till 1854, when a separate Secretary of State for War was appointed.
[224] Ryland to Craig, August 4, and September 1, 1810. Christie, vol. vi, pp. 124, 149.
[225] Letter of November 9, 1810, Christie, vol. vi, p. 166. The main dispatch is dated May 1, 1810.
[226] Letter to Craig, August 23, 1810, Christie, vol. vi, p. 146.
[227] Letter to Craig, November 9, 1810, Christie, vol. vi, p. 169.
[228] 3 and 4 Vic., cap. 30.
[229] History of Lower Canada, vol. i, p. 350.
click here for larger image.
MAP TO ILLUSTRATE THE BOUNDARY OF CANADA to face page 322
TREATIES
subsequent to the Treaty of 1783,
under which the boundary line
was fixed either directly or by
Commission or Arbitration
| 1 | Treaty of Ghent 24 Dec 1814 Article 4. |
| 2 | Jay’s Treaty of 19 Nov 1794 Article 5. |
| 3 | Treaty of Washington 9 Aug 1842 Article 1. |
| 4 | Treaty of Ghent 24 Dec 1814 Article 6. |
| 5 | Treaty of Ghent 24 Dec 1814 Article 7. Treaty of Washington 9 Aug 1842 Article 2. |
| 6 | Convention of London 20 Oct 1818 Article 2. Treaty of Washington 9 Aug 1842 Article 2. |
| 7 | Treaty of Washington 15 June 1846 Article 1. |
| 8 | Treaty of Washington 8 May 1871 Articles 34 etc. |
B. V. Barbishire, Oxford, 1908.
APPENDIX I
TREATY OF PARIS, 1783
DEFINITIVE TREATY OF PEACE AND FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN HIS BRITANNIC MAJESTY AND THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, SIGNED AT PARIS, THE 3RD OF SEPTEMBER, 1783.
In the Name of the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity. It having pleased the Divine Providence to dispose the hearts of the Most Serene and Most Potent Prince, George the Third, by the Grace of God, King of Great Britain, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, Duke of Brunswick and Lunenburg, Arch-Treasurer and Prince Elector of the Holy Roman Empire, &c., and of the United States of America, to forget all past misunderstandings and differences that have unhappily interrupted the good correspondence and friendship which they mutually wish to restore: and to establish such a beneficial and satisfactory intercourse between the 2 Countries, upon the ground of reciprocal advantages and mutual convenience, as may promote and secure to both perpetual Peace and Harmony; and having for this desirable end already laid the foundation of Peace and Reconciliation by the Provisional Articles signed at Paris, on the 30th of November, 1782, by the Commissioners empowered on each part; which Articles were agreed to be inserted in, and to constitute, the Treaty of Peace proposed to be concluded between the Crown of Great Britain and the said United States, but which Treaty was not to be concluded until terms of Peace should be agreed upon between Great Britain and France, and His Britannic Majesty should be ready to conclude such Treaty accordingly; and the Treaty between Great Britain and France having since been concluded, His Britannic Majesty and the United States of America, in order to carry into full effect the Provisional Articles above-mentioned, according to the tenor thereof, have constituted and appointed, that is to say:
His Britannic Majesty, on his part, David Hartley, Esq., Member of the Parliament of Great Britain; and the said United States, on their part, John Adams, Esq., late a Commissioner of the United States of America at the Court of Versailles, late Delegate in Congress from the State of Massachusetts, and Chief Justice of the said State and Minister Plenipotentiary of the said United States to Their High Mightinesses the States General of the United Netherlands; Benjamin Franklin, Esq., late Delegate in Congress from the State of Pennsylvania, President of the Convention of the said State, and Minister Plenipotentiary from the United States of America at the Court of Versailles; John Jay, Esq., late President of Congress and Chief Justice of the State of New York, and Minister Plenipotentiary from the said United States at the Court of Madrid; to be the plenipotentiaries for the concluding and signing the present Definitive Treaty: who, after having reciprocally communicated their respective Full Powers, have agreed upon and confirmed the following Articles:
Art. I. His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz., New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, to be Free, Sovereign and Independent States; that he treats with them as such; and for himself, his Heirs and Successors, relinquishes all claims to the government, propriety and territorial rights of the same, and every part thereof.
II. And 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, viz., from the North-West Angle of Nova Scotia, viz., that Angle which is formed by a line drawn due North, from the source of St. Croix River to the Highlands, along the said Highlands which divide those Rivers that empty themselves into the River St. Lawrence from those which fall into the Atlantic Ocean, to the North-westernmost head of Connecticut River; thence down along the middle of that River to the 45th degree of North latitude; from thence by a line due West on said latitude until it strikes the River Iroquois or Cataraquy; thence along the middle of the said River into Lake Ontario; through the middle of said Lake, until it strikes the communication by water between that Lake and Lake Erie; thence along the middle of said communication into Lake Erie; through the middle of said Lake until it arrives at the water-communication between that Lake and Lake Huron; thence along the middle of said water-communication into the Lake Huron; thence through the middle of said Lake to the water-communication between that Lake and Lake Superior; thence through Lake Superior, Northward of the Isles Royal and Phelipeaux, to the Long Lake; thence through the middle of said Long Lake, and the water-communication between it and the Lake of the Woods, to the said Lake of the Woods; thence through the said Lake to the most North-western point thereof, and from thence on a due West course to the River Mississippi; thence by a line to be drawn along the middle of the said River Mississippi, until it shall intersect the Northernmost part of the 31st degree of North latitude. South by a line to be drawn due East from the determination of the line last mentioned, in the latitude of 31 degrees North of the Equator, to the middle of the River Apalachicola or Catahouche; thence along the middle thereof to its junction with the Flint River; thence straight to the head of St. Mary’s River, and thence down along the middle of St. Mary’s River to the Atlantic Ocean, 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 River St. Lawrence: comprehending all islands within 20 leagues of any part of the shores of the United States, and lying between lines to be drawn due East from the points where the aforesaid boundaries between Nova Scotia on the one part, and East Florida on the other, shall respectively touch the Bay of Fundy, and the Atlantic Ocean; excepting such Islands as now are, or heretofore have been, within the limits of the said Province of Nova Scotia.
