justly have been expected, very deep
excitement in Maine, was followed by an immediate appeal from the
governor of that State to the Government of the United States for
intervention and redress.

This application on the part of Maine having received the special
consideration of the President, the undersigned has been instructed
to lose no time in presenting the subject to the early and earnest
attention of Her Majesty's Government, and demanding not only the
immediate liberation of Mr. Greely from imprisonment, but indemnity
for the injuries that he has sustained.

In fulfilling these instructions of his Government it is not the
purpose of the undersigned to open the general discussion of the
respective claims of Great Britain and the United States to the disputed
territory (within which Mr. Greely was arrested), or the right of either
Government to exercise jurisdiction within its limits. Whatever opinion
the undersigned may entertain as to the rightful claim of the State of
Maine to the territory in dispute, and however unanswerable he may
regard the arguments by which the claim may be sustained, he deems
it neither proper nor needful to urge them upon the consideration of
Her Majesty's Government in the decision of the present case; more
especially as the whole subject is elsewhere, and in another form,
matter of negotiation between the two Governments, where the discussion
of the question of right more appropriately belongs. The undersigned,
moreover, does not presume that pending the negotiation, and whilst
efforts are making for the peaceable and final adjustment of these
delicate and exciting questions, Her Majesty's Government can claim
the right of exclusive jurisdiction and sovereignty over the disputed
territory or the persons residing within its limits. In such a claim of
power on the part of Great Britain or its provincial authorities, the
undersigned need not repeat to Lord Palmerston (what he is already fully
apprised of) the Government of the United States can never consent to
acquiesce in the existing state of the controversy. On the contrary,
the mutual understanding which exists between the two Governments on
the subject and the moderation which both Governments have heretofore
manifested forbid the exercise by either of such high acts of sovereign
power as that which has been exerted in the present case by the
authorities of Her Majesty's provincial government.

The undersigned must therefore sup