‘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