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was settled that when reasonable grounds existed for sus- CHAP. pecting that the United States flag was used only as a pretence, the British cruiser might stop the vessel and demand production of the ship's papers, under the liability of making reparation for damage or delay, in the event of the vessel proving to be really American.1*

89.

about the

origin.

Scarcely was this delicate question in this manner satisfactorily adjusted than a fresh and still more serious cause Dispute of difference arose from the unsettled state of the Maine Maine bounfrontier. This arose from the ignorance which prevailed dary: Its on both sides when the treaty recognising the independence of the United States by Great Britain was concluded in 1783, in regard to the geography of the wild and uninhabited district which lay between Canada and the adjoining provinces of America, and the little importance

* "The undersigned renounces all pretension on the part of the British Government to visit and search American vessels in time of peace. Nor is it as American that such vessels are ever visited. But it has been the invariable practice of the British navy, and as the undersigned believes, of all the navies in the world, to ascertain by visit the real nationality of merchant vessels met with on the high seas. In certain latitudes, and for a particular object, the vessels referred to are visited, not as American but rather as British vessels engaged in an unlawful traffic, and carrying the flag of the United States for a criminal purpose, or as belonging to states which have by treaty ceded the right of search to Great Britain, and which right it is attempted to defeat by fraudulently bearing the protecting flag of the Union, or finally as piratical outlaws, professing no claim to flag or nationality whatever. Should the vessel visited prove American, the undersigned adds with pain that even though manacles, fetters, or instruments of torture, or even a number of slaves are found on board, the British officer could interfere no further."— LORD ABERDEEN to MR STEVENSON, Sept. 14, 1841; Ann. Reg. 1842, 310, 311. "To seize and detain," said the American President in reply, "a ship upon suspicion of piracy, with probable cause and in good faith, affords no just ground either for complaint on the part of the nation whose flag she bears, or claim of indemnity on the part of the owner. The universal law sanctions, and the common good requires, the existence of such a rule. The right under such circumstances not only to visit and detain, but to search a ship, is a perfect right, and involves neither responsibility nor indemnity. But with this single exception, no nation has a right in time of peace to detain the ships of another upon the high seas on any pretext whatever beyond the limits of the territorial jurisdiction. And such, I am happy to find, is substantially the doctrine of Great Britain herself in her most recent official declarations, and even in those communicated to the House. The declarations may well lead us to doubt whether the apparent difference between the two Governments be not one rather of defi nition than of principle.”—President's Message to Congress, February 27, 1843; Ann. Reg. 1843, p. 318.

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1843.

CHAP. then attached to a line of demarcation through forests, which it was not then anticipated could ever come to be of value to either State. By degrees, however, this once solitary and secluded region came to be settled by the adventurous pioneers of civilisation on either side, and it became of the highest importance to ascertain to which they really belonged. The difficulty arose from the words in the treaty of 1783, which said that the frontier would be "a ridge which divides the waters which flow into the St Lawrence from those which flow into the Atlantic." The Americans maintained that the Bay of Fundy was part of the Atlantic, and that the ridge here referred to was one running from the head of the St Croix northward to certain highlands, which in this way came to include the whole of the St John River. A map was referred to in this treaty, but it was not at first discovered, and the matter was referred to arbitration in 1794, with power to choose an oversman by lot, and the lot having fallen to the Americans, he determined in favour of the American line. A map was published by Mr Tudors in 1783 in London, which adopted the American line, and another two years after which took the British line; and what is very singular, it came out afterwards that there was one map in the possession of the British Government which took the American line, and another in the possession of the American which adopted the British. In these circumstances there was abundant room for doubt and dispute on both sides; and the diplomatists on neither can be accused of bad faith, because they did not produce the documents on either, which militated against the sides which they were respectively called on to espouse. But what seems to cast the balance in a decisive way in favour of the British line is the fact that there was discovered in the archives of the Foreign Office at Paris a letter by Dr Franklin, who concluded the treaty, to M. de Vergennes, then Minister of Foreign Affairs at Paris, in which he says, "I have traced what I take to be the line in Mr Oswald's treaty" (that of

1

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1783). A line was found in red ink in the map in pos- CHAP. session of the American Government, which coincided with that contended for by the British Government; and coupling this fact with the expression in Franklin's Lord letter, who drew the treaty and concluded it, there seems Parl. Deb. to be no doubt that this was the line intended on both 624. sides by its authors.1*

Brougham;

lxviii. 623,

90.

ings regard

pute.

