athematical straight line,
would have been used instead of _directam_. It is, moreover, to be
considered that the Romans had names both for the northeast and
northwest points of the compass, and that the expression "versus
septentrionem" in its most vague application could not possibly have
admitted of a deviation of more than two points on either hand. Had the
direction intended deviated more than that amount from the true north,
the Latin term corresponding to northeast or northwest must have been
used. Nor is this a matter of mere surmise, for in a passage immediately
following that which has been quoted the direction through the Gulf
of St. Lawrence toward Cape Breton is denoted by the term "versus
Euronotum," leaving no possibility of doubt that had the line directed
to be drawn from the source of the St. Croix been intended to have
a northwestern bearing the appropriate Latin words would have been
employed.

It is, besides, to be recollected that the instrument was drawn by a
person using habitually and thinking in a modern idiom, and that in
translating the English words due north into Latin no other possible
expression could suggest itself than the one employed. Such, then,
was the sense appropriately given to the Latin words, first in the
commission of Governor Wilmot and his successors, governors of Nova
Scotia, and subsequently in the commission of all the governors of New
Brunswick from the time that it was erected into a province until the
question was referred to the King of the Netherlands. In this reference,
although a translation was given in the American argument, it was not as
quoted by Messrs. Featherstonhaugh and Mudge, but was in the words which
have already been cited.

Connected with this subject, although, like it, wholly irrelevant, is
another conclusion which Messrs. Mudge and Featherstonhaugh attempt to
draw from the same grant to Sir William Alexander. That charter directs
the line "versus septentrionem" to be produced "ad proximam navium
stationem, fluvium, vel scaturiginem in magno fluvio de Canada sese
exonerantem." It can hardly be credited that, although a literal
translation of this passage is given, including the whole of the three
terms naval station, river, _or_ spring, that it is attempted to limit
the meaning to the first expression only, and to infer that as Quebec,
in their opinion, is the first naval station above Gaspe on the St.
Lawrence, the line "versus septentrionem" was