III. It is agreed that the People of the United States shall continue to enjoy unmolested the right to take Fish of every kind on the Grand Bank and on all the other Banks of Newfoundland; also in the Gulph of St. Lawrence, and at all other places in the Sea, where the Inhabitants of both Countries used at any time heretofore to fish. And also that the Inhabitants of the United States shall have liberty to take fish of every kind on such part of the Coast of Newfoundland as British Fishermen shall use, (but not to dry or cure the same on that Island,) and also on the Coasts, Bays, and Creeks of all other of His Britannic Majesty’s Dominions in America; and that the American Fishermen shall have liberty to dry and cure fish in any of the unsettled Bays, Harbours, and Creeks of Nova Scotia, Magdalen Islands and Labrador, so long as the same shall remain unsettled; but so soon as the same, or either of them, shall be settled, it shall not be lawful for the said Fishermen to dry or cure fish at such Settlement, without a previous agreement for that purpose with the Inhabitants, Proprietors, or Possessors of the ground.
IV. It is agreed, that Creditors on either side shall meet with no lawful impedimenta to the recovery of the full value in sterling money of all bonâ fide debts heretofore contracted.
V. It is agreed, that the Congress shall earnestly recommend it to the legislatures of the respective states to provide for the restitution of all estates, rights and properties which have been confiscated, belonging to real British subjects; and also of the estates, rights and properties of persons resident in districts in the possession of his Majesty’s arms, and who have not borne arms against the said United States; and that persons of any other description shall have free liberty to go to any part or parts of any of the Thirteen United States, and therein to remain twelve months unmolested in their endeavours to obtain the restitution of such of their estates, rights and properties as may have been confiscated; and that Congress shall also earnestly recommend to the several states, a reconsideration and revision of all acts or laws regarding the premises, so as to render the said laws or acts perfectly consistent, not only with justice and equity, but with that spirit of conciliation, which, on the return of the blessings of peace, should universally prevail. And that Congress shall also earnestly recommend to the several states, that the estates, rights and properties of such last-mentioned persons shall be restored to them, they refunding to any persons who may be now in possession the bonâ fide price (where any has been given) which such persons may have paid on purchasing any of the said lands, rights or properties, since the confiscation.
And it is agreed, that all persons who have any interest in confiscated lands, either by debts, marriage settlements or otherwise, shall meet with no lawful impediment in the prosecution of their just rights.
VI. That there shall be no future confiscations made, nor any prosecutions commenced against any person or persons, for or by reason of the part which he or they may have taken in the present war; and that no person shall on that account suffer any future loss or damage either in his person, liberty or property, and that those who may be in confinement on such charges at the time of the ratification of the Treaty in America, shall be immediately set at liberty, and the prosecutions so commenced be discontinued.
VII. There shall be a firm and perpetual Peace between His Britannic Majesty and the said States, and between the Subjects of the one and the Citizens of the other, wherefore all hostilities both by sea and land shall from henceforth cease: all Prisoners on both sides shall be set at liberty, and His Britannic Majesty shall with all convenient speed, and without causing any destruction, or carrying away any Negroes or other property of the American Inhabitants, withdraw all his Armies, Garrisons and Fleets from the said United States, and from every Port, Place, and Harbour within the same; leaving in all Fortifications the American Artillery that may be therein: and shall also order and cause all Archives, Records, Deeds, and Papers belonging to any of the said States, or their Citizens which in the course of the War may have fallen into the hands of his Officers, to be forthwith restored and delivered to the proper States and Persons to whom they belong.
VIII. The navigation of the River Mississippi, from its source to the Ocean, shall for ever remain free and open to the Subjects of Great Britain and the Citizens of the United States.
IX. In case it should so happen that any Place or Territory belonging to Great Britain, or to the United States, should have been conquered by the arms of either, from the other, before the arrival of the said Provisional Articles in America, it is agreed that the same shall be restored without difficulty, and without requiring any compensation.
X. The solemn Ratifications of the present Treaty, expedited in good and due form, shall be exchanged between the Contracting Parties in the space of 6 months, or sooner if possible, to be computed from the day of the signature of the present Treaty.
In witness whereof, we, the undersigned, their Ministers Plenipotentiary, have in their name, and in virtue of our Full Powers, signed with our Hands the present definitive Treaty, and caused the Seals of our Arms to be affixed thereto,
Done at Paris, this 3rd day of September, in the year of our Lord, 1783.
| (L.S.) D. HARTLEY. | (L.S.) JOHN ADAMS. | |
| (L.S.) B. FRANKLIN. | ||
| (L.S.) JOHN JAY. |
APPENDIX II
THE BOUNDARY LINE OF CANADA
The North-Eastern boundary.
On the North-Eastern side, the Treaty of 1783 prescribed the boundary as follows:—
‘From the North-West angle of Nova Scotia, viz., that angle which is formed by a line drawn due North; from the source of St. Croix river to the Highlands; along the said Highlands which divide those rivers that empty themselves into the river St. Lawrence from those which fall into the Atlantic Ocean, to the North-Westernmost head of Connecticut river; ... 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 river St. Lawrence; comprehending all islands within twenty leagues of any part of the shores of the United States, and lying between lines to be drawn due East from the points where the aforesaid boundaries between Nova Scotia on the one part, and East Florida on the other, shall respectively touch the Bay of Fundy and the Atlantic Ocean, excepting such islands as now are or heretofore have been within the limits of the said province of Nova Scotia.’
So far as these words refer to the sea boundary of the United States no difficulty arose, except in the Bay of Fundy. East Florida was ceded to Spain by Great Britain at the same time that the treaty with the United States was signed, and therefore the boundary line in the South had no further concern for the English.
The border land between Acadia and New England.
The North-East had been the border land between Acadia and the New England States. In old days, as was inevitable, there had been constant disputes between French and English as to the boundary between Acadia and New England, while Acadia still belonged to France; and, after the Treaty of Utrecht had given Acadia to Great Britain, as to the boundary between Acadia and Canada. When, by the Peace of 1763, Canada was ceded to Great Britain, the question of boundaries ceased to have any national importance; and no further difficulty, except as between British Provinces, arose until the United States became an independent nation. Then it became necessary to draw an international frontier line, which as a matter of fact had never yet been drawn. There seems to have been a more or less honest attempt, with the help of maps which were, as might have been expected, inaccurate, to adopt a line for which there was some authority in the past, instead of evolving a wholly new frontier; and the result of looking to the past was eventually to fix a boundary which was in no sense a natural frontier.
The river St. Croix taken in 1763 as the boundary of Nova Scotia and hence adopted as the boundary line in the Treaty of 1783.
