The suggestion was submitted in the
hope that the preponderating importance of terminating at once and
forever this controversy by establishing an unchangeable and definite
and indisputable boundary would be seen and acknowledged by Her
Majesty's Government, and have a correspondent weight in influencing its
decision. That the advantages of substituting a river for a highland
boundary could not fail to be recognized was apparent from the fact that
Mr. Bankhead's note of 28th December, 1835, suggested the river St. John
from the point in which it is intersected by a due north line drawn from
the monument at the head of the St. Croix to the southernmost source of
that river as a part of the general outline of a conventional boundary.
No difficulty was anticipated on the part of Her Majesty's Government in
understanding the grounds upon which such a proposal was expected to be
entertained by it, since the precedent proposition of Mr. Bankhead, just
adverted to, although professedly based on the principle of an equal
division between the parties, could not be justified by it, as it would
have given nearly two-thirds of the disputed territory to Her Majesty's
Government.
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