This proposal Greely rejected, and was accordingly committed to jail to be dealt with according to law.  In the meantime, as an evidence of my desire to cultivate the most friendly understanding with the government of the State of which Greely is a citizen, I lose no time in saying that upon receiving an assurance from your excellency that your authority shall be exerted in restraining this or any other citizen of the State of Maine from adopting proceedings within the British limits (as claimed) calculated to infringe the authority and jurisdiction of this Province and to disturb and unsettle the minds of that portion of its inhabitants residing in the disputed territories until the question in dispute be brought to a final settlement Greely shall immediately be enlarged.

Trusting that your excellency will see in this proposition an anxious desire on my part to redeem the pledge given in my communication of the 6th instant, I have the honor to be, your excellency’s most obedient, humble servant,

J. HARVEY,

Major-General, Lieutenant-Governor, etc.

FREDERICKTON, NEW BRUNSWICK, June 10, 1837.

His Excellency Major-General SIR JOHN HARVEY, K.C.H.,

Lieutenant-Governor, etc.: 

May it please your excellency:  In obedience to your excellency’s instructions, communicated to me through the advocate-general in the absence of the attorney and solicitor generals, I have now the honor to report for the information of your excellency that I proceeded with the least possible delay to the Madawaska settlement.  On my arrival at the Great Falls, 130 miles from hence, I was informed the American citizen Ebenezer S. Greely had passed up the day previous for the purpose of again proceeding with the census of the inhabitants of Madawaska under authority from the State of Maine.  Aware of the probable excitement that would naturally arise between the two governments from this circumstance, and at the same time fully convinced that His Majesty’s Government would but regret any unnecessary misunderstanding during the pending negotiation, I thought it advisable to call upon Mr. Coombs, a magistrate residing 12 miles above the Falls, and request him to accompany me, which he readily did, to witness the conversation between Mr. Greely and myself.

We then proceeded and overtook Mr. Greely a short distance above Green River, about 24 miles from the Falls, having ascertained by the inhabitants, as he passed up the river, that Mr. Greely was the whole of the previous day employed in taking down their names, number of each family, and stating they would shortly receive from the State of Maine a sum of money not exceeding $3 for each head of family out of the surplus revenue of the United States.