Article I. of the treaty of 1815, in providing for mutual freedom and liberty of commerce, can not be construed to imply an obligation to protect the rights of foreign owners of slaves brought to our shores as seamen. Taney, At. Gen., 1831, 2 Op. 475. 6. NAVAL FORCES ON GREAT LAKES. § 831. On April 28-29, 1817, an arrangement was made by exchange of notes for the limitation of the naval forces to be respectively maintained by Great Britain and the United States on the Great Lakes. The provisions of this convention and its history are fully given elsewhere. Supra, § 143. See H. Doc. 471, 56 Cong. 1 sess. 7. FISHERIES CONVENTION, 1818. § 832. October 20, 1818, a convention was concluded between the United States and Great Britain respecting various matters, including the northeastern fisheries. The negotiators on the part of the United States were Albert Gallatin and Richard Rush; on the part of Great Britain, Frederick John Robinson and Henry Goulburn. The history of the convention, so far as it related to the fisheries, is elsewhere given. See the Northeastern Fisheries, supra, § § 163-168; 1 Moore, Int. Arbitrations, 703 et seq. 8. INDEMNITY FOR SLAVES, 1822. § 833. Article I. of the treaty of Ghent, in providing for the restoration of all places taken by the one country from the other during the war, stipulated that this should be done without any destruction or carrying away of any public property or of "any slaves or other private property." It was subsequently alleged that the British forces had carried away slaves in violation of this stipulation. As we have seen, the United States had complained of the violation of a similar stipulation in the treaty of peace of 1783, but the question was merged in the Jay treaty of 1794. For the violation of the stipulation in the treaty of Ghent claims for indemnity were presented by the United States. By Article V. of the convention of October 20, 1818, it was agreed that the question whether the claims were well founded and a proper subject for indemnity should be referred to some friendly sovereign or state for decision. The Emperor of Russia was selected as arbitrator, and rendered his award April 22,. 1822. The point of difference was decided in favor of the United States. The Emperor, besides rendering his decision, offered to use his good offices as mediator in the negotiations which must be undertaken to carry it into effect. His offer was accepted, and on June 30July 12, 1822, a convention was concluded under his mediation. By this convention the adjustment of the claims for indemnity was left to certain mixed commissions. This was followed by long and complicated proceedings, which resulted, however, in the final disposition of the controversy. 1 Moore, Int. Arbitrations, chap. xi. 350-390. 9. WEBSTER-ASHBURTON TREATY. § 834. August 9, 1842, Daniel Webster and Lord Ashburton signed at Washington a treaty for the settlement and definition of boundaries, for the suppression of the African slave trade, and for the giving up of fugitives from justice. The boundaries to which it related were the unsettled parts of the northern and eastern boundary of the United States under the treaty of peace of 1783, embracing sections of the line all the way from the eastern boundary of the State of Maine to the most northwestern point of the Lake of the Woods. The most difficult part to adjust was what was known as the "northeastern boundary," which so largely affected the limits and the interests of the State of Maine. An effort to settle this controversy was made in the convention concluded by Rufus King and Lord Hawkesbury at London, May 12, 1803, but this convention was never ratified. A similar attempt to effect a settlement was made by Messrs. Monroe and Pinkney in 1807, but their treaty failed by reason of other causes. When the American and British commissioners met at Ghent in 1814 to conclude a second treaty of peace between the countries, no progress had been made toward the determination of the northeastern boundary. The British commissioners proposed a "revision" of the line. The American commissioners replied that they had no authority to "cede" any territory, and would subscribe to no stipulation to that effect, but they submitted a draft of five articles to provide for the marking of the whole line from the river St. Croix to the most northwestern point of the Lake of the Woods. These articles the British commissioners, with unimportant modifications, accepted. They appear as Articles IV., V., VI., VII., and VIII., in the treaty of Ghent. Article IV. related to the ownership of islands in the Bay of Fundy, and its execution has already been referred to. Article V. related to the northeastern boundary. It provided for the appointment of commissioners to determine and mark the line and in the event of their disagreeing for the reference of the matter to a friendly sovereign or state. The commissioners disagreed, and by a convention signed September 29, 1827, the controversy was referred to the King of the Netherlands. His award, which bore date January 10, 1831, was recommendatory rather than decisive. It in fact declared the line of 1783 to be incapable of exact definition, and recommended to the governments concerned the adoption of a certain compromise. This recommendation was not accepted, and the dispute continued. It was brought to a close by the Webster-Ashburton treaty. The Northeastern Boundary, 1 Moore, Int. Arbitrations, chap. iii., pp. 65-83, chap. iv., pp. 85-161. The award of the King of the Netherlands is given in the volume cited, pp. 119-136. The origin and terms of the compromise adopted by Mr. Webster and As to the subsequent settlement of the boundary between Canada and Map. Any history of the settlement of the northeastern boundary dispute would be incomplete which omitted to mention the The "Red Line" question that arose as to maps. The map used by the negotiators of 1782-83 was Mitchell's, but no copy with the lines marked on it was annexed to the treaty. When the conclusion of the provisional articles of peace became known, Count Vergennes, the French minister for foreign affairs, sent to Franklin a copy of a map, with the request that he would mark the boundaries of the United States upon it. By whom the map was made does not appear, nor whether the maker was of English, French, or other nationality. On the 6th of December, 1782, Franklin returned the map after having, as he said, marked the limits of the United States "with a strong red line." Early in 1842 Jared Sparks, while pursuing