Part 8

The circumstances attending this outrage as given in Mr. Greely's letter are not sufficient, in the view of the President, to warrant the interference of the Government at present. For what cause, at what place, and by what authority the arrest was made is not stated. The necessary explanations may be found, perhaps, in the previous communication which Mr. Greely refers to as having been addressed to you by him on the 10th June; if not, it is probable that you will easily be able to obtain explicit information from other sources and communicate it to this Department. It is indispensable that a full knowledge of all the facts illustrative of the case should be in possession of the Government before any formal application for redress can be properly preferred.

In the meantime I have in conversation unofficially called the attention of Mr. Fox, the British minister at Washington, to this complaint, and he has given me an assurance that he will immediately address a representation on the subject to the governor of New Brunswick requesting, unless there shall be some very extraordinary reasons against it, that Mr. Greely may be set at liberty.

I am, sir, your obedient servant,

JOHN FORSYTH.

STATE OF MAINE, EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT,

_Augusta, June 27, 1837_.

Hon. JOHN FORSYTH,

_Secretary of State of the United States_.

SIR: I would respectfully solicit copies of all documents and papers in the Department of State of the United States in relation to the subject of the northeastern boundary, with the exception of such as were furnished this department by the General Government in the year 1827. It is understood that copies have been furnished relative to this subject down to the respective statements submitted by the two Governments to the King of the Netherlands, but the arguments we have not been furnished with.

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

ROBERT P. DUNLAP.

STATE OF MAINE, EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT,

_July 3, 1837_.

Hon. JOHN FORSYTE,

_Secretary of State of United States_.

SIR: I have had the honor to receive yours of the 26th of June last, in which, by direction of the President, you indicate that the circumstances detailed in Mr. Greely's letter relative to his arrest and imprisonment are not of themselves without further explanation sufficient to justify the interference of the Government of the United States. This information is received with some surprise and much regret--surprise because I had understood Mr. Greely's communication to show that while employed within the limits of this State and under its authority on a business intrusted to him by the laws of the State he was, without being charged or suspected of any other offense, seized and transported to a foreign jail; regret inasmuch as the feelings of the people of this State have been strongly excited by this outrage upon the honor and sovereignty of Maine, and each additional day's confinement which that unoffending citizen endures is adding to the indignation of our citizens. I therefore hasten to lay before you a summary of the transactions connected with this subject as they are gathered from Mr. Greely's communications to this department. The facts are to be considered the less indisputable because they are in the main confirmed by the statements contained in the letter of the lieutenant-governor of the Province of New Brunswick, by whose order the imprisonment was made, and a copy of which I recently had the honor of transmitting to the President.

On the 8th day of March last the legislature of this State passed an act relative to the surplus revenue, a copy of which is inclosed,[2] to the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth sections of which I beg leave to refer your attention. An additional act was passed on the 29th day of March last, a copy of which I also inclose.[2] By this last-named act it became the duty of the county commissioners of Penobscot County to cause an enumeration to be taken of the inhabitants of said county residing north of the surveyed and located townships. The tract thus defined comprised the town of Madawaska, which was incorporated by this State on the 15th of March, 1831. Pursuant to that requirement, the county commissioners of said county appointed Ebenezer S. Greely to perform that service, and, being duly commissioned, he forthwith proceeded to the place designated and entered upon the required operations. Being thus employed, he was on the 29th day of May last arrested by the authorities of the Province of New Brunswick and conveyed to Woodstock, in the county of Carleton, in said Province, but the sheriff of the county refused to commit him to jail, and he was accordingly discharged. He immediately returned to the Madawaska settlements to enter again upon the duty intrusted to him. On the 6th day of June last he was arrested a second time by the same authorities and committed to the jail at Frederickton. It is for this act of obedience to the laws of his government that Mr. Greely now lies incarcerated in a public jail in the Province of New Brunswick. Is not redress urgently called for? Must not this unoffending citizen be immediately released?

Permit me, sir, to add my confident belief that the President on this presentation of the facts relative to this outrage upon the national as well as the State rights will not fail to demand the immediate release of Ebenezer S. Greely and to interpose suitable claims of indemnity for the wrongs so wantonly enforced upon him.

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

ROBERT P. DUNLAP.

[Footnote 2: Omitted.]

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,

_Washington, July 14, 1837_.

Hon. ROBERT P. DUNLAP,

_Governor of the State of Maine_.

