that it should.  Yet the mouthpiece by which both arguments were delivered was one and the same person.  The same agent chose as the termination of what he attempted to represent as a continuous range of hills an isolated mountain, Mars Hill; and the commissioners whose report is under consideration place a range of abraded highlands, “the maximum axis of elevation,” in a region over which British engineers have proposed to carry a railroad as the most level and lowest line which exists between St. Andrews and Quebec.[61]

[Footnote 60:  See Note XII, p. 149.]

[Footnote 61:  Prospectus of St. Andrews and Quebec Railroad, 1836; and Survey of Captain Yule, 1835.]

On the other hand, the American claim, based on the only practicable interpretation of the treaty of 1783, has been consistent throughout:  “Let the meridian line be extended until it meets the southern boundary of the Province of Quebec, as defined by the proclamation of 1763 and the act of Parliament of 1774.”

No argument can be drawn against the American claim from the secret instructions of Congress dated August, 1779.  All that is shown by these instructions is the willingness to accept a more convenient boundary—­one defined by a great natural feature, and which would have rendered the difficult operation of tracing the line of highlands and that of determining the meridian of the St. Croix by astronomic methods unnecessary.  The words of the instructions are: 

“And east by a line to be drawn along the middle of the St. John from its source to its mouth in the Bay of Fundy, or by a line to be settled and adjusted between that part of the State of Massachusetts Bay formerly called the Province of Maine and the colony of Nova Scotia, agreeably to their respective rights, comprehending all islands within 20 leagues of the shores of the United States and lying between lines to be drawn due east from the points where the aforesaid boundaries between Nova Scotia on the one part and East Florida on the other part shall respectively touch the Bay of Fundy and the Atlantic Ocean.”

The proposal in the first alternative was to appearance a perfectly fair one.  From an estimate made by Dr. Tiarks, the astronomer of Great Britain under the fifth article of the treaty of Ghent, in conformity with directions from Colonel Barclay, the British commissioner, it was ascertained that the whole disputed territory contained 10,705 square miles; that the territory bounded by the St. John to its mouth contained 707 square miles less, or 9,998 square miles.  The difference at the time was probably believed to be insensible.  The first alternative was, however, rejected by Great Britain, and obviously on grounds connected with a difference in supposed advantage between the two propositions.  The American commissioners were satisfied that they could urge no legal claim along the coast beyond the river St. Croix; they therefore treated on the other alternative in their instructions—­the admitted limits between Massachusetts and Nova Scotia.  Even in the former alternative, Nova Scotia would still have had a northwest angle, for the very use of the term shows that by the St. John its northwestern and not the southwestern branch was intended.