The river St. Croix had always been a landmark in the history of colonization in North America. It was the scene of the first settlement by De Monts and Champlain; and, when Sir William Alexander in 1621 received from the King the famous grant of Nova Scotia, the grant was defined as extending to
‘the river generally known by the name of St. Croix and to the remotest springs, or source, from the Western side of the same, which empty into the first mentioned river’,
Later, the French claim on behalf of Acadia extended as far as the Penobscot river, if not to the Kennebec; but after the Treaty of Utrecht, the claims of Massachusetts to the country up to the St. Croix river were allowed in 1732;[230] and in 1763, after the Peace of Paris, the St. Croix river was, in the Commission to the Governor of Nova Scotia, designated as the boundary of the province, the following being the terms of the Commission:—
‘Although Our said province has anciently extended, and does of right extend, so far as the river Pentagoet or Penobscot, it shall be bounded by a line drawn from Cape Sable across the entrance of the Bay of Fundy to the mouth of the river St. Croix, by the said river to its source, and by a line drawn due North from thence to the Southern boundary of Our Colony of Quebec.’
Accordingly the river St. Croix was designated as the international boundary in the Treaty of 1783.
Doubt as to the identity of the St. Croix river.
But then the question arose which was the St. Croix river. Between 1763 and 1783 attempts had been made to identify it, but without success, for at least three rivers flowing into Passamaquoddy Bay were each claimed as the St. Croix. After the Peace of 1783, the dispute continued, and eventually the further Treaty of 19th of November, 1794, known from the name of the American statesman who negotiated it in London as Jay’s Treaty, provided in the Fifth Article that Commission appointed under the Treaty of 1794 to identify the river. the question should be left to the final decision of three Commissioners, one to be appointed by the British Government, one by that of the United States, and a third by the two Commissioners themselves. The article provided that
‘the said Commissioners shall by a Declaration under their hands and seals decide what river is the river St. Croix intended by the treaty. The said Declaration shall contain a description of the said river and shall particularize the latitude and the longitude of its mouth and its source.’
In August, 1795, the Treaty was ratified by Washington as President of the United States; and, in 1796, the Commissioners began their work, the third Commissioner being an American lawyer. The work was not concluded until another explanatory article had been, on the 15th of March, 1798, signed on behalf of the two Governments, relieving the Commissioners from the duty of particularizing the latitude and longitude of the source of the St. Croix, provided that they described the river in such other manner as they judged expedient, and laying down that the point ascertained and described to be the source should be marked by a monument to be erected and maintained by the two Governments. Eventually, on the 25th of October, 1798, the Commissioners, who had discharged their duties with conspicuous fairness and ability, gave their award. They identified the Scoodic The St. Croix river determined in 1798. river, as it was then called, with the St. Croix of Champlain; they selected the Eastern or Northern branch of the river as the boundary line in preference to the South-Western, thereby including in American territory a considerable area which the English had claimed; they marked beyond further dispute the point which was thereafter to be held to be the source of the St. Croix; but they did not demarcate the actual boundary line down the course of the river.
From the source of the St. Croix, according to the words of the Treaty of 1783, which have been already quoted, a line was to be drawn due North to the Highlands which formed The Maine Boundary question. the water parting between the streams running into the St. Lawrence and those running into the Atlantic Ocean, and this line was supposed to form the North-West angle of Nova Scotia. No provision was made in the Treaty of 1794 for determining the boundary North of the source of the St. Croix river, and the labours of the St. Croix Commission were confined to identifying that river from the mouth to the source. A far more serious and more prolonged controversy arose over the territory to the North of the source, threatening to bring war between Great Britain and the United States, and not settled for sixty years.
As in the case of the St. Croix, the framers of the Treaty of 1783, in specifying a line drawn due North from the source of that river, to meet the Highlands which parted the basin of the St. Lawrence from that of the Atlantic, had recourse to past history and used definitions already in existence. The old definitions of the boundary. Nova Scotia, as granted to Sir William Alexander, was, according to the terms of the charter, bounded from the source of the St. Croix
‘by an imaginary straight line which is conceived to extend through the land, or run Northward to the nearest bay, river, or stream emptying into the great river of Canada’.
The Royal Proclamation of 1763, which constituted the province of Quebec after the peace signed in that year, defined the Southern boundary of Quebec as passing
‘along the Highlands which divide the rivers that empty themselves into the said river St. Lawrence from those which fall into the sea’.
The Quebec Act of 1774 again defined the Southern boundary of Quebec as
‘along the Highlands which divide the rivers that empty themselves into the river St. Lawrence from those which fall into the sea, to a point in 45 degrees of Northern latitude on the Eastern bank of the River Connecticut’.
In the Commission to the Governor of Nova Scotia issued in 1763, the Western boundary of Nova Scotia from the source of the St. Croix was defined
‘by a line drawn due North from thence to the Southern boundary of Our colony of Quebec’.
Therefore the Treaty of 1783, in defining the international line as a line drawn from the source of the St. Croix
‘directly North to the aforesaid Highlands which divide the rivers that fall into the Atlantic Ocean from those which fall into the river St. Lawrence’,
used the previous definitions of the Western boundary of Nova Scotia and the Southern boundary of Quebec.
There were only two new points in the wording of the Treaty. The first was that the sea was defined as the Atlantic Ocean, thereby excluding the Bay of Chaleurs, and possibly the Bay of Fundy also, which was, in the Treaty, at any rate according to the British contention, treated as separate from the Atlantic Ocean. The second was the importation of the words ‘the North-West angle of Nova Scotia.’ It was The ‘North-West angle of Nova Scotia’. obvious that wherever the Western boundary of Nova Scotia met the Southern boundary of Quebec there must be such an angle, but the Treaty spoke of it as a fixed starting point from whence to draw the boundary line; it assumed that this angle rested on highlands which divided the waters that flowed into the Atlantic from those which were tributaries of the St. Lawrence; and it assumed also that it would be reached by a due North line from the source of the St. Croix river. So the inaccurate maps of the day testified, and so paper boundaries, already recognized, prescribed. When, however, the matter was put to the test of actual geography, it was found that a line drawn due North from the source of the St. Croix nowhere intersected a water parting between the St. Lawrence basin and that of the Atlantic Ocean. The sources of the rivers which run into the Atlantic were found to be far to the West of the Northern line from the St. Croix river, to the West of that line even if it had been drawn from the source of the South-Western branch of the St. Croix, and not, as the St. Croix Commission had drawn it, from the source of its more easterly branch. It was evident that the earlier documents, which the Treaty of 1783 had followed, were based upon inaccurate information and that it had never been realized that the source of the St. John river, beyond which would naturally be sought the head waters of the streams running into the Atlantic, lay so far to the West, as is actually the case.
The terms of the 1783 Treaty were not in accord with actual facts.
