MAINE BOUNDARY. (Hansard, 1 May 1840)

§ Lord J. Russell

said, I have some doubt how far it is consistent with my duty to answer the question which the hon. Gentleman has just put to me, but as there is considerable anxiety, and as papers upon the subject have been published in the United States, I think it would be desirable to give a general outline of the case as it at present stands between the United States and this country relative to the Maine boundary. The House will recol- 1152 lect that I stated on a former occasion that there were two very distinct questions to be determined, the one the general question of the boundary, arising out of the treaty of 1783 and the treaty of Ghent, and the other the interpretation of the agreement for the sake of preserving jurisdiction and possession undisturbed by the two parties, made in the course of the spring of 1839. With respect to the former part of the subject, a proposition was made by my noble Friend, the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, in the name of the Government, last year, and the reply to that was a counter proposition of a totally different nature made by the Government of the United States. At the same time commissioners were appointed by the Government of Great Britain, who surveyed a part of the disputed territory, and arrived in this country in January last. Their report was received only a few days ago; it contains matter of very considerable importance, and is now under the consideration of the Government, and an answer will be immediately returned to the last proposition made by the Government of the United States, informing it how far we can fall in with the proposition it has made with the view of bringing this, which is the great question at issue, to an amicable and conclusive termination. That is the only answer I can give at present upon that branch of the subject. With respect to the question relating to the provisional agreement of last year, it is unfortunate that it is upon that question, and almost entirely upon that question, that the recent difficulties have arisen. It is certainly most unfortunate that there should have been this disagreement, not only upon the general question, but also upon the agreements entered into between Sir J. Harvey and General Scott. I think it necessary to inform the House of one or two points upon which both the governor of New Brunswick and the Governor-general of North America, as also the Commander of the Forces, thought the spirit of that agreement was not fulfilled on the part of the American Government. The agreement proposed by General Scott, and agreed to by the governor of Maine, was, that Great Britain should continue for the present to hold the valley of Upper St. John, and Maine that of the Aroostook, without it being conceded that the right was in either. The agreement was in these words:— 1153 And that he is willing in the mean time, to leave the questions of possession and jurisdiction as they at present stand; that is, Great Britain holding, in fact, possession of a part of the said territory, and the government of Maine denying her right to such possession; and the state of Maine holding, in fact, possession of another portion of the same territory, to which her right is denied by Great Britain. This agreement was proposed by General Scott on the 21st of March; it was agreed to by Sir J. Harvey on the 23rd of March, and by Governor Fairfield on the 25th. Sir J. Harvey, in his despatch to Lord Glenelg, stated these facts to the Government of Great Britain, and his statement was borne out by the following words of General Scott, in a letter addressed to Sir John Harvey on the 21st of March:— Although under circumstances he cannot stipulate upon the subject, I am certain that he does not intend to send any part of such posse beyond the waters of the Aroostook River; and that it is his intention so to employ his people in guarding the timber as to be but little observed, and to give the least possible irritation to the people of New Brunswick. Sir John Harvey, in a subsequent instruction to the warden of the disputed territory, said, My understanding of this agreement—that of the people of this province, and I will venture unhesitatingly to say, that of General Scott—was, that there should be a complete pause in the movements on either side, and that things should remain as they then stood, by the armed civil posse of Maine retaining possession of the valley of the Aroostook, we denying their right to that portion of the country, and we retaining possession of the valley of the Upper St. John, Maine denying our right to hold it. That such was the true spirit of the agreement, there would be no difficulty on my part in establishing to the entire satisfaction and conviction of every impartial person. Such having been the understanding of Sir John Harvey, and such being the representations he made to Lord Glenelg, the Government of this country expressed its approbation of the agreement he had made. It afterwards appeared, late in the autumn, that the persons belonging to this civil posse of Maine had advanced into the valley of Upper St. John, and had established themselves in a position where the Fish River falls into the St. John, called the mouth or confluence of the St. John 1154 and the Fish River. But with regard to what was done by the people of Maine, there was no better authority than the message of the Governor of the State of Maine, in which he said— In addition to the labour expended in furnishing tolerably substantial fortifications erected upon the Aroostook, with two large block-houses, and similar buildings at the mouth of Fish River, they have made over one hundred miles of road through the heart of the wilderness. Now, it appears that one of these blockhouses in the valley of Upper St. John, was occupied by between twenty and thirty men, armed with guns and a field-piece, which they fired off in token of taking possession. In consequence of these proceedings there were remonstrances made by Mr. Fox to the government of the United States, and it not appearing that there was likely to be any effectual check put to those proceedings, the governor of the British North American provinces, in connexion with the commander of the forces, has advanced two companies of infantry to a place certainly within the disputed boundary. In the representations made on the part of the United States, there certainly must have been some oversight on the part of the governor of Maine, in his communications to the secretary of state for the United States, in not adverting to that part of the agreement which I have read, but merely referring to another part of the agreement, in which it was stated that they had done nothing to disturb the Madawaska settlement. They confined the limits of the Madawaska settlement within a very restricted boundary, while we contend that it extends to the Fish river. This is another part of the agreement. The ambiguity of the term "Madawaska settlement" had occasioned a disagreement as to the construction of the original words, made use of in the agreement between the governor of New Brunswick and the governor of the State of Maine. However, according to the last accounts received from that country, it does not appear that Maine entertains any intention of going beyond what she has hitherto done. I have been given to understand that such is the opinion entertained on this subject by those on the spot, and I believe that it is also the opinion of the governor of New Brunswick, that the two parties will remain in their present position, and that 1155 there is, I will not say no possibility, but certainly no probability, of any collision taking place between the adverse parties. Such being the state of affairs, it appeared to me to be my duty to write to the governor of British America, and to the commander of the forces in that country, to state my opinion that it would be exceedingly desirable, if any ambiguity existed in the instrument agreed upon between the governor of New Brunswick and the governor of Maine, in order to avoid any chance of collision between the adverse parties, that the exact geographical position at present occupied by each party should be distinctly ascertained, and made the foundation of a fresh agreement. Governor Thomson coincided with me in opinion on this point, and in obedience to my wishes he sent to the American government to make such a proposal, adding, which is a matter of great importance, and of which I entirely approve, a proposition that commissioners should be appointed on each side, to see that such agreement should be fairly carried into effect. Such is an outline of the state of affairs at present between the two countries. No doubt it implies, that differences of an unpleasant nature have occurred between the two countries on this question of the boundary, hut when I consider how much both countries are interested in the preservation of peace, the great responsibility that will be incurred by whichever country shall have unnecessarily recourse to hostilities, I trust and believe that peace will not be interrupted, but that the whole will end in a formal and amicable settlement of all existing differences.