satisfactorily
settled; that of the two modes proposed in which such a commission might
be constituted Her Majesty's Government thought the first, viz, that it
might consist of commissioners named in equal numbers by each of the two
Governments, with an umpire to be selected by some friendly European
power, would be the best, but suggested that it might be better that the
umpire should be selected by the members of the commission themselves
rather than that the two Governments should apply to a third power
to make such a choice; that the object of this commission should be
to explore the disputed territory in order to find within its limits
dividing highlands which might answer the description of the treaty, the
search to be made in a north and northwest line from the monument at
the head of the St. Croix; and that Her Majesty's Government had given
their opinion that the commissioners should be instructed to look for
highlands which both parties might acknowledge as fulfilling the
conditions of the treaty.

In answer to the inquiry how the report of the commission would,
according to the views of Her Majesty's Government, be likely when
rendered to lead to an ultimate settlement of the boundary question,
Mr. Fox observed that since the proposal for the appointment of a
commission originated with the Government of the United States, it
was rather for that Government than the Government of Great Britain to
answer this question. Her Majesty's Government had already stated they
had little expectation that such a commission could lead to any useful
result, etc., but that Her Majesty's Government, in the first place,
conceived that it was meant by the Government of the United States that
if the commission should discover highlands answering to the description
of the treaty a connecting line from them to the head of the St. Croix
should be deemed to be a portion of the boundary between the two
countries. Mr. Fox further referred the Secretary to the previous notes
of Mr. McLane on the subject, in which it was contemplated as one of
the possible results of the proposed commission that such additional
information might be obtained of the features of the country as might
remove all doubt as to the impracticability of laying down a boundary
in accordance with the letter of the treaty. Mr. Fox said that if
the investigations of the commission should show that there was no
reasonable prospect of finding the line described in the tr