13th instant, in
reference to the boundary negotiation and the affairs of the disputed
territory. The information given in the closing part of it--that a reply
to the last proposition of the United States upon the subject of the
boundary may be expected in a short time--is highly gratifying to the
President, who has, however, given directions to the undersigned, in
making this acknowledgment, to accompany it with the expression of his
profound regret that Mr. Fox's note is in no other respect satisfactory.

After the arrangements which in the beginning of last year were
entered into on the part of the two Governments with regard to the
occupation of the disputed territory, the President had indulged the
hope that the causes of irritation which had grown out of this branch
of the subject could have been removed. Relying on the disposition of
Maine to cooperate with the Federal Government in all that could lead
to a pacific adjustment of the principal question, the President felt
confident that his determination to maintain order and peace on the
border would be fully carried out. He looked upon all apprehensions of
designs by the people of Maine to take possession of the territory as
without adequate foundation, deeming it improbable that on the eve of
an amicable adjustment of the question any portion of the American
people would without cause and without object jeopard the success of
the negotiation and endanger the peace of the country. A troublesome,
irritating, and comparatively unimportant, because subordinate, subject
being thus disposed of, the President hoped that the parties would be
left free at once to discuss and finally adjust the principal question.
In this he has been disappointed. While the proceedings of Her Majesty's
Government at home have been attended with unlooked-for delays, its
attention has been diverted from the great subject in controversy by
repeated complaints imputing to a portion of the people of the United
States designs to violate the engagements of their Government--designs
which have never been entertained, and which Mr. Fox knows would receive
no countenance from this Government.

It is to be regretted that at this late hour so much misapprehension
still exists on the side of the British Government as to the object and
obvious meaning of the existing arrangements respecting the disputed
territory. The ill success which appears to have attended the efforts
made by the undersigned to c