the right to bring the convention to a
termination by a previous notice of six months. This agreement is still
regarded by Great Britain and the United States to be in existence,
since Mr. Secretary Seward formally withdrew the notice which was given
for its abrogation in 1864, when the civil war was in progress and the
relations between the two nations were considerably strained at times.

The next international complication arose out of the seizure of the
steamer _Caroline_, which was engaged in 1837 in carrying munitions of
war between the United States and Navy Island, then occupied by a number
of persons in the service of Mr. Mackenzie and other Canadian rebels. In
1840 the authorities of New York arrested one Macleod on the charge of
having murdered a man who was employed on the _Caroline_. The
Washington government for some time evaded the whole question by
throwing the responsibility on the state authorities and declaring that
they could not interfere with a matter which was then within the
jurisdiction of the state courts. The matter gave rise to much
correspondence between the two governments, but happily for the peace of
the two countries the American courts acquitted Macleod, as the evidence
was clear that he had had nothing to do with the actual seizing of the
_Caroline_; and the authorities at Washington soon afterwards
acknowledged their responsibility in such affairs by passing an act
directing that subjects of foreign powers, if taken into custody for
acts done or committed under the authority of their own government, "the
validity or effect whereof depends upon the law of nations, should be
discharged." The dissatisfaction that had arisen in the United States on
account of the cutting out of the _Caroline_ was removed in 1842, when
Sir Robert Peel expressed regret that "some explanation and apology for
the occurrence had not been previously made," and declared that it was
"the opinion of candid and honourable men that the British officers who
executed this transaction, and their government who approved it,
intended no insult or disrespect to the sovereign authority of the
United States[9]."

[9: Hall's _Treatise on International Law_ (3rd ed.), pp. 311--313]

In the course of time the question of the disputed boundary between
Maine and New Brunswick assumed grave proportions. By the treaty of
1783, the boundary was to be a line drawn from the source of the St.
Croix, directly north to the highlands "