It was therefore physically impossible to mark out a boundary in accordance with the terms of the Treaty. If the due Northern line was adhered to, the Highlands mentioned by the Treaty could not be reached. If those Highlands were adhered to, the due Northern line must be abandoned. In either case the North-Western angle of Nova Scotia, instead of being a fixed starting point, was an unknown factor, an abstraction which could only be given a real existence by bargain and agreement. The matter was one of vital importance to Great Britain, for it involved the preservation or abandonment of communication between the Maritime Provinces and Canada, all important in winter time when the mouth of the St. Lawrence was closed. The direct North line cut the St. John river slightly to the west of the Grand Falls on that river; and, had it been prolonged in the same direction, searching for Highlands till the St. Lawrence was nearly reached, Canada and New Brunswick would have been almost cut off from each other. The longer the controversy went on, the more clearly this result was seen by the Americans as well as by the English, hence the bitterness of the dispute and the tenacity with which either party maintained their position and accentuated their claims.
Attempt at settlement in 1803.
On the 12th of May, 1803, a Convention was signed between Great Britain and the United States providing that the dispute should be left to the decision of an International Commission constituted in precisely the same manner as the St. Croix Commission had been constituted; but the Convention was never ratified, and the points at issue were still outstanding when the negotiations were set on foot which The second American war. ended in the Treaty of Ghent at the close of the second war between the two nations. During the war formal possession was taken on behalf of Great Britain of the country between the Penobscot river and New Brunswick, which included the area under dispute, a proclamation to that effect being issued at Halifax on the 21st of September, 1814;[231] but at the date of the proclamation negotiations for peace were already proceeding, and the only basis on which the Americans would treat was the restitution of the status quo ante bellum, proposals for an adjustment of the boundary between New Brunswick and Massachusetts,[232] of which Maine then formed part, being treated as a demand for cession of territory belonging to the United States. On the British side it was The British Contention. maintained that the line claimed by the Americans
‘by which the direct communication between Halifax and Quebec becomes interrupted, was not in contemplation of the British Plenipotentiaries who concluded the Treaty of 1783’,[233]
and in a later letter, replying to the American representatives, the British negotiators wrote[234]
‘the British Government never required that all that portion of the State of Massachusetts intervening between the Province of New Brunswick and Quebec should be ceded to Great Britain, but only that small portion of unsettled country which interrupts the communication between Halifax and Quebec, there being much doubt whether it does not already belong to Great Britain’.
The inference to be drawn from the correspondence is that, on the strict wording of the Treaty of 1783, apart from the intention of those who negotiated it, the American claim was recognized to be stronger than the British.
The Treaty of Ghent.
The Treaty of Ghent was signed on the 24th of December, 1814, and the Fifth Article provided that two Commissioners should be appointed to locate the North-West angle of Nova Scotia as well as the North-Westernmost head of the Connecticut river, between which two points the Treaty of 1783 provided that the dividing line along the Highlands was to be drawn. A map of the boundary was to be made, and the latitude and longitude of the North-West angle and of the head of the Connecticut were to be particularized. If the Commissioners agreed, their report was to be final; but if they disagreed, they were to report to their respective governments, and some friendly sovereign or state was to arbitrate between them. The Commission first met in 1816, much A Boundary Commission appointed. time was taken up in surveying the North line from the source of the St. Croix to the watershed of the St. Lawrence, and it was not until 1821 that the two representatives, having failed to agree, gave distinct awards, the British Commissioner The Commissioners disagree. placing the North-West angle at the Highlands known as Mars Hill nearly 40 miles south of the St. John river, and the American Commissioner locating it nearly 70 miles north of that river, either Commissioner adopting the extreme claim put forward by his side.
In view of the divergence between the two reports, it was necessary, in accordance with the terms of the Treaty of Ghent, to submit the matter to arbitration; but this step was not taken until yet another Convention had been signed on the 29th of September, 1827, providing that new statements The Convention of 1827. of the case on either side should be drawn up for submission to the arbitrator. It was laid down that the basis of the statements should be two specified maps, one of which was referred to as the map used in drawing up the original Treaty of 1783. The inaccuracies in this map, Mitchell’s map, had been the origin of all the difficulties which had subsequently arisen. The King of the Netherlands was Award given by the King of the Netherlands as Arbitrator. selected to arbitrate. In 1830 the statements were laid before him, and in January, 1831, he gave his award. It was to the effect that it was impossible, having regard either to law or to equity, to adopt either of the lines proposed by the two contending parties, and that a compromise should be accepted which was defined in the award. The line which the king proposed was more favourable to the Americans The award not accepted by the Americans. than to the English, but the Americans declined to consent to it, on the ground that, while the arbitrator might accept either of the two lines which were presented for arbitration, he was not empowered to fix a third and new boundary.
Thus this troublesome matter was still left outstanding, and yet the necessity for a settlement was more pressing than ever. The new state of Maine maintained the American claim with more pertinacity and less inclination to compromise than the Government of the United States had shown; the United States Government was ready to accept a conventional line, but Maine objected, and meanwhile the result of the uncertainty and delay was that the backwoodsmen of Maine and New Brunswick were coming to blows. About the beginning of 1839 the disputes in the region of the Collision in the Aroostook region. Aroostook river nearly brought on war between the two nations, which was only averted by the mediation of General Winfield Scott then commanding the American forces on the frontier. Immediately afterwards two British Commissioners, Colonel Mudge and Mr. Featherstonhaugh, were deputed to survey the debatable territory and reported in April, 1840,[235] their report being followed by a survey on the part of the American Government. At length, on the 9th of August, 1842, Daniel Webster then Secretary of State for the United States, and Lord Ashburton, sent out as special The Ashburton Treaty. Final settlement of the Maine boundary question. Commissioner from Great Britain, concluded the Treaty of Washington, which put an end to the long and dangerous controversy. By the First Article of that Treaty the present boundary was fixed; the North line from the monument at the head of the St. Croix river was followed to the point where it intersected the St. John; the middle of the main channel of that river was then taken as far as the mouth of its tributary the St. Francis; thence the middle of the channel of the St. Francis up to the outlet of the Lake Pohenagamook; from which point the line was drawn in a South-Westerly direction to the dividing Highlands and the head of the Connecticut river until the 45th degree of North latitude was reached. The boundary was subsequently surveyed and marked out, and upon the 28th of June, 1847, the final results were reported and the matter was at an end.