However this matter may stand as to the original merits of the dispute, nothing can be clearer than that it Proceedhad become long after a fit subject of arbitration and ing the discompromise. The matter was referred, by mutual consent, to the King of Holland, and he gave an award, deciding two points in dispute in favour of the British, but not settling the third point, upon this ground, that there were not sufficient materials to determine what were "the highlands" mentioned in the treaty of 1783. Although this award brought the Americans much nearer the St Lawrence than was deemed consistent with the security of the British possessions in Canada, the British Government not only offered, but anxiously pressed, that the matter in dispute might be adjusted in terms of it; but the Americans refused to be bound by the award, alleging that the arbitrator was only empowered to decide in favour of one or other line, but not to divide the matter in dispute between them. Lord Palmerston, upon this, sent out two sets of commissioners,-one in 1839, to inquire into the merits of the line claimed by the British, and another in 1841, to do the same with that claimed by the Americans, and they both reported in favour of the British line. Matters were in this unsettled state, with the preponderance of evidence decidedly in favour of the

"The map of Franklin,” said Lord Campbell, “is, in my opinion, quite conclusive. If you assume that the map now known to be in existence was the map, as I believe it was, which was referred to in the letter of Dr Franklin, the negotiator of the treaty, to the Count de Vergennes, this was the very map on which the treaty was made, and after the production of that map before a jury of Englishmen, there would not be the slightest doubt as to what was the true boundary."-LORD CAMPBELL, Parl. Deb. lxviii. 663.

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CHAP. claim advanced by England, when Sir R. Peel came into power in October 1841. He was in no condition to assert the pretensions of his Government by force of arms. Two bad harvests, combined with an erroneous monetary system, had landed the nation in a deficiency of £4,000,000 yearly, including the cost of the Chinese and Affghanistan wars; and the naval and military establishments of the country, starved down to the very lowest point, were unable to meet any fresh requirements. Compromise was, therefore, to him not only recommended by prudence, but dictated by necessity, and he adopted the most effectual means for bringing it about. He selected Lord Ashburton for a pacific mission-a nobleman of distinguished talents and most conciliatory manners, and who, lately elevated to the peerage, was still the head of one of the greatest mercantile houses in the world, and intimately acquainted, both from business connections and extensive information, with the state of public feeling in America. Under such auspices, the matter was soon brought to a satisfactory issue. He left London in February 1842, and in August following concluded a treaty Parl. Deb. at Washington, which settled both the boundary question 1xvii. 1242. and the right of searching ships on the high seas in time

Aug. 9.

lxiii. 564,

91.

treaty, and

in Great

Britain.

of peace.

1

By this treaty, the Americans obtained about sevenTerms of the twelfths of the disputed territory, and the British only its reception five-twelfths. They got the British settlement of Madawaska, and the navigation of the river of St John, and their territory ran in a salient angle almost into the heart of Canada. On the other hand, they were farther removed from the St Lawrence than they had been by the King of Holland's award, and they were excluded from a series of heights, of importance in a military point of view, on the right or American side of that river. Upon the whole, the balance, both in point of extent and value of acquisition, was decidedly in favour of the Americans; and although there were many complaints, in the first

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instance, in the United States, yet, upon the whole, the CHAP. country was satisfied, and Lord Ashburton was splendidly fêted in his travels through it on his return home. The feeling in Great Britain was more mixed, and with many of a more painful description. All were agreed that it was a great blessing that peace had been preserved, and that the whole territory in dispute was not worth one half-year's cost of a war. But there were many who regretted the sacrifice, not so much of dominion as of character, by which the pacification had been purchased. It was asked whether such a treaty would have been agreed to in the days of Chatham and Pitt,-how a great nation was to preserve its position in the world, if it surrendered its possessions rather than draw the sword; and Lord Palmerston's happy sobriquet of "the Ashburton capitulation" expressed so completely the general feeling, that it has come to designate the treaty ever since it was concluded.

on it.

92.

But all this notwithstanding, there seems no doubt that Sir R. Peel and Lord Ashburton did right, situated Reflections as they were, in concluding the treaty. Granting all that Lord Palmerston said on the subject to be perfectly well founded, so far as the external character and influence of Great Britain were concerned, the question yet remained, whether, adverting to the internal situation of the country, it was then possible to have asserted the national honour in any more vigorous way. England had come, by pursuing the policy of looking only to the cheapest market for the purchase of the materials of its chief manufactures, to be dependent on the United States for five-sixths of the cottons which gave bread to the inhabitants of her chief manufacturing towns. She had established a system of currency which had rendered general credit and commercial industry of every kind entirely dependent on the retention of gold, and, in consequence of its large export, to buy grain during the five preceding bad years, the whole commercial and manufacturing classes had come