his researches among the papers relating to the American Revolution in the archives of the French department of foreign affairs, discovered Franklin's letter to Vergennes. Immediately instituting a search, he found among the 60,000 maps in the archives a small map of North America by D'Anville, dated 1746, with a red line upon it apparently drawn with a hair pencil or a pen with a blunt point, and apparently intended to indicate the boundaries of the United States. Besides this line there was nothing whatever to identify the map with the map marked by Franklin. In reality, it made the northeastern boundary run even below the line claimed by Great Britain westward from Mars Hill. Sparks, however, at once sent a copy of the map to Mr. Webster, who, after inspecting it, instructed Mr. Everett to "forbear to press the search after maps in England or elsewhere." Mr. Webster retained the copy in his possession, but exhibited it only to the Maine commissioners and later to the Senate. That it bore any relation to the negotiations of 1782 and 1783 is more than doubtful. This was strongly intimated by Benton in the debates on the treaty. But when, through the publication of the debates in the Senate, the use made by Mr. Webster of the map became known he was vigorously assailed for not having exhibited it to Lord Ashburton, whom he was charged withhaving overreached. Mr. Webster very appropriately replied that he did not think it a very urgent duty on his part to go to Lord Ashburton and say that a doubtful bit of evidence had been found in Paris, out of which he might perhaps make something to the prejudice of the United States, or from which he might set up higher claims for himself, or obscure the whole matter still further. But it must have been known, at least to some of Mr. Webster's and Lord Ashburton's detractors in England, that there then existed in the foreign office, to which it had been removed from the British Museum, the veritable copy of Mitchell's map used in the negotiations of 1782 with Oswald's line, and also the line finally agreed on marked upon it. This map was exhibited by Lord Aberdeen to Mr. Everett at the foreign office in March, 1843. It was subsequently restored to the British Museum, where it is now preserved. A copy of Mitchell's map, with Oswald's first line marked upon it, was found in 1843 among the papers of Mr. Jay. This line runs along the St. John from its mouth and follows the north branch to the head of Lake Medousa, where it turns westward, and on its course to the head of Connecticut River skirts the sources of the streams that empty themselves into the River St. Lawrence. Franklin to Vergennes, Dec. 6. 1782, Wharton's Dip. Cor. Am. Rev. VI. 120; Jared Sparks, in North Am. Rev. (1843), LVI. 470-471; Curtis's Life of Webster, II. 103; Winsor's Narrative and Critical History of America, VII. 180; Benton's Thirty Years' View, II. 422; Curtis's Life of Webster, II. 132, 134, 149, 154, 155, 159-162, 167; Proceedings of the New York Hist. Society, April 15, 1843, p. 67, Webster's Works, II. 145; Fitzmaurice's Life of Shelburne, III. 205, 324, note; Greville's Memoirs, 2d part, I., Sept. 11, 1842, Sept. 17, 1842, Nov. 30, 1842, Feb. 9, 1843, pp. 101, 104, 126, 145; Croker Papers, 1841-42, vol. 2, pp. 393, 398, 400, 402; 71 London Quart. Rev. 560, 582; 4 Everett's Orations, 213; Abdy's Kent (1878), 152. Mr. Everett, in a dispatch of March 31, 1843, describes the map thus: "It is a copy of Mitchell in fine preservation. The boundaries between the British and French possessions in America, as fixed by the treaty of Utrecht,' are marked upon it in a very full distinct line, at least a tenth of an inch broad, and those words written in several places. In like manner the line giving our boundary, as we have always claimed it-that is, carrying the northwestern angle of Nova Scotia far to the north of the St. Johns—is drawn very carefully in a bold red line, full a tenth of an inch broad; and in four different places along the line distinctly written the boundary described by Mr. Oswald.' What is very noticeable is, that a line narrower, but drawn with care with an instrument, from the lower end of Lake Nipissing to the source of the Mississippi, as far as the map permits such a line to run, had once been drawn on the map, and has since been partially erased, though still distinctly visible." (Benton's Thirty Years' View, II. 671.) 10. OREGON TREATY. § 835. June 15, 1846, a treaty was signed at Washington by James Buchanan, Secretary of State, and Richard Pakenham, British minister, for the settlement of what was commonly known as the Oregon question. The territory in dispute embraced what is now comprised in British Columbia and the States of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. It was bounded, according to the claim of the United States, by the 42nd parallel of north latitude on the south, by the line of 54° 40′ on the north, and by the Rocky or Stony Mountains on the east. It embraced, roughly speaking, an area of 600,000 square miles. Over all this territory the United States claimed to be the rightful sovereign. This claim was disputed by Great Britain. The treaty of June 15, 1846, was intended to terminate the dispute by a nearly equal division of the territory. The 49th parallel of north latitude was agreed upon as the boundary, westward as far as "the middle of the channel which separates the continent from Vancouver's Island.” The boundary was to proceed thence southerly through the middle of that channel and of Fuca's Straits to the Pacific Ocean. But it was expressly provided that the navigation of the whole of the channel and straits, south of the 49th parallel of north latitude, should remain free and open to both parties. The claim of the United States to the whole of Oregon was founded upon (1) the entrance and exploration of the River of the West, which he named from his ship the Columbia River, by Captain Robert Gray, of the American ship Columbia, in 1792; (2) the exploration and descent of the main branch of the Columbia River by Lewis and Clark in their memorable expedition; (3) the establishment by John Jacob Astor in 1811 of the fur-trading settlement at Astoria, which was occupied by the British during the war of 1812, but restored to the United States on the conclusion of peace; (4) the acquisition by the United States by the treaty of February 22, 1819, of all the rights of Spain to territory on the Pacific north of the 42nd parallel of north latitude. The British claim was based upon (1) the explora |