ntical in meaning with those of the proclamation creating the latter
Province.[51]

[Footnote 51: Report of Messrs. Featherstonhaugh and Mudge, p. 6.]

To illustrate the subject further:

Of the seventeen British colonies in North America, thirteen succeeded
in asserting their independence; the two Floridas were conquered and
ceded to Spain; while of her magnificent American domain only Quebec and
Nova Scotia were left to Great Britain. The thirteen colonies, now
independent States, claimed all that part of the continent to the
eastward of the Mississippi and north of the bounds of Florida which was
not contained within the limits of the last-named colonies, and this
claim was fully admitted by the boundary agreed to in the treaty of
1783. Within the limits thus assigned it was well known that there were
conflicting claims to parts which had more than once been covered by
royal charters; it was even possible that there were portions of the
wide territory the right to which was asserted by the United States and
admitted by Great Britain that had not been covered by any royal grant;
but the jurisdiction in respect to disputed rights and the title to land
not conveyed forever ceased to be in the British Crown--first by a
successful assertion of independence in arms, and finally by the
positive terms of a solemn treaty.

If it should be admitted, for argument's sake, that the claim of
Massachusetts, as inherited by the State of Maine, to the disputed
territory is unfounded, it is a circumstance that can not enter into
a discussion between Great Britain and the United States of America.
Massachusetts did claim, under at least the color of a title, not merely
to "the highlands," but to the St. Lawrence itself, and the claim was
admitted as far as the former by the treaty of 1783. If it should
hereafter appear that this claim can not be maintained, the territory
which is not covered by her title, if within the boundary of the treaty
of 1783, can not revert to Great Britain, which has ceded its rights to
the thirteen independent States, but to the latter in their confederate
capacity, and is thus the property of the whole Union. As well might
Great Britain set up a claim to the States of Alabama and Mississippi,
which, although claimed by the State of Georgia, were found not to be
covered by its royal charter, as to any part of the territory contained
within the line defined by the treaty of 1783, under pretense that the
ri