The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-04-21 00:00:00

1 .I 1

Ner-IR

TIIE NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY.

MR. FOX TO MR. FORSYTH

Washington, March 13, 1840.

The undersigned, her Britannic Majesty's Envoy Extra-
ordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary, has been instructed
by his Government to make the following communication
to the Secretary of State of the United States, in reference
to the boundary negotiation, and the affairs of the disputed
territory. _

Her Majesty's Government have had under their consi-
deration the official note addressed to the undersigned by
the Secretary of State of the United States, on the 24th of
last December, in reply to a note from the undersigned of
the 2d November preceding, in which the undersigned pro-
tested, in the name of his Government, against the extensive
System of aggression pursued by the people of the State of .
Maine within the disputed territory, to the prejudice of the
rights of Great Britain, and in manifest violation of the pro-
visional agreements entered into between the authorities of
the two countries at the beginning of the last year.
Her Majesty's Government have also had their attention
directed to the public message transmitted by the Governor
of Maine to the Legislature of the State, on the 3d of Janu-
ary of the present year.
Upon a consideration of the statements contained in these
two official documents, her Majesty's Government regret to
find that the principal acts of encroachment which were de-
nounced and complained of on the part of Great Britain, so
far from being either disproved, or discontinued, or satisfac-
torily explained by the authorities of the State of Maine,
are, on the contrary, persisted in, and publicly avowed.
Her Majesty's Government have consequently instructed
the undersigned once more formally to protest against those
acts of encroachment and aggression.
Her Majesty's Government claim and expect from the good
faith of the Government of the United States, that the peo-
ple of Maine shall replace themselves in the situation in
which they stood before the agreements of last year were
signed; that they shall, therefore, retire from the valley of
the St. John, and confine themselves to the valley of the
Aroostook ; that they shall occupy that valley in a temporary
manner, only for the purpose, as agreed upon, of preventing
depredations ; and that they shall not construct fortifications,
nor make roads or permanent set.
Until this be done by the people of the State of Maine,
and so long as that people shall persist in the present system
of aggression, her Majesty's Government will feel it their
duty to make such military arrangements as may be required
for the protection of her Majesty's rights. And her Ma-
jesty's Government deem it right to declare, that if the
result of the unjustifiable proceedings of the State of Maine
should be collision between her Majesty's troops and the
people of that state, the responsibility of all the consequences
that may ensue therefrom, be they what they may, will rest
with the people and Government of the United States.

The undersigned has been instructed to add to this com-
munication, that Her Maje Sty's Government are only waiting
for the detailed report of the British commissioners recently
employed to survey the disputed territory, which report, it
was believed, would he completed and delivered to her Ma-
jesty's Government by the end of the present inonth,in order
to transmit to the Government of the United States a reply
to their last proposal upon the subject of the boundary sego •
tiation.
The undersigned avails himself of this occasion to renew to
the Secretary of State of the United States the assurance o
his distinguished consideration
Hon. John Forsyth, &c.

H. S. Fox.

MR. FORSYTH TO MR. FOX.
Department of State, Washington, March 25, 18-10.
The undersigned, Secretary of State of the United States,
acknowledges to have received Mr. Fox's communication of

the 13th instant, in reference to the boundary negotiation,
and the affairs of the disputed territory. The intbrmation
given in the closing part of it, that a reply to the last pro-
position of the United States upon the subject of the boun-
dary may be expected in a short time, is highly gratifying to
the President, who has, however, given directions to the un-
dersigned in making this acknowledgment, to accompany it
with the expression of his profound regret that Mr. Fox's
note is in no other respect satisfactory.
After the arrangements which, in the beginning of last
year, were entered into on the part of the two Governments
with regard to the occupation of the disputed territory, the
President had indulged the hope that the causes of irritation
which had grown out of this branch of the subject could have
been removed. Relying on the disposition of Maine to co-
operate with the Federal Government in all that could lead
to a pacific,adjustment of the principal question, the Presi-
dent felt confident that his determination to maintain order
and peace on the border would be fully carried out.
He looked upon all apprehensions of designs by the people
of Maine to take possession of the territory as without ade-
quate foundation ; deeming it improbable that, on the eve of
an amicable adjustment of the question, any portion of the
American people would, without cause and without object,

