perpendicular and the shore of the St. Lawrence from
the Chaudiere to the Metis the base. It contains about 16,000 square
miles. It would have been a perversion of language in Mr. Mauduit to
describe this to his employers as a narrow tract. But the space whose
cession he really intended to advise is in every sense a narrow tract,
for its length along the St. Lawrence is about 200 miles, and its
average breadth to the sources of the streams 30. It contains 6,000
square miles, and is described by him in a manner that leaves no
question as to its extent being "watered by streams" which "run into the
St. Lawrence." It therefore did not include any country watered by
streams which run into the St. John.

It is believed that this is the first instance in which the term
_narrow_ has ever been applied to a triangle almost right angled and
nearly isosceles, and it is not a little remarkable that this very
expression was relied upon in the statement to the King of the
Netherlands as one of the strongest proofs of the justice of the
American claim.

Admitting, however, for the sake of argument, that the Crown did demand
this territory, and that the mere advice of an agent without powers was
binding on Massachusetts, the fact would have no direct bearing upon the
point under consideration. The relinquishment by Massachusetts of the
whole of the territory west of the meridian of the St. Croix would not
have changed the position of the northwest angle of Nova Scotia, nor the
title of the United States collectively under the treaty of 1783 to a
boundary to be drawn from that angle, however it might have affected the
right of property of that State to the lands within it.

And here it is to be remarked that the Government of the United States
is two-fold--that of the individual States and that of the Federal
Union. It would be possible, therefore, that all right of property in
unseated lands within a State's jurisdiction might be in the General
Government, and this is in fact the case in all the new States. Even had
Massachusetts divested herself of the title (which she has not) the
treaty of 1783 would have vested it in the Confederation. She had at
least a color of title, under which the Confederation claimed to the
boundaries of Nova Scotia on the east and to the southern limits of the
Province of Quebec on the north, and this claim was allowed by Great
Britain in the treaty of 1783 in terms which are at least admitted to be
ide