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246 inclusive, have been deposited in the Secretary's office by the Minister plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary for the United States to the Court of the Netherlands, with a copy of "a map pf the territory contained between the lines respectively contended for by the United States and Great Britain, as being the northeastern boundary of the United States in conformity to the treaty of peace of 1783". The copies of the commissions were obtained by the general government in 1828, and are the first copies in extenso of these documents which have ever existed in the United States. In the description of the boundaries of the Provinces adjoining this State, the same lines now claimed by us as the limits of our territory, are particularly laid down in these commissions, and none other.

It is due to that confidence which the State has heretofore justly reposed in the ability and fidelity of the General Government, to believe, that the subject of our northeastern boundary has received the attention which its acknowledged importance demands. We cannot rationally suppose that a claim so unjust and sophistical in its character, as that raised by the British Government, to hold nearly a third part of the territory of Maine, as described the the treaty of 1783, can be supported, when the merits are fully understood, by any intelligent and impartial tribunal. That confidence in our General Government, to which I have just alluded, should inspire us with the belief, that the question contemplated by the fifth article of the treaty of Ghent has been submitted to the decision of such a tribunal as I have referred to, in the high personage agreed upon in the convention for submission. And should jurisdiction be urged upon a question different from that submitted, the high character of the umpire would not permit him to assume what the parties do not agree to submit. The result of the submission may not be definitely known before the expiration of many years. In the mean time, it behooves this government to take care, that no waste is committed of the valuable timber on the territory in dispute and that aggressions be not attempted on our citizens with impunity.