on the 27th September,
1827.[55]

[Footnote 55: See Note IX, p. 148.]

In this it was stipulated that Mitchell's and Map A should be admitted
to the exclusion of all others "as the only maps that shall be
considered as evidence" of the topography of the country, and in the
latter of these maps, constructed under the joint direction of the
British and American negotiators by the astronomer of the British
Government, it was agreed that nothing but the water courses should
be represented. Finally, it was admitted in the report of Messrs.
Featherstonhaugh and Mudge that the terms highlands and height of land
are identical. The decision of the King of the Netherlands, to which
Great Britain gave her assent in the first instance, recognizes the
correctness of the views entertained in the American statements.[56]
All discussion on this subject is, however, rendered unnecessary by the
knowledge which the undersigned have obtained of the country. The line
surveyed by them not only divides rivers, but possesses in a preeminent
degree the character by which in the British argument highlands are
required to be distinguished.

[Footnote 56: See Note X, pp. 148, 149.]

It is sufficient for the present argument that the identity of the
lines pointed out by the proclamation of 1763 and the act of 1774 with
the boundary of the treaty of 1783 be admitted. Such has been the
uniform claim of the Government of the United States and the State
of Massachusetts, and such is the deliberate verdict of the British
commissioners.[57] The words of the proclamation of 1763 have already
been cited. By reference to them it will be seen that the origin of "the
highlands" is to be sought on the _north_ shore of the Bay of Chaleurs.
If they are not to be found there, a gap exists in the boundary of the
proclamation, which it is evident could not have been intended. It has
been thought by some that the gap did actually exist, but this idea was
founded on an imperfect knowledge of the country. The Bay of Chaleurs
seems, in fact, to have been better known to the framers of the
proclamation of 1763 and the act of 1774 than to any subsequent
authorities, whether British or American. Researches made in the year
1840 show that at the head of the tide of the Bay of Chaleurs a mountain
rises immediately on the northern bank, which from its imposing
appearance has been called by the Scotch settlers at its foot Ben
Lomond. This, indeed, has by measurement been