ounced and remonstrated against by
the undersigned in his official note of the 2d of last November still
carried on and persisted in by armed bands employed by the authorities
of Maine in the districts above the Aroostook and Fish rivers, but that
acts, as above stated, of a character yet more violent and obnoxious to
the rights of Great Britain and more dangerous to the preservation of
the general peace are with certainty meditated by the inhabitants of
that State. The existence of such designs has for months past been
a matter of notoriety by public report. Those designs were plainly
indicated in the recent message of the governor of Maine to the
legislature of the State, and they are avowed in more explicit terms
in the letter addressed to the President of the United States by the
governor of Maine on the 21st of November, which letter has within
the last few days been communicated to Congress and published.

The undersigned, it is true, has been assured by the Secretary of State,
in his note of the 16th instant, that the General Government see no
reason to doubt the disposition of the governor of Maine to adhere to
the existing arrangements and to avoid all acts tending to render more
difficult and distant the final adjustment of the boundary question;
but in face of the above clear indications of the intentions of Maine as
given out by the parties themselves the Secretary of State has not given
to the undersigned any adequate assurance that Maine will be constrained
to desist from carrying those intentions into effect if, contrary to the
expectation of the General Government, the legislature or the executive
of the State should think fit to make the attempt.

The undersigned not only preserves the hope, but he entertains the
firm belief, that if the duty of negotiating the boundary question be
left in the hands of the two national Governments, to whom alone of
right it belongs, the difficulty of conducting the negotiation to an
amicable issue will not be found so great as has been by many persons
apprehended. But the case will become wholly altered if the people
of the State of Maine, who, though interested in the result, are not
charged with the negotiation, shall attempt to interrupt it by violence.

Her Majesty's authorities in North America have on their part no desire
or intention to interfere with the course of the pending negotiation by
an exertion of military force, but they will, as at present advised,
c