The United States Government has replied that to such an arrangement it
has no power to agree; that until the line of the treaty shall have been
otherwise determined the State of Maine will continue to assume that the
line which it claims is the true line of 1783, and will assert that all
the land up to that line is territory of Maine; that consequently such a
division of the disputed territory as is proposed by Great Britain would
be considered by Maine as tantamount to a cession of what that State
regards as a part of its own territory, and that the Federal Government
has no power to agree to such an arrangement without the consent of the
State concerned.
Her Majesty's Government exceedingly regrets that such an obstacle
should exist to prevent that settlement which under all the
circumstances of the case appears to be the simplest, the readiest,
the most satisfactory, and the most just. Nor can Her Majesty's
Government admit that the objection of the State of Maine is well
founded, for the principle on which that objection rests is as good
for Great Britain as it is for Maine.
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