Lawrence; that these
highlands should be sought for in a north or northwest direction from
the source of the St. Croix, and that a straight line to be drawn from
the monument at the head of that river to those highlands should be
considered, so far as it extends, as a part of the boundary in question.
The commissioners were then to designate the course of the line along
the highlands and to fix on the northwesternmost head of the Connecticut
River.
In a note of 31st May the British minister suggested that this perplexed
and hitherto interminable question could only be set at rest by an
abandonment of the defective description of boundary contained in the
treaty, by the two Governments mutually agreeing upon a conventional
line more convenient to both parties than those insisted upon by the
commissioners under the fifth article of the treaty of Ghent, or that
suggested by the King of the Netherlands.
Mr. McLane remarked in reply (June 5) that the embarrassments in tracing
the treaty boundary had arisen more from the principles assumed and
from the manner of seeking for it than from any real defect in the
description when properly understood; that in the present state of the
business the suggestion of Sir Charles R.
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