Page:New Brunswick Magazine Issue 1.djvu/340
The question then now before us is this, what was: understood by the Commissioners who framed the Treaty of 1783 to be the "Northwest angle of Nova Scotia"? For answer we turn naturally to the best documents and maps of the time. In October, 1763, a royal proclamation fixed as the southern boundary of Quebec, and hence as the northern boundary of Nova Scotia and Maine (then a part of Massachusetts), the highlands separating waters flowing into the River St. Lawrence from those flowing south. In November of the same year a royal commission to a governor of Nova Scotia (then including New Brunswick) defined the limit of that province as a line drawn north from the source of the St. Croix to the southern bounds of Quebec, and other official documents of 1774 and 1783 reaffirmed these bounds.[1] Naturally these boundaries are given on the maps of the time, and indeed no others appear on all of the large series of maps between 1763 and 1783.[2] Between 1763 and 1783, then, there was no question as to the meaning of the "Northwestern angle of Nova Scotia"—it was the angle of intersection between a line drawn north from the source of the St.
- ↑ For authorities on this subject, see Winsor's "America." VII, 171, [et seq.]
- ↑ One may see examples of such maps in the latest volume of the Transacions of the Royal Society of Canada, 1897, section II, 381, 392.
inside of Passamaquoddy Bay at all (discussed in Transactions Royal Society of Canada, 1897, section II. page 369, 378). It is a satisfaction thus to know that from all points of view, the right river was chosen, though no doubt it will be many a day before the old error on this point will cease to be repeated by non-investigating writers. As to which of the two branches of the St. Croix should have been chosen when they are so nearly equal in volume, here again I think the proper branch, the eastern, was chosen. A claim for the western branch was made by the British on the ground that earlier documents relating to the boundary between Massachusetts and Nova Scotia speak of the north line as starting from the most westerly source of the St. Croix. But the Treaty does not speak of a western branch, and we must accept what the Treaty of 1763 appears to nave intended to award. Aside from whether or not the eastern is the main stream (a strong case could be made out that it is) there is the important fact that its more northerly, longer and straighter course better carry out the idea of a northerly running boundary which the Treaty expresses, out more important than this is the further fact that on Mitchell's and most other maps of the time, the easterly is the only branch marked, the western being omitted altogether or reduced to insignificant proportions, and hence it is the only branch of which the commissioners framing the treaty could have had any knowledge, and hence mutt have been the one meant by them. That on the maps it is the eastern and not the western branch which is laid down is shown not only by its straight northerly course, but also by the fact already mentioned that the name given on all the maps to the lake at its head is the Indian name of Grand Lake at the head of the Chiputnaticook chain.