ury of the United States, were not pretended by the British negotiator himself, to be more than an equivalent for the territory which he obtained on this side of the line of the Dutch award. For all which Maine loses on the other side of the line of that award, amounting to upwards of four thousand square miles of territory, she obtains no compensation, even according to the exaggerated estimate put by her adversary in the negotiation, upon the value of the equivalents which he yielded. One section of the treaty remains to be noticed, not connected, indeed, with the compensations stipulated for Maine, but yet of much importance to her interests. The committee refer to the provisions in relation to the disputed territory fund, in regard to the several conditions of which Lord Ashburton appears to have possessed the same superiority of information, which enabled him to overreach his antagonist on so many other points. It is assumed by the treaty, that by consent of the parties, the authorities of New Brunswick had been entrusted with the receipt and custody of the monies constituting the fund in question. The committee are not advised who are the "parties" who consented to such an arrangement, but are certain that among them cannot be reckoned either Maine or Massachusetts, or the citizens of Maine who have been plundered of their property for the benefit of this fund. The treaty provides that an account of the receipts and expenditures connected with this fund, shall be furnished to the government of the United States, within six months from the date of the ratification of the treaty; and that the proportion belonging to Maine and Massachusetts, of the monies constituting such fund, and of all bonds and securities pertaining thereto, shall be delivered to the government of the United States, to be by that government divided between Maine and Massachusetts. The sources from which this fund has been derived, may be classed under three heads. 1st. The stumpage upon timber cut upon the St. John and Aroostook, under the authority of permits from New Brunswick. 2d. The proceeds of the sale and seizure of timber cut upon the disputed territory, by mere trespassers, and without the authority of either Maine, Massachusetts or New Brunswick. 3d. The proceeds of the seizure by New Brunswick of timber cut under permits from Maine and Massachusetts. It is in reference to that portion of the fund, arising from the last mentioned source, that the provisions of the treaty seem to be most singular and unjust. The timber cut upon the Aroostook, under permits from Maine and Massachusetts, was seized under the British claim of property in the timber itself and in the territory upon which it was cut; because if cut upon American soil, it would have been free of all duty or toll. The individuals who have bought this timber of Maine and Massachusetts, were compelled to submit to the most onerous exactions. Their timber was taken from them by the power of New Brunswick, and they were forced to yield to such terms as were dictated. The bonds mentioned in the treaty arose under these seizures; the owners of the timber seized, having been required to give bonds, payable in three months, at the rate of one dollar and sixty cents for each ton, as the only condition upon which they could obtain the release of their property. The bonds thus taken in 1839 having been put in suit by the province government, their payment was resisted on the ground, that the timber out of which they arose, had been lawfully cut upon American soil and was therefore free of all duty or exactions. These suits having been continued in the province courts for upwards of eighteen months, occasioning great loss and expense to the parties obliged to defend them, were finally compromised on the payment of twenty five per cent. of the amount due upon the bonds, and on the agreement of the governor of New Brunswick that he would recommend to his home government that the amount remaining due should be cancelled. The committee believe that this recommendation has been complied with, but are not authentically apprised of the fact. Whether, however, these bonds have been cancelled or not, the committee cannot see how they can have been paid over for the benefit of Maine or Massachusetts, arising as they did from the stumpage of timber sold by those States, and the price of which has been for a long time in their respective treasuries. Believing, however, that these bonds have been in fact cancelled, the provision that they shall be paid over for the benefit of Maine and Massachusetts, strikes the committee as a very peculiar one, and only to be compared with the cession of large tracts of territory, for right of navigation which we already possessed. It cannot be gravely contended that any such results were anticipated by the Legislature, during its extra session in 1842, or that it would have entertained, for a moment, any idea of participating in the negotiation, had such results been foreseen. It is not possible, after rejecting the Dutch award, even when coupled with an offer of lands from the United States of millions of dollars in value, that Maine can accept without mortification, a line still more seriously curtailing her fair proportions, and for equivalents, which are either illusory or contemptible. It is not possible that she can witness such a termination of her twenty years struggle for her rights and honor, without feeling the keenest regrets, which crushed hopes, baffled efforts and unremunerated sacrifices, can excite. In their discussion of the treaty of Washington, the committee trust that they shall not be thought to have been unmindful of the eminent claims to respect enjoyed by the patriotic gentlemen who represented Maine in the negotiation. Higher considerations than such as can arise from a regard for any individuals, however estimable, have compelled the committee to express the belief, that those gentlemen assented, in the settlement of the boundary question, to terms not contemplated by the Legislature or people of Maine. The committee would however do injustice to their own opinions, as well as to public feelings, if they did not add the expression of their fullest confidence, that those gentlemen acted with the purest intentions, with the most assiduous fidelity, and with purposes devoted to the best interests of the State. The committee are not insensible to the pressure of adverse influences to which they were subjected; the appeals from the other States in the Union; and, the committee regret to add, the tyrannical threats addressed to them by the diplomatic secretary of the United States. Better, indeed, had all been braved. Better, indeed, had the American secretary been told, that Maine would lose her whole territory by honorable arbitration rather than sacrifice an acre to the spirit of unworthy compromise. Better, indeed, if our sister States had been admonished that they degraded themselves as well as us, when they asked us to yield our part of a common American birthright. The committee cannot feel justified in closing this report, without emphatically disclaiming the existence of any such spirit in any portion of the people of Maine, as the American secretary appears to have believed prevailed in the American Senate. A map hunted up among the archives of the French capital, by Mr. Jared Sparks, is understood to have been privately communicated to the Senate by Mr. Webster, with the purpose of proving the claims of Maine to be entirely unfounded, and of urging upon the Senate the ratification of the treaty pending before them, in order to avoid, before it was too late to remedy them, the consequences of a discovery by the British diplomatists, of the true extent of the rights of their country. It is deeply to be regretted that the original privacy of such a communication, had not been better preserved. Certainly, the spirit which dictated it, could not have found an answering chord in the bosom of a single Senator. The inducement presented by it to the Senate, was predicated upon nothing more nor less that the desirability of clinching a bargain which defrauded an unsuspecting adversary. No code of morality, with which the offering of such an inducement is consistent, is cherished, as the committee believe, by any considerable portion of the people of Maine. They have insisted upon the line of 1783, as believed by them to be susceptible of demarkation upon the face of the earth, only because they were intelligently convinced, that it was one of their clear and manifest rights. If satisfied by more evidence, that they had been in error, it would never afford them pleasure to have overreached an adversary, nor satisfaction to enjoy what justly belonged to others. If so high a functionary of this government as the Secretary of its diplomatic department, has been capable of presenting to the Senate of the United States an inducement so unworthy as the one upon which the committee have commented-it does not seem unjust to believe that he may have also intended to coerce the ratification of the treaty, by destroying all hopes of success from an arbitration. No better means, certainly, of destroying such hopes, could be devised, than to prevail upon members of the Senate to advocate the authenticity of a map, which strikes at the foundation of our claim. SHEPHERD CARY, |