harged with partiality
toward them. Colonel Barclay, the British commissioner, who concurred
in choosing him as umpire, had been his schoolfellow and youthful
associate, and it is believed in the United States that he concurred in,
if he did not prompt, the nomination from a knowledge of this feature
of character. Had he, as is insinuated by Messrs. Featherstonhaugh and
Mudge, been inclined to act with partiality toward his own country, he
had most plausible grounds for giving a verdict in her favor, and that
he did not found his decisions upon them is evidence of a determination
to be impartial, which his countrymen have said was manifested in a
leaning to the opposite side. Those who suspect him of being biased by
improper motives must either be ignorant of the circumstances of the
case or else incapable of estimating the purity of the character of
Egbert Benson. His award, however, has nothing to do with the question,
as it was never acted upon. Both parties were dissatisfied with the
conclusions at which he arrived, and in consequence a conventional
line in which both concurred was agreed upon, and the award of the
commissioners was no more than a formal act to make this convention
binding.

If, then, both Governments should think it expedient to unsettle the
vested rights which have arisen out of the award of 1798, there is a
strong and plausible ground on which the United States may claim the
Magaguadavic as their boundary, and the meridian line of its source
will throw the valley of the St. John from Woodstock to the Grand
Falls within the limits of the State of Maine. While, therefore, it
is maintained that it would violate good faith to reopen the question,
there is good reason to hope that an impartial umpire would decide it
so as to give the United States the boundary formerly claimed.

_Note V_.

The angle made by the southern boundary of the Province of Quebec with
the due north line from the source of the St. Croix first appeared in an
English dress in the commission to Governor Wilmot. This was probably
intended to be identical in its meaning with the terms in the Latin
grant to Sir William Alexander, although there is no evidence to that
effect. If, therefore, it were a false translation, the error has been
committed on the side of Great Britain, and not on that of the United
States. But it is not a false translation, as may be shown to the
satisfaction of the merest tyro in classical literature.