The existing boundary is on the whole more favourable to Great Britain than the line which the King of the Netherlands proposed and the Americans rejected; but notwithstanding, Lord Ashburton’s settlement has always been regarded in Canada as having given to the United States territory to which Great Britain had an undoubted claim. The fault, however, was not with Lord Ashburton but with the wording of the original Treaty of 1783; and that treaty, as has been shown, was based on such geographical information as there was to hand, accepted at the time in good faith, but subsequently proved to be incorrect. It should be added that by the Third Article of the Ashburton Treaty the navigation of the river St. John was declared to be free and open to both nations, and that the settlement of the international boundary was followed by an adjustment of the frontier between Canada and New Brunswick. The dispute between the two provinces Settlement of the boundary between the province of Quebec and that of New Brunswick. was, at the suggestion of the Imperial Government, eventually referred to two arbitrators, one chosen by each province, with an umpire selected by the arbitrators themselves. The award was given in 1851, and in the same year its terms were embodied in an Imperial Act of Parliament
‘for the settlement of the boundaries between the provinces of Canada and New Brunswick’.
The International boundary in the Bay of Fundy.
In the Bay of Fundy the boundary line between British and American territory was, by the terms of the 1783 Treaty, to be drawn due East from the mouth of the St. Croix river, assigning to the United States all islands within twenty leagues of the shore to the South of the line,
‘excepting such islands as now are or heretofore have been within the limits of the said province of Nova Scotia.’
Here was a further ground of dispute, touching the ownership of the islands in Passamaquoddy Bay. Geographically they would belong to the United States, unless they could be shown to have been within the limits of Nova Scotia. The Convention of 1803, which has already been mentioned as never having been ratified, in the First Article prescribed the boundary; and the Treaty of Ghent in the Fourth Article referred the matter to two Commissioners on precisely the same terms as were adopted by the next Article of the Treaty in the case of the North-West angle controversy, i.e., each nation was to appoint an arbitrator, and, if the two arbitrators failed to agree, separate reports were to be made to the two governments, and the final decision was to be left to some friendly sovereign or state. Fortunately the two arbitrators came to an agreement, delivering their award on the 24th of November, 1817. Three little islands in the Bay of Passamaquoddy, named Moose Island, Dudley Island, and Frederick Island, were allotted to the United States, and the rest of the islands in the bay, together with the island of Grand Manan, lying further out in the Bay of Fundy, were assigned to Great Britain. The actual channel, however, was not delimited; and though many years afterwards, under a Convention of 1892, Commissioners were appointed for the purpose, they failed to come to a complete agreement; this small question therefore between the two nations is still awaiting settlement under the Treaty for the delimitation of International Boundaries between Canada and the United States which was signed on 11th April, 1908.[236]
The line from the North-Westernmost head of the Connecticut river to the St. Lawrence.
From the point where the boundary line struck the North-Westernmost head of the Connecticut River, the Treaty of 1783 provided that it should be carried
‘down along the middle of that river to the forty-fifth degree of North latitude, from thence by a line due West on said latitude until it strikes the river Iroquois or Cataraquy’.
Iroquois or Cataraquy was the name given to the St. Lawrence between Montreal and Lake Ontario, and the First Article of Lord Ashburton’s Treaty, identifying the North-Westernmost head of the Connecticut River with a river called Hall’s Stream, re-affirmed in somewhat different words the provision of the older Treaty as to this section of the boundary. Here there was no dispute. The line had already been laid down in the Proclamation of 1763 and the Quebec Act of 1774. In the words of the Ashburton Treaty it was the line
‘which has been known and understood to be the line of actual division between the States of New York and Vermont on one side and the British province of Canada on the other’.
The line up the St. Lawrence and the lakes.
From the point where the 45th parallel intersected the St. Lawrence, the line was, under the Treaty of 1783, to be carried up the middle of the rivers and lakes to the water communication between Lake Huron and Lake Superior, with the necessary result that Lake Michigan was entirely excluded from Canada. By the Sixth Article of the Treaty of Ghent two Commissioners were to be appointed to settle doubts as to what was the middle of the waterway and to which of the two nations the various Islands belonged: and, as in other cases, if the Commissioners disagreed, they were to report to their respective governments with a view to arbitration by a neutral power. A joint award was given,[237] signed at Utica on the 18th of June, 1822, the boundary being elaborately specified and the report being accompanied by a series of maps.
The line between Lake Huron and Lake Superior, and to the most North-Western point of the Lake of the Woods.
The Treaty of 1783 laid down that the line was to be drawn, as already stated, through the middle of Lake Huron
‘to the water-communication between that lake and Lake Superior; thence through Lake Superior, Northward of the Isles Royal and Phelipeaux to the Long Lake; thence through the middle of said Long Lake and the water communication between it and the Lake of the Woods to the said Lake of the Woods, thence through the said lake to the most North-Western point thereof’.
Under the Sixth Article of the Treaty of Ghent the Commissioners defined the frontier line well into the strait between Lakes Huron and Superior, but stopped short of the Sault St. Marie, at a point above St. Joseph’s Island and below St. George’s or Sugar Island. Here they considered that their labours under the Sixth Article terminated. But the next Article of the Treaty of Ghent provided that the same two Commissioners should go on to determine
‘that part of the boundary between the dominions of the two powers, which extends from the water communication between Lake Huron and Lake Superior to the most North-Western point of the Lake of the Woods’.
Comparing these words with the terms of the 1783 Treaty, it will be noticed that mention of the Long Lake is eliminated, Nonexistence of the ‘Long Lake’. as it had been discovered in the meantime that the Long Lake could not be identified. On this section of the boundary the Commissioners were not at one. Accordingly on the 23rd of October, 1826,[238] they presented an elaborate joint report showing the points on which they had come to an agreement, and those on which they were at variance, with their respective recommendations. As to a great part of the line they were in accord, and especially they defined by latitude and longitude the most North-Western point of the The ‘most North-Western point of the Lake of the Woods’ determined. Lake of the Woods, but they wholly disagreed as to the ownership of St. George’s or Sugar Island in the strait between Lake Huron and Lake Superior, and also as to the line to be taken from a point towards the Western end of Lake Superior[239] to the Lac de Pluie or Rainy Lake. They made, however, on either side suggestions for compromise. The matter was set at rest by the Second Article of Lord Ashburton’s Treaty, St. George’s Island being assigned to the United States, and a compromise line being drawn from Lake Superior to Rainy Lake. The channels along the whole boundary line from the The Ashburton Treaty and the Treaty of 1871. point where it strikes the St. Lawrence are open to both nations; and by the Twenty-sixth Article of the Treaty of Washington, dated the 8th of May, 1871, the navigation of the St. Lawrence, from the point where it is intersected Navigation of the St. Lawrence. by the International Boundary down to the sea is declared to be free and open for the purposes of Commerce to the citizens of the United States, subject to any laws and regulations of Great Britain and Canada not inconsistent with the privilege of free navigation.
The line from the most North-Western point of the Lake of the Woods to the Mississippi.