jeopard the success of the negotiation, and endanger the
peace of the country. A troublesome, irritating, and com-
paratively unimportant, because subordinate subject, being
thus disposed of, the President hoped that the parties would
be left free at once to discuss and finally adjust the principal
uuestion. In this he has been disappointed. While the pro-
ceedings of her Majesty's Government at home have been
attended with unlooked-for delays, its attention has been di-
verted from the great subject in controversy by repeated
complaints, imputing to a portion of the people of the United
States designs to violate the engagements of their Govern-
ment ' • designs which have never been entertained, and
which Mr. Fox knows would receive no countenance from
this Government.

It is to be regretted that at this late hour so much misap-
prehension still exists on the side of the British government
as to the object and obvious meaning of the existing arrange-
ments respecting the disputed territory. The ill success
which appears to have attended the effort made by the under-
signed to convey through Mr. Fox to her majesty's govern-
ment, more correct impressions respecting them, calls for a
recurrence to the subject, and a brief review of the corre-
spondence which has grown out of it, may tend to remove
the erroneous views which prevail, as to the manner in which
the terms of the arrangements referred to have been observed.

As Mr. Fox had no authority to make any arrangement
respecting the exercise of jurisdiction over the disputed ter-
ritory, that between him and the undersigned, of the 27th of
Febauary, 1839, had for its object some provisional arrange-
ment for the restoration and preservation of peace in the
territory. To accomplish this object, it provided that her
majesty's officers should not seek to expel, by military force,
the armed party which had been sent by Maine into the dis-
trict bordering on the Reston): river ; and that on the other
hand the government of Maine would voluntarily, and without
delay, withdraw beyond the bounds of the disputed terri-
tory any armed force then within them. Besides this, the
arrangement had other objects—the dispersion of notorious
trespassers, and the protection of public property from de-
predation. • In case future necessity should arise for this,
the separation was to be Conducted by concert, jointly or
separately, according to agreement between Maine and New
Brunswick.
In this last mentioned respect, the agreement looked to
some further arrangement between Maine and New Bruns-
wick. Through the agency of General Scott, one was agreed
to, on the 23d and 25th of March following, by which Sir
John Harvey bound himself not to seek, without renewed
instructions to that effect from his government, to take mili-
tary possession of the territory, or to repel from it, by military
force, the armed civil posse, or the troops of Maine. On
the part of Maine, it was agreed by her governor that no
attempt should be made without renewed instructions from
the legislature, to disturb by arms the province of New
Brunswick in the possession of the Madawaski settlements,
or interrupt the usual communications between them and the
upper provinces.
As to possession and jurisdiction, they were to remain
unchanged, each party holding, in fact, possession of the dis-
puted territory, but each denying the right of the other to do
so. With that understanding, Maine was, without unneces-
sary delay, to withdraw her military force, leaving only,
under a land agent, a small civil posse, armed or unarmed,
to protect the timber recently cut, and to prevent further
depredations.
In the complaints of infractions of the agreements of
the state of Maine, addressed to the undersigned, Mr. Fox
has asFumed two positions which are not authorised by the
terms of those agreements : first, admitting the right of Maine
to maintain a civil posse in the disputed territory for the
purpose stated in the agreement, he does so with the restric-
tion that the action of the posse was to be confined within
certain limits ; and second, by making the advance of the
Maine posse into the valley of the Upper St. John the ground
of his complaint of encroachment upon the Madawaska set-
tlement beyond those it occupied at the date of the agree-
ment.

The United States cannot acquiesce in either of these pok
ti ons.

