of the questions of right and
jurisdiction, which he still intends doing, it will not be needful to do
more on this occasion than express to his lordship the painful surprise
and regret with which the President has received information of this
second outrage on the part of the authorities of New Brunswick, and
to repeat the assurances heretofore given that such proceeding can
be regarded in no other light than a violation of the rights and
sovereignty of the United States, and entirely irreconcilable with that
mutual forbearance which it was understood would be practiced by both
Governments pending the negotiation.

The circumstances under which these recent attempts to enforce
jurisdiction have been made show that in the most favorable aspect in
which they can be regarded they were wholly indefensible.

The act for which Greely was arrested and imprisoned, so far from having
been committed within the acknowledged dominions of the British Crown,
and beyond the limits of the disputed territory, and therefore liable
to be treated as a violation of territorial jurisdiction, took place,
as appears by the statement of the governor of Maine, whilst he was
employed within the limits of that State, and under its authority,
in enumerating the inhabitants of the county of Penobscot.

By what authority, then, the provincial government of New Brunswick
felt itself justified in exercising such acts of sovereign power the
undersigned is at a loss to conceive, unless, indeed, upon the ground
that the jurisdiction and sovereignty over the disputed territory
pending the controversy rests exclusively with Great Britain. If such
should turn out to be the fact, it can hardly be necessary again to
repeat the assurances which have been heretofore given that in any such
claim of power the Government of the United States can not acquiesce.

Upon the consequences which would unavoidably result from attempting to
exercise such jurisdiction it is needless to enlarge. It must now be
apparent that all such attempts, if persevered in, can produce only
feuds and collisions of the most painful character, and besides
increasing the feelings of international discord which have already been
excited between the contending parties, they will close every avenue to
an amicable adjustment of a controversy which it is so much the desire
and interest of both Governments to accomplish. Ought it not, then, to
be the earnest endeavor of the two Governments to