the latter is word for word the same with the description of the
eastern boundary of the United States in the same treaty. Moreover, a
northwest angle has been assigned to the Province of New Brunswick by
British authority, which, did it involve no dereliction of principle,
might without sensible loss be accepted on the part of the United
States.

IV.--HIGHLANDS OF THE TREATY OF 1783.

The highlands of the treaty of 1783 are described as those "which divide
those rivers that empty themselves into the river St. Lawrence from
those which fall into the Atlantic Ocean." It has been uniformly and
consistently maintained on the part of the United States that by the
term "highlands" was intended what is in another form of the same words
called the height of land. The line of highlands in this sense was to be
sought by following the rivers described in the treaty to their source
and drawing lines between these sources in such manner as to divide the
surface waters. It was believed that the sources of such rivers as the
Connecticut and the St. John must lie in a country sufficiently elevated
to be entitled to the epithet of highlands, although it should appear on
reaching it that it had the appearance of a plain. Nay, it was even
concluded, although, as now appears, incorrectly--and it was not feared
that the conclusion would weaken the American argument--that the line
from the northwest angle of Nova Scotia, at least as far as the sources
of Tuladi, did pass through a country of that description. Opposite
ground was taken in the argument of Great Britain by her agent, but
however acute and ingenious were the processes of reasoning by which
this argument was supported, it remained in his hands without
application, for the line claimed by him on the part of his Government
was one having the same physical basis for its delineation as that
claimed by the agent of the United States, namely, one joining the
culminating points of the valleys in which streams running in opposite
directions took their rise. The argument appears to have been drawn
while he hoped to be able to include Katahdin and the other great
mountains in that neighborhood in his claimed boundary, and he does not
appear to have become aware how inapplicable it was in every sense to
the line by which he was, for want of a better, compelled to abide.
The British Government, however, virtually abandoned the construction
of their agent in the convention signed in Lond