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242 there will be no wish to go beyond your direction, nor to fall short of it; and thus far, while the object has been to give no assent to injustice, there has been as steady view to your contemplated consultations and probable command. It was an arrest which the testimony seems to me to condemn; yet it cannot but be hoped that the neighboring government will place right the hasty acts of unthinking agents, and that we, expecting that generous conduct which springs from the character of an Englishman, should not suddenly and unnecessarily engage with him in contentious. While we were acquiescing in the abeyance of our rights, as connected only with property, the call for interposition was not imperative, but, when unauthorized power was applied to the persons of our citizens along the Aroostook and in other places, it seemed proper to ascertain the facts, in order to submit them to your consideration and to that of Massachusetts and the Nation, both of which will feel an interest, not only in the protection of our own fellow citizens in Maine, but in the other relations of the subject. A letter was therefore, sent to the Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick, containing a request that he would cause information of the facts, relating to the arrest of Baker, to be returned. While in his reply, he acknowledged, in favorable terms, the amicable disposition professed by this government, so far as, on the occasion, it was represented, he declined to make the explanations requested, excepting to those with whom he is directed to correspond, or under whose orders he is placed.