"I have the honour to remain, Sir,
"Your obedient servant,
"W.J.D. Waddilove."
TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.
"My intention is now to show you, from a document already quoted, the Royal proclamation of 1763, a further confirmation that the division expressed, 'Rivers falling one way, and rivers falling directly contrary into the Atlantic,' was a distinction perfectly well understood, and that this peculiar expression being applicable to "Penobscot," was the probable reason why that district was ceded in 1783, and many tribes of Indians driven from a hunting ground previously enjoyed, under the protection of the British Crown. If I recollect right, some influential member of the opponents of Lord Shelburne's peace stated in debate, that above 20 tribes, whom we were bound by previous treaties and wampum belts to protect, were driven from their homes by this unnecessary cession, for it may be here remarked that one uniform condition of all treaties with that ill-used race of men, by whomsoever made (Sir W. Johnson or others), was this—for the sole purpose of guarding themselves against the wanton aggression of the settlers, provided the tracts ceded be always appropriated to His Majesty's sole use, and that the lines be run in the presence of the British authority, and some of their own chiefs, to prevent disputes hereafter.
"The 11th clause of the proclamation, evidently with a view to this feeling on the part of the Indians, runs thus. After setting out the limits and grants, &c. in the previous part of the instrument (binding upon America, as well as upon ourselves, except where they may be specifically relieved from its effect by the express words of the treaty of 1783, since they were at the time British subjects) we read—
"'Whereas, it is just and reasonable, and essential to our interest and the security of our colonies (the States then included), that the several nations or tribes of Indians, with whom we are connected, and who live under our protection, should not be molested or disturbed in the possession of such parts of our dominions and territories as, not having been ceded to, or purchased by, us, are reserved to them, or any of them, as their hunting grounds; we do therefore, with the advice of our Privy Council, declare it to be our Royal will and pleasure that no governor or commander-in-chief, in any of our colonies, Quebec, &c. do presume, upon any pretence whatever, to grant warrants of survey, or pass any patents for lands beyond the bounds of their respective governments, as described in their commissions.' Now mark: 'As also that no governor or commander-in-chief of our colonies or plantations in America do presume for the present, and until our further pleasure be known, to grant warrants of survey, or pass patents, for any lands beyond the heads or sources of any of the rivers which fall into the Atlantic Ocean from the west or north-west, or upon any lands whatever, which not having been ceded to, or purchased by, us, as aforesaid, are reserved to the said Indians or any of them.' Now, will any man of common reflection say, that under such circumstances, known to all our governors and commanders-in-chief, of course also to all engaged in the internal legislation of the plantations, there could be any obscurity to admit of dispute in the reference made to this precise mark of distinction—'beyond the heads or sources of any of the rivers falling into the Atlantic?' the same mark being again referred to in the Imperial Act 14th George III., 1774, in nearly the same words, only adding 'the highlands,' &c., dividing, &c., again expressly described in the account of General Arnold's march over the very country; and lastly, briefly referred to in the treaty of 1783, the very brevity and looseness of the expression being the strongest possible proof of the notoriety of such division and landmark. I confess, Sir, I cannot divine any mode of escape from the dilemma in which the sticklers for this unreasonable claim are placed—either to recede from what is palpably an unjust pretence, or to stamp Washington, Dr. Franklin, Mr. Adams, and Mr. Jay as the most consummate knaves, adopting a loose phraseology to escape at a future time from the effects of their own treaty. To the latter alternative no Englishman acquainted with the history of Washington's glorious, and—except in one point, too stern an adherence to what he conceived to be justice-unblemished career, will ever be disposed to accede.
"The next point on which I engaged to remark was the probable reason which induced Lord Shelburne to cede a country which the Indians had possessed, and thereby drive so many tribes from their homes, and the tombs of their ancestors, to them a heavier blow than any other That the Indians did possess it, is proved not only by the statement in the Imperial Parliament, but also by the fact of sundry raids occasionally made by them from this tract upon the settlers of Nova Scotia, known to be at that time altogether confined to the region about Pasamaquoddy Bay, which now forms the southern part of New Brunswick.
"Now the clause which I have quoted above I conceive to afford that probable reason. The governors, &c. are restricted not to grant warrants of survey on any pretence 'beyond the heads and sources of the rivers which fall into the Atlantic.' Though I believe it admits a question whether any patents were passed extending the British settlements beyond the 45th degree of north latitude, for the old geographers carry the line along that degree to the Bay of Pasamaquoddy, and bound Massachusetts on the west by New Hampshire—though the description of General Arnold's march is a traverse of a wild wilderness, wherein 'human face divine' seems never to have been seen, yet this clause most decidedly leaves a discretion in the Governor of Massachusetts, when population required it, to extend his surveys and his patents as far north as the heads of those rivers which fall into the Atlantic. The district now called Maine, then Penobscot, is exactly a tract so situated, and, whatever might have been the original intentions of the Crown as regarded the Indians within this tract, the discretion so given formed a just and proper reason, when peace was to be established, why the territory so described should be ceded to the United States, and that very cession of a country so circumstanced affords the strongest possible confirmation that 'the heads and sources of the rivers falling into the Atlantic' literally were the limits referred to in 1783, and that no just claim can be made out in the face of this evidence to a territory in which, by the confession of General Arnold's march, the rivers fall 'the contrary way.' I shall not trouble you further. A war founded on unjust aggression can never expect God's blessing upon it. A calm produced by concession to unjust aggression can never end in lasting peace.
"'If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of judgment and justice in a province, marvel not at the matter, for he that is higher than the highest regardeth." Eccles. v. 8.
I remain, Sir, your obedient servant.
W.J.D. Waddilove.
"Beacon Grange, April 28."