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Essays and addresses

May I, as one who knows something of the American people, say that to my mind you never rose to a higher plane of international good faith than when you said to Britain, "You thought we meant that, so let it be? But as a Briton, I venture to point to a precedent for this action, eighty-five years before, little known and little thought of.

One school of politicians would say that both the nations were fools What say you? There is not a mile of all the long international line which has not been in dispute, not a mile but might have caused a war.

Let us start at the East.

Down in Passamaquoddy Bay there were some Islands claimed by both the Province of Nova Scotia and the State of Massachusetts, a splendid chance for war-for inalienable national territory.

The true ownership depended upon the interpretation of the Treaty of 1783; ajid the two governments determined to leave the matter to two lawyers Thomas Barclay was one him we have already met; the other, John Holmes, who had served several terms in the Massachusetts Legislature, and who was, after Maine was in 1820 admitted as a State of the Union, selected to represent her in the United States Seriate.