ntic Ocean; that the joint surveys and explorations made under that
commission place the hill about a mile due west of that line; and that
the agent of His Britannic Majesty before the commissioners, so far from
intimating any doubt on the point, made it one ground of argument that
the true line, when correctly laid down, would necessarily, on account
of the ascertained progressive westerly variation of the needle, fall
still farther westward.

The undersigned can not acquiesce in the supposition that, because the
agent of His Britannic Majesty thought proper in the proceedings before
the commissioners to lay claim to all that portion of the State of
Maine which lies north of a line running westerly from Mars Hill, and
designated as the limit or boundary of the British claim, thereby the
United States or the State of Maine ceased to have jurisdiction in the
territory thus claimed. In the view of this Government His Britannic
Majesty's agent might with equal justice have extended his claim to any
other undisputed part of the State as to claim the portion of it which
he has drawn in question, and in such case the lieutenant-governor of
New Brunswick could surely not have considered a continuance on the
part of the United States and of the State of Maine to exercise their
accustomed jurisdiction and authority to be an encroachment. If so,
in what light are we to regard the continued acts of jurisdiction now
exercised by him in the Madawaska settlement? More than twenty years ago
large tracts of land lying westward of Mars Hill, and northward on the
river Restook, were granted by the State of Massachusetts, which tracts
are held and possessed under those grants to this day, and the United
States and the States of Massachusetts and Maine, in succession, have
never ceased to exercise that jurisdiction which the unsettled condition
of the country in that region and other circumstances admitted and
required.

The undersigned, therefore, can not discover in the facts and
circumstances of the case any just principles upon which Sir Howard
Douglas could predicate his protest. He has, however, submitted the note
which he had the honor to receive from Mr. Vaughan to the President of
the United States, and is by him directed to say in reply that although
this Government could feel no difficulty in the exercise of what it
deems an unquestionable right, and could not allow itself to be
restrained by the protest of the lieutenant-gover