u will perceive that the election of
town officers in the settlement of Madawaska, of which complaint was
made in the papers inclosed in your letter, was made under color of
a general law, which was not intended by either the executive or
legislative authority of that State to be executed in that settlement,
and that the whole was the work of inconsiderate individuals.

By the second extract it will appear that the individuals said to have
been most prominent in setting up the authority of the State have been
arrested by order of the lieutenant-governor of the Province of New
Brunswick, and were on their way to be imprisoned at Frederickton.

The innovation on the existing state of things in the disputed
territory being distinctly disavowed by the executive authority of the
State, no act of authority or exercise of jurisdiction having followed
the election, I would respectfully suggest the propriety of your
recommending to the lieutenant-governor of New Brunswick the release of
the prisoners who were arrested for exercising this act of authority
in the territory mutually claimed by the two nations, contrary to the
understanding between their Governments. It is their avowed object to
avoid any collision until the intention of both parties in relation
to the award shall be fully known. All subjects calculated to produce
irritation, therefore, ought evidently to be avoided. The arrest of the
persons concerned in the election must produce that feeling in a high
degree. A conviction can not take place without eliciting a decision
from the bench declaratory of and enforcing the jurisdiction over the
territory in dispute, which it is the present policy of both powers to
avoid, at least for the short time that must elapse before the question
can be finally settled. If punishment should follow conviction, the
passions that would be excited must inevitably be hostile to that spirit
of conciliation so necessary where sacrifices of national feeling and
individual interest are required for the common good. It would be absurd
here to enter into the question of title. Both parties claim it. No act
that either can do is necessary to assist its right while there is hope
of an amicable arrangement; and it was with this view of the subject
that a mutual understanding has been had to leave things in the state
in which they are until the question of the award is settled.

On the part of the Americans some individuals, in contravention of t