SIR: Your letter of the 3d instant has been received. The surprise you express that the information contained in the letter of Mr. Greely which accompanied your former communication was not considered sufficient to enable the President to make a formal application to the British Government for his release has probably arisen from your not having adverted particularly to the defects of his statement. It was not expressly mentioned for what offense the arrest was made nor where it took place--upon the territory in dispute between the United States and Great Britain or beyond it. The character of the charge and the place at which the offense was committed might have been inferred from what was stated, but you must perceive the impropriety of a formal complaint from one government to another founded upon inference when the means of ascertaining and presenting the facts distinctly were within the power of the party complaining; but although this Department felt itself constrained by these considerations to delay a formal application to the British Government for the release of Mr. Greely, it lost no time, as has been already stated, in procuring the interference to that end of the British minister near this Government; and I have now the satisfaction to inform you that I have learnt from him that he has opened a correspondence with the lieutenant-governor of New Brunswick, which it is expected will lead to the release of Greely from confinement without waiting for the decision of His Britannic Majesty's Government on the whole question.

The information communicated to the Department since the receipt of your letter of the 3d instant is sufficiently explicit, and a note founded upon it has been, by direction of the President, addressed to Mr. Stevenson, instructing him to demand the immediate liberation of Mr. Greely and indemnity for his imprisonment.

I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant,

JOHN FORSYTH.

P.S.--The papers asked for in your letter of the 27th ultimo will be sent to you.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,

_Washington, July 19, 1837_.

Hon. ROBERT P. DUNLAP,

_Governor of Maine_.

SIR: In compliance with the request contained in your letter of the 27th ultimo, I have the honor to transmit to you a printed volume containing a statement on the part of the United States of the case referred, in pursuance of the convention of the 29th September, 1827, between the said States and Great Britain to the King of the Netherlands for his decision thereon, and to refer you for such other papers and documents in relation to the northeastern boundary as have not been specially furnished by this Department to the executive of Maine to the following numbers in the volumes of documents of the Senate and House of Representatives distributed under a resolution of Congress, and which have been from time to time transmitted to the several State governments, including that of Maine:

Documents of the House of Representatives: First session Twentieth Congress, Nos. 217, 218; second session Twentieth Congress, No. 90; second session Twenty-third Congress, No. 62. Documents of the Senate: First session Twenty-fourth Congress, No. 414.

I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant,

JOHN FORSYTH.

STATE OF MAINE, EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT,

_July 28, 1837_.

His Excellency MARTIN VAN BUREN,

_President of the United States_.

SIR: Impelled by a sense of duty arising from the oversight committed to me of the rights and interests of this State, I beg leave to invite the attention of Your Excellency to the subject of the northeastern boundary of Maine. By the federal compact the obligation of defending each State against foreign invasion and of protecting it in the exercise of its jurisdictional rights up to its extreme line of boundary is devolved upon the National Government. Permit me respectfully to inform the President that in the opinion of the people of Maine the justice due to this State in this respect has not been rendered.

Let it not be suspected that the discontents which are moving strongly and deeply through the public mind flow from any deficiency of attachment or practical adhesion to our National Government. Without appealing to the blood so freely poured out in war by the citizens of Maine, to the privations so cheerfully endured while the restrictive measures of the Government were prostrating the most important interests of this commercial people, or to the support of the Union so cordially given through every vicissitude up to the present hour, such a suspicion, if it could arise, would be sufficiently refuted by merely adverting to the forbearance with which they have so long endured the aggressions by a foreign government upon their sovereignty, their citizens, and their soil.