According to the 1783 Treaty the boundary line from the most North-Western point of the Lake of the Woods was to be drawn
‘on a due West course to the river Mississippi’,
and was then to follow that river Southwards. Here geographical knowledge was again wanting. The framers of the treaty were under the impression that the source of the Mississippi was further North than is actually the case, and Mistake as to the source of the Mississippi in the Treaty of 1783. they prescribed a geographical impossibility. It was not long before the mistake was found out, for the Fourth Article of Corrected by Jay’s Treaty of 1794. Jay’s Treaty of 1794[240] began with the words
‘Whereas it is uncertain whether the river Mississippi extends so far to the Northward as to be intersected by a line to be drawn due West from the Lake of the Woods.’
The same Article provided that there should be a joint survey of the sources of the river, and, if it was found that the Westward line did not intersect the river, the boundary was to be adjusted
‘according to justice and mutual convenience and in conformity to the intent of’
the 1783 Treaty.
The Fifth Article of the unratified Treaty of 1803 provided that a direct line should be drawn from the North-West point of the Lake of the Woods to the nearest source of the Mississippi, leaving it to three Commissioners to fix the two points in question and to draw the line. A further attempt at adjustment was made in 1806-7, when the negotiators provisionally agreed to an Article to the effect that the line should be drawn from the most North-Western point of the Lake of the Woods to the 49th parallel of latitude, and from that point due West along the parallel
‘as far as the respective territories extend in that quarter’.
This solution again was not carried into effect; and though the subject was raised in the negotiations which preceded the Treaty of Ghent in 1814, no mention was made of it in the Treaty itself. Eventually, however, on the 20th of October, The Convention of 1818. 1818, a Convention was signed in London, the Second Article of which ran as follows:—
‘It is agreed that a line drawn from the most North-Western point of the Lake of the Woods along the 49th parallel of North latitude or, if the said point shall not be in the 49th parallel of North latitude, then that a line drawn from the said point due North or South, as the case may be, until the said line shall intersect the said parallel of North latitude, and from the point of such intersection due West along and with the said parallel, shall be the line of demarcation between the territories of His Britannic Majesty and those of the United States, and that the said First mention in the boundary agreements of the 49th Parallel and the Rocky Mountains. line shall form the Southern boundary of the said territories of His Britannic Majesty and the Northern boundary of the territories of the United States from the Lake of the Woods to the Stony Mountains.’[241]
Here the Rocky Mountains, under the name of the Stony Mountains, first come in, their existence having been unknown, except by vague report, when the Peace of 1783 was signed.[242]
Geographical knowledge was creeping on, but the wording of the Article shows that it was still uncertain whether the North-Westernmost point of the Lake of the Woods was North or South of the 49th parallel. This doubt was finally cleared up by the Commissioners who, as already stated, reported in October, 1826, and who fixed the point in question in 49° 23′ 55″ North; thus, when Lord Ashburton negotiated The boundary line as far as the Rocky Mountains finally determined by the Ashburton Treaty. the 1842 Treaty, it was only left for him, adopting the point which the Commissioners had fixed, to lay down in the Second Article that the boundary line ran
‘thence, according to existing treaties, due South to its intersection with the 49th parallel of North latitude, and along that parallel to the Rocky Mountains’.
The 49th parallel runs through the Lake of the Woods, but the anterior provision that the boundary line should be carried to the North-Westernmost point of the lake, coupled with the fact that that point had been already determined, necessitated an unnatural and inconvenient diversion of the frontier line first to the North-West and then due South again, thereby including in American territory a small corner of land which should clearly have been assigned to Canada. For The Ashburton Treaty finally determined the points arising out of the wording of the Treaty of 1783. this result Lord Ashburton has been blamed, as he was blamed in the matter of the Maine boundary, but in either case his hands were tied by previous negotiations and the wording of existing treaties. A fair review of the whole subject leads to the conclusion that the Treaty of Washington in 1842 was a not inadequate compromise of the almost insuperable difficulties which the wording of the original Treaty of 1783 had left outstanding.
Later boundary questions.
In tracing the evolution of the boundary between Canada and the United States we have now reached the point where the 1783 Treaty ceased to operate, and have seen that the negotiations connected with the interpretation of the Treaty resulted in the line of demarcation being carried far beyond that point, viz., the head of the Mississippi, up to the range of the Rocky Mountains. Meanwhile the Pacific Coast had begun to attract attention, and a new crop of international questions had come into existence.
The Oregon boundary dispute.
The Western territory in dispute between the two nations was known as the Oregon or Columbia territory, and it lay between the 42nd degree of North latitude and the Russian line in 54° 40′ North latitude. The Columbia river took its name from the fact that it had been entered in May, 1792, by an American ship from Boston named the Columbia, commanded by Captain Gray, who thus claimed to be the discoverer of the river. In 1805 Lewis and Clark, the first Americans to cross the continent, reached its head waters and followed the river down to the sea. In 1811 an American trading settlement was planted at Astoria near its mouth. This settlement was voluntarily surrendered to Great Britain in the war which followed shortly afterwards, but was restored, without prejudice, to the United States under the general restitution article of the Treaty of Ghent. The Third Article of the subsequent Treaty of October 20th, 1818, provided that
‘any country that may be claimed by either party on the North-West coast of America, Westward of the Stony Mountains, shall, together with its harbours, bays, and creeks and the navigation of all rivers within the same, be free and open for the term of 10 years’
to both Powers, without prejudice to the claims either of themselves or of foreign Powers; and this Article was, by a Convention of 6th of August, 1827, indefinitely prolonged—subject to one year’s notice on either side—all claims being, as before, reserved. This last Convention was concluded, as its terms specified, in order to prevent all hazard of misunderstanding and to give time for maturing measures for a more definite settlement.
The position in 1842.
On this basis matters stood in 1842, when the Ashburton Treaty was signed. There was joint occupation of the Oregon territory by British and American subjects, and freedom of trade for both. Lord Ashburton had been empowered to negotiate for a settlement of the North-Western as well as the North-Eastern frontier line; but the latter, which involved the question of the Maine—New Brunswick boundary, being the more pressing matter, it was thought well to allow the determination of the line West of the Rocky Mountains to stand over for the moment. As soon as Lord Ashburton’s Treaty had been signed at Washington in August, 1842, Lord Aberdeen, then Foreign Secretary in Sir Robert Peel’s Ministry, made overtures to the United States with a view to an early settlement of the Oregon question. A long diplomatic controversy ensued, complicated by changes of government in the United States, and tending, as is constantly the case in such negotiations, to greater instead of less divergence of view.
The rival claims.