In the first place nothing is found in the agreement sub-
scribed to by Governor Fairfield and Sir J. Harvey defining
any limits for the disputed territory within which the opera-
tions of the civil posse of Maine were to be circumscribed.
The task of preserving the timber recently cut, and of pre-
venting further depredations within the disputed. territory,
was assigned to the state of Maine after her military force
should be withdrawn from it ; and it was to be accomplished
by a civil posse, armed or unarmed, which was to continue
in the territory, and to operate in every; part of it where its
agency might be required to protect the timber already cut,
and prevent further depredations, without any limitation
whatever, or any restrictions, except such as might be con-
strued into an attempt to disturb by arms the province of
Near Brunswick in her possession of the Madawaska settle-
ment, Cr interrupt the usual communication between the pro-
vinces. It is thus that in the exercise of a legitimate right,
and the conscientious discharge of an obligation imposed up-
on her by a solemn compact, that the state of Maine has
done those acts which have given rise to complaints for which
no adequate cause is perceived. The undersigned feels con-
fident that when those acts shall have been considered by her
Majesty's Government at home, as explained in his note to
Mr. Fox of the 24th December last, and in connexion with
the foregoing remarks, they will no longer be viewed as cal-
culated to excite the apprehensions of her Majesty's Govern-
ment that the faith of the existing arrangements is to be bro-
ken on the part of the United States.
With regard to thi Second position assumed by Mr. Fox,
that the advance of the Maim posse along the valley of the
Restook to the mouth of Fish River, and into the valley of
the tipper St. John, is at variance with the terms and spirit
of the agreements, the undersigned must observe, that if at
variance with any of their provisions, it could only be with
those which secure her Majesty's province of New Brunswick
against any attempt to disturb the possession of the Mada-
waska settlement, and to interrupt the usual communications
between New Brunswick and the upper provinces. The
agreement could only have reference to the Madawaska set-
tlements as confined within their actual limits at the time it
was subscribed. The undersigned, in his note of the 24th
of December last, stated the reasons why the mouth of
Fish liver, the portion of the valley of St. John through
which it passes, could in no proper sense be considered as
embraced in the Madawaska settlements. Were the United
States to admit the pretensions set up on the part of Great
Britain, to give to the Madawaska settlements a degree of
constructive extension that might, at this time, suit the pur-
poses of her Majesty's colonial authorities, those settlements
might soon be made, with the like justice, to embrace any
portions of the disputed territory ; and the right given to the
province of New Brunswick to occupy them temporarily and
for a special purpose might, by inference quite as plausible,
give the jurisdiction exercised by her Majesty's authorities
an extent which would render the present state of the ques-
tion, so long as it could be maintained, equivalent to a deci-
sion on the merits of the whole controversy in favour of
Great Britain. If the small settlement at Madawaska, on
the north side of St. John's, means the whole valley of that
river—if a boom across the Fish River, and a station of a
small posse on the south side of the St. ohn's, at the mouth
of Fish River, are a disturbance of that settlement, which is
25 miles below, within the meaning of the agreement, it is
difficult to conceive that there are any limitations to the pre-
tensions of her Majesty's Government under it, or how the
State of Maine could exercise the preventive power with re-
gard to trespassers, which was, on her part, the great object
of the temporary arrangement. The movements of British
troops lately witnessed in the disputed territory, and the
erection of military works for their protection and accorno.
dation, of which authentic information, recently received at
the departments of state, has been communicated to Mr.
Fox, impart a still graver aspect to the matter immediately
under consideration. The fact of those military operations
established beyond a doubt, left unexplained or unsatis-
factorily accounted for by Mr. Fox's note of the 7th instant,
continues an abiding cause of complaint on the part of the
United States against her Majestys colonial agents, as incon-
sistent with arrangements whose main object was to divest a
question, already sufficiently perplexed and complicated,
from such embarrassments as those with which the proceed-
ings of the British authorities cannot fail to surround it.
If, as Mr. Fox must admit, the objects of the late agree-
ments were the removal of all military force and the preser-

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