Page:New Brunswick Magazine Issue 1.djvu/345

There remains one important point yet to be noticed,—why did the British Commissioners in 1783 consent to a boundary which thrust Maine as a great wedge far North into British America, cutting off communication between its eastern and western parts? The answer seems to be plain. Massachusetts had become an independent state, Nova Scotia remained a loyal province. It was obvious that the imternational boundary must separate these two. But the extent of each of them was perfectly well known at that time to everybody, and it was universally understood that the boundary between them was a north line from the source of the St. Croix to the highlands just south of the St. Lawrence, and thus this line became the natural international boundary. We can imagine with what fine scorn the American Commissioners, representing the victorious states, would have received a proposition to cede a part of the free state of Massachusetts to Great Britain in order that it might be added to Nova Scotia to improve the communication between that province and Canada. Probably it never occurred to the British Commissioners to make so preposterous a proposition.

The people of New Brunswick have good reason to be proud of the fact that, at a time when its population was less than one-sixth what it is at present, this province was able to raise a full regiment of infantry for the defence of the country, and that this corps was of such excellent quality that it was taken into the British service as the 104th Regiment of the line, and distinguished itself in several engagements in the war with the United States, which began in the year 1812. They have less reason to be satisfied with the reflection