COMMISSION.
Boundaries of the Original Possessions. — The date on which the United States may properly be said first to have had national boundaries is 4 July 1776, when the 13 original colonies declared their independence of Great Britain and formed a union. When this act was consummated the area of the colonies ex tended along the seacoast from the eastern boundary of Maine (then part of Massa chusetts) to the southern boundary of Georgia; and thence inland so far as these communities extended. Under the proclamation line of 1763 the divide of the Appalachians was supposed to constitute the western limits, hut the United States contended that the Mississippi River rightfully was the western boundary, this claim being recognized in the Treaty of Paris (1783) terminating the Revolution which defined the boundaries as follows: The following are and shall be their boundaries, viz., from the northwest angle of Nova Scotia, viz., that argyle which is formed by a line drawn due north from the source of the St. Croix River to the high lands which divide those rivers that empty themselves into the River St. Law rence, from those which fall into the Atlantic Ocean to the north-westernmost head of Connecticut River,_ thence drawn 1 the middle of that river to the forty-fifth degree of latitude; from thence by a line due west on said latitude, until it strikes the River Iroquois or Cataraguy; thence along the middle of said river into Lake Ontario; through the middle of said lake. until it strikes the communication by water between that lake and Lake Erie; thence along the middle of said communication into Lake Erie; through the middle of said lake until it arrives at the water communication between that lake and Lake Huron; thence through the middle of said lake. to the water communication between that lake and Lake Superior; thence through Lake Superior northward to the isles Royal and Philipeaux to the Long Lake; thence through the middle of said Long Lake, and the water communication between it and the Lake of the Woods, to the said Lake of the Woods; thence through the said lake to the north-westernmost point thereof, and from thence a due west course to the River hi• • • i; thence by a line to be drawn along the middle of the River Mississippi. until it shall intersect the northernmost part of the thirty first degree of north latitude; south, by a line to be drawn due east from the determination of the line last mentioned, in the latitude of thirty-one degrees north of the equator. to the middle of the River Apalachicola or Catahouchee; thence along the middle thereof, to its • • n with the Flint River; thence straight to the head of St. Mary's River and thence down the middle of St. Manes River to the Atlantic Ocean; east, by a line to be drawn along the middle of the St. Croix from its mouth in the Bay of Fundy to its
source, and from its source directly north to the aforesaid highlands, which divide the rivers that fall into the Atlantic Ocean from those which fall into the River St. Lawrence, comprehending all islands within twenty leagues of any part of the shores of the United States, and lying between lines to he drawn due east from the points where the aforesaid boundaries between Nova Scotia on the one part, and East Florida on the other, shall respectively touch the Bay of Fundy and the Atlantic Ocean, excepting such islands as now are or heretofore have been within the limits of the said province of Nova Scotia." Northeastern Boundary.— The north eastern boundary controversy lasted 59 years (1783-1842). The chief cause of trouble was the looseness with which the boundary was de scribed. Under the Jay treaty concluded in 1794 a joint commission was appointed to settle the first part of the boundary on the northeast, the most vexatious question being the identity of the Saint Croix River. On 25 Oct. 1798, the river was identified and a monu ment placed at its source but the exact location of the °northwest point of Nova Scotia* could not be agreed upon nor the situation of the °high lands)) mentioned in the treaty. After several years of wrangling Rufus King con cluded the convention of 1803, under which a joint commission was appointed to ascertain the northwest angle of Nova Scotia, to run a line from the monument at the source of the Saint Croix to this northwest angle; also to deter mine the northwesternmost head of the Con necticut River, and to run a line from it to the corner of Nova Scotia. Unfortunately, how ever, Jefferson's purchase of Louisiana in 1803 complicated matters and the commissioners ac complished nothing. Article V of the treaty of Ghent (q.v.), concluded in 1814, provided for the appointment of two commissioners to settle the dispute, and in 1817 the work of sur veying began. The surveyors traced a meridian from the source of the Saint Croix to a high elevation at Mars Hill, thence into the valley of the Saint John River, then to the summit of a ridge parting the waters flowing into the Saint John and those reaching the Restigouche, and 143 miles from the point of beginning met a ridge on the northern slope of which arc the headwaters of the river Metis which enters the Saint Lawrence. The Americans claimed that the point at which the meridian crossed the crest of this ridge was the northwest angle of Nova Scotia, but the British agent contended that this ridge was a mere watershed and could not be accepted as the highlands designated in the treaty. As they could not agree on any of the disputed points the surveyors adjourned in November 1821, after presenting their diver gent reports.