The Americans contended that they had a title to the whole territory up to the Russian line, and they claimed the entire region drained by the Columbia river. As a compromise, however, they had already, in the negotiations which ended in the Convention of 1827, suggested that the boundary line along the 49th parallel should be continued as far as the Pacific, the navigation of the Columbia river being left open to both nations. This offer was repeated as the controversy went on, with the exception that on the one hand free navigation of the Columbia river was excluded, and on the other the American Secretary of State proposed
‘to make free to Great Britain any port or ports on Vancouver’s Island, south of this parallel, which the British Government may desire’.[243]
The counter British proposal was to the effect that the boundary line should be continued along the 49th parallel until it intersected the North-Eastern branch of the Columbia river, and that then the line of the river should be followed to its mouth, giving to Great Britain all the country on the north of the river and to the United States all on the south, the navigation of the river being free to both nations, and a detached strip of coast land to the north of the river being also conceded to the United States, with the further understanding that any port or ports, either on the mainland or on Vancouver Island, South of the 49th parallel, to which the United States might wish to have access, should be constituted free ports.
The arguments advanced on both sides, based on alleged priority of discovery and settlement and on the construction of previous treaties, are contained in the Blue Book of 1846, and are too voluminous to be repeated here. The controversy went on from 1842 to 1846; and, when the spring of the latter year was reached, the Americans had withdrawn their previous offer and had refused a British proposal to submit the whole matter to arbitration. There was thus a complete deadlock, but shortly afterwards a debate in Congress showed a desire on the American side to effect a friendly settlement of a dispute which had become dangerous, and, the opportunity being promptly taken by the British Government, a Draft Treaty was sent out by Lord Aberdeen, which was submitted by President Polk to the Senate, who by a large majority advised him to accept it.[244] The Treaty was accordingly Settlement of the Oregon boundary question by the Treaty of 1846. signed at Washington on the 15th of June, 1846. By the First Article the boundary line was
‘continued Westward along the said forty-ninth parallel of North latitude to the middle of the channel which separates the continent from Vancouver Island, and thence Southerly, through the middle of the said channel and of Fuca’s Straits, to the Pacific Ocean’,
the navigation of the channel and straits South of the 49th parallel being left free and open to both nations. By the Second Article of the same Treaty, the navigation of the Columbia river, from the point where the 49th parallel intersects its great Northern branch, was left open to the Hudson’s Bay Company and to all British subjects trading with the same. The effect of the Treaty was that Great Britain abandoned the claim to the line of the Columbia river, and the United States modified its proposal to adopt the 49th parallel as the boundary so far as to concede the whole of Vancouver Island to Great Britain. The news that the treaty had been signed reached England just as Sir Robert Peel’s ministry was going out of office.
The San Juan boundary question.
The delimitation of the boundary which the Treaty had affirmed gave rise to a further difficulty. The Treaty having provided that the sea line was to be drawn southerly through the middle of the channel which separates Vancouver Island from the continent and of Fuca’s Straits into the Pacific Ocean, the two nations were unable to agree as to what was the middle of the channel in the Gulf of Georgia between the Southern end of Vancouver Island and the North American coast. The main question at issue was the ownership of the island of San Juan, and the subject of dispute was for this reason known as the San Juan boundary question. The British claim was that the line should be drawn to the Eastward of the island, down what was known as the Rosario Straits. The Americans contended that it should be drawn on the Western side, following the Canal de Haro or Haro Channel. Eventually it was laid down by the 34th and Arbitration under the Treaty of 1871. following Articles of the Treaty of Washington of 8th of May, 1871—the same Treaty which provided for arbitration on the Alabama question—that the Emperor of Germany should arbitrate as to which of the two claims was most in accordance with the true interpretation of the Treaty of 1846, and that his award should be absolutely final and conclusive. On the 21st of October, 1872, the arbitrator gave his award in favour of the United States, and it was immediately carried into effect, thus completing the boundary line from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
The Alaska boundary question.
In a message to Congress on the subject of the San Juan Boundary Award, President Grant stated
‘The Award leaves us, for the first time in the history of the United States as a nation, without a question of disputed boundary between our territory and the possessions of Great Britain on this continent;’
and he suggested that a joint Commission should determine the line between the Alaska territory and the conterminous possessions of Great Britain, on the hypothesis that here there was no ground of dispute and that all that was required was the actual delimitation of an already admitted boundary line. The matter proved to be more complex than the President’s words implied.
Russian America ceded to the United States.
By a Treaty signed on the 30th of March, 1867, the territory now known as Alaska was ceded by Russia to the United States. It was the year in which the Dominion Act was passed; and, when British Columbia[245] in 1871 joined the Dominion, Canada became, in respect of that province, as well as in regard to the Yukon Territory, a party to the Alaska boundary question. The limits of Russian America, as it was then called, had been fixed as far back as 1825, when, by a treaty between Great Britain and Russia, dated Line of demarcation between British and Russian possessions in North America drawn in 1825. the 28th of February in that year, a line of demarcation was fixed between British and Russian possessions
‘upon the coast of the continent and the islands of America to the North-West’.
The line started from the Southernmost point of Prince of Wales Island, which point was defined as lying in the parallel of 54° 40′ North latitude and between the 131st and 133rd degrees of West longitude. It was carried thence to the North, along the channel called Portland Channel, up to that point of the continent where it intersected the 56th parallel of North latitude. From this point it followed the summit of the mountains parallel to the coast until it intersected the 141st degree of West longitude, and was carried along that meridian to the Arctic Ocean. The Treaty provided that the whole of Prince of Wales Island should belong to Russia, and that wherever the summit of the mountains running parallel to the coast between the 56th parallel of North latitude and the point where the boundary line intersected the 141st meridian was proved to be at a distance of more than 10 marine leagues from the ocean, the line should be drawn parallel to the windings of the coast at a distance from it never exceeding 10 marine leagues.
Free navigation of rivers.
Free navigation of the rivers which flowed into the Pacific Ocean across the strip of coast assigned to Russia was conceded in perpetuity to British subjects; and, after the transfer of Russian America to the United States, the Twenty-sixth Article of the Treaty of Washington of 1871 provided that the navigation of the rivers Yukon, Porcupine, and Stikine should for ever remain free and open to both British and American citizens, subject to such laws and regulations of either country within its own territory as were not inconsistent with the privilege of free navigation.
Negotiations for a settlement of the boundary with the United States.
