ions in respect to the construction to be given to that
part of the award of the arbiter on the question of the northeastern
boundary which relates to the character in which the rivers St. John
and Restigouche are to be regarded in reference to that question.
Sir Charles Vaughan, in his note to Mr. McLane of February 10, 1834,
alleged that although the arbiter had not decided the first of the three
main questions proposed to him, yet that he had determined certain
subordinate points connected with that question upon which the parties
had entertained different views, and among others that the rivers St.
John and Restigouche could not be considered, according to the meaning
of the treaty, as "rivers flowing into the Atlantic." The undersigned,
in his note to Sir Charles R. Vaughan of the 28th of April, 1835,
questioned the correctness of the interpretation which had been given by
Sir Charles to the award of the arbiter in this particular, and after
quoting that part of the award to which Sir Charles was supposed to
refer as containing the determination by the arbiter of the point just
mentioned observed that it could not but appear from further reflection
to Sir Charles that the declaration that the rivers St. John and
Restigouche could not be _alone_ taken into view without hazard in
determining the disputed boundary was not the expression of an opinion
that they should be altogether excluded in determining that question;
or, in other words, that they could not be looked upon as rivers
emptying into the Atlantic. The remarks presented by Mr. Fox in the note
to which this is a reply are designed to shew a misconception on the
part of the undersigned of the true meaning of the passage cited by him
from the award and to support the construction which was given to it by
Sir Charles Vaughan. Whether the apprehension entertained by the one
party or the other of the opinion of the arbiter upon this minor point
be correct is regarded by the undersigned as a matter of no consequence
in the settlement of the main question. The Government of the United
States, never having acquiesced in the decision of the arbiter that "the
nature of the difference and the vague and not sufficiently determinate
stipulations of the treaty of 1783 do not permit the adjudication of
either of the two lines respectively claimed by the interested parties
to one of the said parties without wounding the principles of law and
equity with regard to the other,"