hen received, a further communication to
your excellency may be found proper, and if so will be made without
unnecessary delay.

It can not be necessary to assure your excellency that the omission
to reply to your communication forwarding to this Department the
resolutions of the legislature of Maine did not in any degree arise
either from a want of respect for their wishes or for the wishes of your
excellency, or from indifference to the interests of the State. When
these resolutions were received, there was every reason at no distant
day to expect what is now daily looked for--a definitive answer to the
proposition just alluded to, to which the attention of the British
Government had been again forcibly invited about the time those
resolutions were on their passage. Under this expectation a reply to
the application from Maine was temporarily delayed; the more readily as
about the time of its reception the Representatives of Maine, acting in
reference to one of those resolutions, had a full and free conversation
with the President. The most recent proceedings relative to the question
of boundary were shown to them in this Department by his directions, and
the occasion thus afforded was cheerfully embraced of offering frank and
unreserved explanations of the President's views.

Of the recent events which have called the attention of the State of
Maine to the question of the northeastern boundary, and which have
been brought by it to the notice of the President, one--the arrest
and imprisonment of Mr. Greely--has already been made the subject of
communication with your excellency. All that it was competent for the
Federal Executive to do has been done. Redress has been demanded, will
be insisted upon, and is expected from that authority from whom alone
redress can properly be sought. The President has followed the same
course that was pursued by one of his predecessors and which was
understood to be satisfactory to the State of Maine under circumstances
of a somewhat similar character. In respect to the other--the projected
construction of a railroad between St. Andrews and Quebec--a
representation has been addressed to the British Government stating that
the proposed measure is inconsistent with the understanding between the
two Governments to preserve the _status quo_ in the disputed territory
until the question of boundary be satisfactorily adjusted, remonstrating
against the project as contrary to the American claim