Three commissioners were appointed
shortly after the adjournment of Congress under the act of the last
session providing for the exploration and survey of the line which
separates the States of Maine and New Hampshire from the British
Provinces. They have been actively employed until their progress was
interrupted by the inclemency of the season, and will resume their
labors as soon as practicable in the ensuing year.
It is understood that their respective examinations will throw new light
upon the subject in controversy and serve to remove any erroneous
impressions which may have been made elsewhere prejudicial to the rights
of the United States. It was, among other reasons, with a view of
preventing the embarrassments which in our peculiar system of government
impede and complicate negotiations involving the territorial rights of a
State that I thought it my duty, as you have been informed on a previous
occasion, to propose to the British Government, through its minister at
Washington, that early steps should be taken to adjust the points of
difference on the line of boundary from the entrance of Lake Superior to
the most northwestern point of the Lake of the Woods by the arbitration
of a friendly power in conformity with the seventh article of the treaty
of Ghent.
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