It is impossible to imagine such ignorance of
so important a point as this northwest angle, so often referred to and
spoken of as a notorious monument.
The peace of 1783 was considered by Great Britain as _a grant by metes
and bounds_. The boundaries were prescribed, and this northwest angle
was _the commencement_. Twenty years only before this (1763) Nova Scotia
had been organized as a distinct Province, then including what are now
Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and this angle was referred to as a
boundary without hesitancy or doubt. Indeed, the treaty itself, as if
to make assurance doubly sure, fixed it where a due north line from the
source of the St. Croix will intersect those highlands which divide
the rivers which flow into the _river_ St. Lawrence from those which
flow into the Atlantic Ocean. This source of the St. Croix has been
determined and a monument fixed there by the commissioners under the
fifth article of the treaty of 1795 (Jay's). Now the assumption that the
north line from this monument will intersect or meet no such highlands
is entirely gratuitous.
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