did not consider it so generally established and recognized
as Mr. McLane assumed it to be; that, indeed, no similar case was
recollected in which the principle asserted had been put in practice;
yet, on the contrary, one was remembered not only analogous to that
under discussion, but arising out of the same article of the same
treaty, in which the supposed rule was invested by the agents of the
American Government itself; that the treaty of 1783 declared that the
line of boundary was to proceed from the Lake of the Woods "in a due
west course to the Mississippi," but it being ascertained that such
a line could never reach that river, since its sources lie south of
the latitude of the Lake of the Woods, the commissioners, instead of
adhering to the natural object--the source of the Mississippi--and
drawing a new connecting line to it from the Lake of the Woods, adhered
to the arbitrary line to be drawn due west from the lake and abandoned
the Mississippi, the specific landmark mentioned in the treaty.

Sir Charles further stated that if the President was persuaded that he
could carry out the principle of surveying he had proposed without the
consent of Maine, and if no hope remained, as was alleged by Mr. McLane,
of overcoming the constitutional difficulty in any other way until at
least this proposition should have been tried and have failed, His
Majesty's Government, foregoing their own doubts on the subject, were
ready to acquiesce in the proceeding proposed by the President if that
proceeding could be carried into effect in a manner not otherwise
objectionable; that "His Majesty's Government would consider it
desirable that the principles on which the new commissioners would have
to conduct their survey should be settled beforehand by a special
convention between the two Governments;" that there was, indeed, one
preliminary question upon which it was obviously necessary the two
Governments should agree before the commission could begin their survey
with any chance of success, viz, What is the precise meaning to be
attached to the words employed in the treaty to define the highlands
which the commissioners are to seek for? that those highlands are to be
distinguished from other highlands by the rivers flowing from them, and
those distinguishing rivers to be known from others by the situation
of their mouths; that with respect to the rivers flowing south into
the Atlantic Ocean a difference of opinion existed between