d of the
Lake of the Woods and to the Mississippi River in the west, and in the
north from Canada to the Floridas in the south, the latter having again
become Spanish possessions. The boundary between Nova Scotia and the
Republic was so ill-defined that it took half a century to fix the St.
Croix and the Highlands which were by the treaty to divide the two
countries. In the far west the line of division was to be drawn
through the Lake of the Woods "to the most northwestern point thereof,
and from thence on a due west course to the River Mississippi"--a
physical impossibility, since the head of the Mississippi, as was
afterwards found, was a hundred miles or so to the south. In later
times this geographical error was corrected, and the curious distortion
of the boundary line that now appears on the maps was necessary at the
Lake of the Woods in order to strike the forty-ninth parallel of north
latitude, which was subsequently arranged as the boundary line as far
as the Rocky Mountains. Of the difficulties that arose from the
eastern boundary line I shall speak later.

From 1778 until 1783 the government of Canada was under the direction
of General Haldimand, who possessed that decision of character
absolutely essential at so critical a period of Canadian history. The
Congress of the States had never despaired of obtaining the assistance
of the French Canadians, and of {290} bringing the country into the new
republic. Haldimand had to arrest Du Calvet, Mesplet, and Jotard, as
leaders in a seditious movement against England. Fleury Mesplet put up
in Montreal the first printing-press, which gave him and his friends
superior facilities for circulating dangerous appeals to the restless
element of the population. Du Calvet was a French Protestant, in
active sympathy with Congress, and had a violent controversy with
Haldimand, who was, at last, forced to take severe measures against
him. While on his way to England he was drowned, and the country
spared more of his dangerous influence. Jotard, a French attorney, was
a contributor to a paper owned by Mesplet, and a warm sympathiser with
the efforts of Admiral D'Estaing and General Lafayette to win back the
allegiance of the French Canadians. The appeals of these two
distinguished men to the memories of the old subjects of France had no
immediate effect except upon a very small class, although it might have
been different had French troops made their appearance on the