Be this as it may, certain it is, as
anyone will see, that no possible route can be devised which will not
cross the territory in question. It is, then, a deliberate act of power,
palpable and direct, claiming and exercising sovereignty far south even
of the line recommended by the King of the Netherlands.
In all our inquiries and examinations of this subject there has been
great negligence in regard to this northwest angle. Judge Benson, one of
the commissioners under Jay's treaty, in a letter to the President of
the United States expressly and clearly defines this angle. He states
distinctly that the due north line from the source of the St. Croix is
_the west-side line_, and the highlands are _the north-side line_ which
form this angle, and this had never been questioned by the British
themselves.
This due north line, viz, the west-side line, was established by the
commission of which Judge Benson was a member, and the British have made
the north side line to be north of the Bay de Chaleurs, and yet with
these postulates to pretend that the points of intersection can not be
found is one of the greatest of their absurdities; and another absurdity
quite equal is that after passing west along the north shore of this
bay they would fall down nearly south more than 100 miles to Mars Hill,
about 60 miles from the south shore of the Province, at the Bay of
Passamaquoddy, which is part of the Bay of Fundy, and this point, too,
of so little inclination that it is a palpable perversion of language
to call it _an angle_, much more a northwest angle.
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