16. DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES WITH CANADA. The long Anglo-American peace, beginning in 1783, broken only once by a short period of war, and reinaugurated in 1814 by the Treaty of Ghent, is the more remarkable and significant because it has been maintained across the long est international boundary in the world with out costly fortifications or armaments, in a period of national youth and aggressive west ward movement, and in the face of repeated friction and irritation arising from a long series of international problems—many of which were serious in their nature and difficult of solution or adjustment, sometimes even threatening actual collision. In the war of the Revolution and in the negotiations of peace at its close the United States hoped to obtain Canada, but in the end was able to get only the region north of the Ohio which had been an nexed to Canada by the Quebec Act (q.v.) of 1774 and was regarded as necessary for the future growth and safety of the Union. Great Britain rather reluctantly agreed to the water boundary through the lakes. The Canadians objected to this line of boundary and especially to the amputation of the territory north of the Ohio which under American control might be subject to conditions injurious to the Cana dian fur trade and export trade to the Indians. They also desired to exclude the United States from the Saint Lawrence and all tributaries by making the boundary at the height of land, or at least to limit the size of American vessels upon the lakes.
The early British trade policy in relation to the United States was largely determined by a desire to stimulate Canada to furnish the British West Indies with American products carried via the Saint Lawrence, thus reversing geographic conditions with a view of attaching Canada to Great Britain.
Canada's remaining hope to continue the control of the interior Indian trade received its first shock by the American organization of the Northwest Territory under the ordinance of 1787 and the consequent plans of future roads and river improvements.
Serious questions and complications con fronted the new American government which was inaugurated under the new Federal con stitution in 1789. The boundary was unmarked.
Influenced by Canadian traders who urged that the boundary should have been established south et the the.British..goxemmeiit stilhheld the lake posts on American territory which it had agreed in 1783 to abandon without delay. British officers also seriously interrupted the fur trade of American citizens, by, duties levied on American vessels and by the exclusion of American citizens from the navigation of the American side of the boundary waters, although at one time in 1790 Lord Dorchester suggested that the British government favored an alliance with the United States.
Washington, believing the retention of the posts prevented the possibility of securing a perfect tranquility of the Indians of the North west and fearing that the retention would re sult in retaliatory legislation against commercial relations with Great Britain, sent Jay to negotiate a treaty. This treaty provided for evacuation of the posts by 1796, freedom of intercourse and trade across the border and a commission to determine the boundary. In the United States this treaty was strongly opposed by certain citizens who advocated prevention of trade with Canada and were disappointed in failing to get egress of American vessels from the lakes to the Atlantic via the Saint Lawrence, and the prohibition of the importa tion of arms and warlike stores by way of the lakes.
The international boundary, although de fined by the treaty of 1783, was not easily marked by the surveyors whose governments were not able to agree upon a starting point at the extreme eastern end of the line, and who encountered other difficulties all the way to the Lake of the Woods. Not until 1798, after 15 years of controversy, was the identity of the Saint Croix River determined, the agreement being reached through a joint commission as arranged by a provision of Jay's treaty, and this was the limit of progress made on the de termination of the boundary before the War of 1812.