In 1872, the year after the entry of British Columbia into the Dominion of Canada, mining being contemplated in the northern part of British Columbia, overtures were, at the instance of the Canadian Government, made to the United States to demarcate the boundary, which had never yet been surveyed and delimited. The probable cost of a survey caused delay, and no action had been taken when in 1875 and 1876 disputes arose as to the boundary line on the Stikine river. The Canadian Government in 1877 dispatched an engineer to ascertain approximately the line on the river, and the result of his survey was in the following year provisionally accepted by the United States as a temporary arrangement, without prejudice to a final settlement. Negotiations began again about 1884, and, by a Convention signed The Convention of 1892. at Washington on the 22nd of July, 1892, it was provided that a coincident or joint survey should be undertaken of the territory adjacent to the boundary line from the latitude of 54° 40′ North to the point where the line intersects the 141st degree of West longitude. It was added that, as soon as practicable after the report or reports had been received, the two governments should proceed to consider and establish the boundary line. The time within which the results of the survey were to be reported was, by a supplementary Convention, extended to the 31st of December, 1895, and on that date a joint report was made, but no action was taken upon it at the time.
Discovery of gold at Klondyke.
In 1896 the Klondyke goldfields were discovered in what now constitutes the Yukon district of the North-West Territories, and in the following year there was a large immigration into the district. The goldfields were most accessible by the passes beyond the head of the inlet known as the Lynn canal, the opening of which into the sea is within what had been the Russian fringe of coast. The necessity therefore for determining the boundary became more urgent than before. In 1898 the British Government proposed that the matter Further negotiations. should be referred to three Commissioners, one appointed by each government and the third by a neutral power; and that, pending a settlement, a modus vivendi should be arranged. A provisional boundary in this quarter was accordingly agreed upon, but, instead of the Commission which had been proposed, representatives of Great Britain and the United States alone met in 1898 and 1899 to discuss and if possible settle various questions at issue between the two nations, among them being the Alaska boundary. They were to endeavour to come to an agreement as to provisions for the delimitation of the boundary
‘by legal and scientific experts, if the Commission should so decide, or otherwise’,
memoranda of the views held on either side being furnished in advance of the sittings of the Commission. Again no settlement was effected.
The Convention of 1903. Joint Commission appointed.
The dispute between Great Britain and Venezuela as to the boundary between Venezuela and British Guiana, in which the Government of the United States had intervened, had, by a Convention signed in February, 1897, been referred to arbitration, the Arbitrators being five in number, two Englishmen, two Americans, and one representative of a neutral State. In July, 1899, before the award in this arbitration had been given, Lord Salisbury proposed to the American Government that a treaty on identical lines with the Venezuela boundary Convention should apply arbitration to the Alaska Boundary question. To this procedure, giving a casting vote on the whole question to a representative of a neutral power, the American Government took exception, and suggested instead a Tribunal consisting of ‘Six impartial Jurists of repute’, three to be appointed by the President of the United States and three by Her Britannic Majesty. A suggestion made by the British Government that one of the three Arbitrators on either side should be a subject of a neutral state was not accepted; and eventually, on the 24th of January, 1903, a Convention was signed at Washington, constituting a tribunal in accordance with the American conditions. The three British representatives were the Lord Chief Justice of England and two leading Canadians, one of them being the Lieutenant-Governor of the Province of Quebec.
The preamble of the Convention stated that its object was a ‘friendly and final adjustment’ of the differences which had arisen as to the ‘true meaning and application’ of the clauses in the Anglo-Russian Treaty of 1825 which referred to the Alaska boundary. The tribunal was to decide where Points for decision. the line was intended to begin; what channel was the Portland Channel; how the line should be drawn from the point of commencement to the entrance to the Portland Channel; to what point on the 56th parallel and by what course it should be drawn from the head of the Portland Channel; what interpretation should be given to the provision in the Treaty of 1825 that from the 56th parallel to the point where the 141st degree of longitude was intersected the line should follow the crest of the mountains running parallel to the coast at a distance nowhere exceeding ten marine leagues from the ocean; and what were the mountains, if any, which were indicated by the treaty.
Main point at issue.
The main point at issue was whether the ten leagues should be measured from the open sea or from the heads of the inlets, some of which ran far into the land. If the latter interpretation were adopted, the result would be to give to the United States control of the main lines of communication with the Klondyke Mining district, just as the Maine boundary threatened to cut, and in large measure did cut, communication between the Maritime Provinces and Quebec.
The Award.
The Convention provided that all questions considered by the tribunal, including the final award, should be decided by a majority of the Arbitrators. The tribunal was unanimous in deciding that the point of commencement of the line was Cape Muzon, the Southernmost point of Dall Island on the Western or ocean side of Prince of Wales Island. A unanimous opinion was also given to the effect that the Portland Channel is the channel which runs from about 55°56′ North latitude and passes seawards to the North of Pearse and Wales Islands; but on all subsequent points there was a division of opinion, the three American representatives and the Lord Chief Justice of England giving a majority award from which the two Canadian members of the tribunal most strongly dissented. The majority decided that the outlet of the Portland Channel to the sea was to be identified with the strait known as Tongass Channel, and that the line should be drawn along that channel and pass to the South of two islands named Sitklan and Khannaghunut islands, thus vesting the ownership of those islands in the United States. They also decided that the boundary line from the 56th parallel of North latitude to the point of intersection with the 141st degree of West longitude should run round the heads of the inlets and not cross them. One section of the line was not fully determined owing to the want of an adequate survey. The net result of the award was to substantiate the American claims, to give to the United States full command of the sea approaches to the Klondyke Mining districts, and to include within American territory two islands hard by the prospective terminus of a new Trans-Canadian Railway.
The Behring Sea arbitration.
It may be added that the Treaty of 30th March, 1867, by which Alaska was transferred from Russia to the United States, gave rise not only to the territorial boundary dispute of which an account has been given above, but also to a controversy as to American and British rights in the Behring Sea, more especially in connexion with the taking of seals. The questions at issue were settled at a much earlier date than the land boundary, having been, by a treaty signed at Washington on the 29th of February, 1892, referred to a tribunal of seven arbitrators, two named by the United States, two by Great Britain, and one each by the President of the French Republic, the King of Italy, and the King of Sweden and Norway. The arbitrators met in Paris and gave their award on the 15th of August, 1893, the substance of the award, as concurred in by the majority of the arbitrators, being that Russia had not exercised any exclusive rights of jurisdiction in Behring Sea or any exclusive rights to the seal fisheries in that sea outside the ordinary three-mile limit, and that no such rights had passed to the United States.
The Treaty of April 11, 1908.
The last phase in the evolution of the Boundary line between Canada and the United States is the Treaty of 11th of April, 1908, ‘for the delimitation of International Boundaries between Canada and the United States’, by which machinery is provided ‘for the more complete definition and demarcation of the International Boundary’, and for settling any small outstanding points such as, e.g., the boundary line through Passamaquoddy Bay.