which divide the rivers which
fall into the Atlantic ocean from those which fall into the river St.
Lawrence;" thence along the said highlands to the north-easternmost head
of the Connecticut River; and the point at which the due north line was
to cut the highlands was also designated as the north-west angle of Nova
Scotia. The whole question was the subject of several commissions, and
of one arbitration, from 1783 until 1842, when it was finally settled.
Its history appears to be that of a series of blunders on the part of
England from the beginning to the end. The first blunder occurred in
1796 when the commissioners appointed to inquire into the question,
declared that the Schoodic was the River St. Croix mentioned in the
treaty. Instead, however, of following the main, or western, branch of
the Schoodic to its source in the Schoodic Lakes, they went beyond
their instructions and chose a northern tributary of the river, the
Chiputnaticook, as the boundary, and actually placed a monument at its
head as a basis for any future proceeding on the part of the two
governments. The British government appear to have been very anxious at
this time to settle the question, for they did not take exception to the
arrangement made by the commissioners, but in 1798 declared the decision
binding on both countries.

Still this mistake might have been rectified had the British government
in 1835 been sufficiently alive to British interests in America to have
accepted a proposal made to them by President Jackson to ascertain the
true north-western angle of Nova Scotia, or the exact position of the
highlands, in accordance with certain well-understood rules in practical
surveying which have been always considered obligatory in that
continent. It was proposed by the United States to discard the due north
line, to seek to the west of that line the undisputed highlands that
divide the rivers which empty themselves into the River St. Lawrence
from those which fall into the Atlantic Ocean, to find the point in the
'watershed' of these highlands nearest to the north line, and to trace a
direct course from it to the monument already established. "If this
principle had been adopted," says Sir Sandford Fleming, the eminent
Canadian engineer, "a straight line would have been drawn from the
monument at the head of the Chiputnaticook to a point which could have
been established with precision in the 'watershed' of the highlands
which separate the so