the part of the United States.

With regard to the second position assumed by Mr. Fox--that the advance
of the Maine posse along the valley of the Restook to the mouth of Fish
River and into the valley of the Upper St. John is at variance with the
terms and spirit of the agreements--the undersigned must observe that if
at variance with any of their provisions it could only be with those
which secure Her Majesty's Province of New Brunswick against any attempt
to disturb the possession of the Madawaska settlements and to interrupt
the usual communications between New Brunswick and the upper Provinces.
The agreement could only have reference to the Madawaska settlements as
confined within their actual limits at the time it was subscribed. The
undersigned in his note of the 24th of December last stated the reasons
why the mouth of Fish River and the portion of the valley of the St.
John through which it passes could in no proper sense be considered as
embraced in the Madawaska settlements. Were the United States to admit
the pretension set up on the part of Great Britain to give to the
Madawaska settlements a degree of constructive extension that might at
this time suit the purposes of Her Majesty's colonial authorities, those
settlements might soon be made with like justice to embrace any portions
of the disputed territory, and the right given to the Province of New
Brunswick to occupy them temporarily and for a special purpose might
by inference quite as plausible give the jurisdiction exercised by Her
Majesty's authorities an extent which would render the present state
of the question, so long as it could be maintained, equivalent to a
decision on the merits of the whole controversy in favor of Great
Britain. If the small settlement at Madawaska on the north side of the
St. John means the whole valley of that river, if a boom across the Fish
River and a station of a small posse on the south side of the St. John
at the mouth of Fish River is a disturbance of that settlement, which
is 25 miles below, within the meaning of the agreement, it is difficult
to conceive that there are any limitations to the pretensions of Her
Majesty's Government under it or how the State of Maine could exercise
the preventive power with regard to trespassers, which was on her part
the great object of the temporary arrangement. The movements of British
troops lately witnessed in the disputed territory and the erection
of military works for their