means of
ascertaining the true line by discovering the highlands of the treaty,
but the British Government asked the United States as a preliminary
concession to acquiesce in the opinion of the arbiter upon certain
subordinate facts--a concession which would in effect defeat the
sole object, not only of the proposition, but of the negotiation,
viz, the determination of the boundary according to the treaty of 1783
by confining the negotiation to a conventional line, to which this
Government had not the authority to agree. Mr. McLane also said that
if by a resort to the plain rule now recommended it should be found
impracticable to trace the boundary according to the definitive
treaty, it would then be time enough to enter upon a negotiation for a
conventional substitute for it. He stated in answer to the suggestion of
Sir Charles R. Vaughan that the objection urged against the line of the
arbiter would equally lie against that suggested by Mr. Livingston; that
the authority of the Government to ascertain the true line of the treaty
was unquestionable, and that the American proposition, by confining the
course to the natural object, would be a legitimate ascertainment of
that line.

In a note dated 16th March Sir Charles R. Vaughan offered some
observations upon the objections on the part of the United States to
acquiesce in the points previously submitted to the American Government.
He said that the adoption of the views of the British Government by the
Government of the United States was meant to be the groundwork of future
proceedings, whether those proceedings were to be directed to another
attempt to trace the boundary as proposed by the latter or to a division
of the territory depending upon the conventional line. He maintained
that the arbiter had decided, as the British Government asserted, two
out of the three main points submitted for his decision, viz, what
ought to be considered as the northwesternmost head of the Connecticut
(but which the Government of the United States is only willing to admit
conditionally) and the point relative to tracing the boundary along the
forty-fifth degree of latitude. This point, he observed, Mr. McLane
wished to dispose of by adopting the old line of Collins and Valentine,
which was suspected of great inaccuracy by both parties, and the only
motive for retaining which was because some American citizens have made
settlements upon territory that a new survey might throw into the