Quebec, with Nova Scotia and New
Brunswick, and made provisions for the coming in of the other provinces
of Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, British Columbia, and the
admission of Rupert's Land and the great Northwest.

From 1840 to 1867 the relations of Canada and the United States became
much closer, and more than once assumed a dangerous phase. In 1840 the
authorities of New York arrested one Macleod on the charge of having
murdered a man employed in the _Caroline_, when she was seized by the
loyalists during the outbreak of 1837. The matter gave rise to much
correspondence between the governments of Great Britain and the United
States, and to a great deal of irritation in Canada, but happily for
the peace of the two countries the courts acquitted Macleod, as the
evidence was clear he had {375} nothing to do with the seizure of the
vessel. In 1842 the question of the boundary between Maine and New
Brunswick was settled by what is generally known in Canada as "the
Ashburton Capitulation." As a result of the settlement made by Mr.
Daniel Webster on the part of the United States, and of Mr. Alexander
Baring, afterwards Lord Ashburton, on behalf of Great Britain, the
State of Maine now presses like a huge wedge into the provinces of New
Brunswick and Quebec, and a Canadian railway is obliged to pass over
American territory, which many Canadians still believe ought to be a
part of the Canadian Dominion. In 1846 Great Britain yielded to the
persistency of American statesmen, and agreed to accept the line 49
degrees to the Pacific coast, and the whole of Vancouver Island, which,
for a while, seemed on the point of following the fate of Oregon, and
becoming exclusively American territory. But the question of boundary
was not even then settled, as the Island of San Juan, which lies in the
channel between Vancouver and the mainland, and is mainly valuable as a
base of offensive and defensive operations in times of war, was, in
later years, handed over to the Republic as a result of its successful
diplomacy.

During this period the fishery question again assumed considerable
importance. American vessels were shut out from the waters of certain
colonial bays, in accordance with the convention of 1818, and a number
of them captured from time to time for the infringement of the law.
The United States Government attempted to raise issues which would
{376} limit Canadian rights, but all these questions were placed in
ab