It would be easy to prove that the territory of Maine extends to the highlands north of the St. John; but that point, having been not only admitted, but successful; demonstrated, by the Federal Government, needs not now to be discussed. Candor, however, requires me to say that this conceded and undeniable position ill accords with the proceedings in which the British authorities have for many years been indulged, and by which the rightful jurisdiction of Maine has been subverted, her lands ravaged of their most valuable products, and her citizens dragged beyond the limits of the State to undergo the sufferings and ignominies of a foreign jail. These outrages have been made known to the Federal Government; they have been the subject of repeated remonstrances by the State, and these remonstrances seem as often to have been contemned. It can not be deemed irrelevant for me here to ask, amid all these various impositions, and while Maine has been vigorously employed in sustaining the Union and in training her children to the same high standard of devotion to the political institutions of the country, what relief has been brought to us by the Federal Government. The invaders have not been expelled. The sovereignty and soil of the State are yet stained by the hostile machinations of resident emissaries of a foreign government. The territory and the jurisdiction of 6,000,000 acres, our title to which the Government of the United States has pronounced to be perfect, have, without the knowledge of Maine, been once put entirely at hazard. Grave discussions, treaty arrangements, and sovereign arbitration have been resorted to, in which Maine was not permitted to speak, and they have resulted not in removing the fictitious pretensions, but in supplying new encouragements to the aggressors. Diplomatic ingenuity, the only foundation of the British claim, has been arrayed against the perfect right. In the meantime a stipulation made by the Executive of the nation, without the knowledge of Maine, purported to preclude her from reclaiming her rightful jurisdiction until the slow process of a negotiation should be brought to a close. Whatever the real force of that stipulation might be, made as it was without the concurrence of the two branches of the treaty-making power, it was hoped when it expired by the closing up of that negotiation that a measure fraught with such hurtful consequences to Maine would not again be attempted; but that hope was to be disappointed, and now, by a compact of similar character, a writ of protection appears to have been spread by our own Government over the whole mass of British aggressions. What, then, has the Federal Government done for this State? May it not be said, in the language of another, "Maine has not been treated as she endeavored to deserve"?

On the 22d day of April last I had the honor to transmit to Your Excellency certain resolves passed by the legislature of this State relative to the northeastern boundary, and in behalf of the State to call upon the President of the United States to cause the line to be explored and surveyed and monuments thereof erected. That this call, made by direction of the legislature, did not extend to the expulsion of invaders, but merely to the ascertainment of the treaty line, will, I trust, be viewed as it was designed to be, not only as an evidence of the continued forbearance of Maine, but as a testimonial of the confidence she cherished that the Federal Executive would protect the territory after its limitation should be ascertained. That this application would meet with favor from the Federal Executive was expected, more especially as Congress had made a specific appropriation for the purpose. I will not attempt to conceal the mortification I have realized that no reply has been made to that communication nor any measures taken, so far as my information extends, for effecting the object proposed.

It now remains that in the exercise of that faithfulness for which I stand solemnly pledged to the people of Maine I should again commend to the attention of the National Executive this apparently unwelcome but really important subject.

I have, therefore, the honor again to request that the President will cause the treaty line upon the northeastern limits of Maine to be run and marked, and I can not but hope that on a reexamination of the subject Your Excellency will concur with this State in relation to the rightfulness and the necessity of the measure proposed, as well as to all the remedies to be adopted for restoring to Maine the invaluable rights from which she has so long been debarred.

I have the honor to be, with high consideration, your obedient servant,

ROBERT P. DUNLAP.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,

_Washington, August 17, 1837_.

His Excellency ROBERT P. DUNLAP,

_Governor of the State of Maine_.

SIR: Your letter of the 28th ultimo to the President was duly received. It has been referred to this Department with instructions to make a suitable reply.

Your excellency is of opinion that the Federal Government has for a series of years failed to protect the State of Maine in the exercise of her jurisdictional rights to the extent of her boundary, and complains that these rights have been in consequence thereof subverted, the lands of the State ravaged of their most valuable productions, and her citizens subjected to imprisonment in a foreign jail. Your excellency particularly objects to the course of the Federal Government for having, without the knowledge of the State, put entirely at hazard the title of Maine, admitted by the Government of the United States to be perfect, to the territory in question by the resort to diplomatic discussions, treaty arrangements, and foreign arbitration in which Maine was not permitted to speak; for having entered into a stipulation without her consent purporting to preclude the State from retaining her rightful jurisdiction pending a negotiation, and for the continuance of it after that negotiation was supposed to have been concluded, and for an omission on the part of the Executive of the United States to comply with an application of the State made through her legislature to have the boundary line between Maine and the British North American possessions explored, surveyed, and monuments erected thereon in pursuance of the authority conferred on the President by Congress and of a request made by your excellency, which is now renewed.

The views which your excellency has been pleased to take of the subject at this time embrace measures some of which have long since ceased to be operative and reach back to the propriety of the stipulations entered into by the treaty of Ghent, also of the subsequent negotiation designed to bring those stipulations to a satisfactory result in the mode prescribed by that treaty--that of arbitrament. It being, as your excellency states, the opinion of Maine that those proceedings were unjust and unwise, it is, in a matter in which she is so deeply interested, her undoubted right to say so; yet the President thinks that he can not be mistaken in believing that no practical good can at this time be expected from discussion between the Federal and State Governments upon those points. That the measures referred to have not been as fortunate in their results as was hoped is entirely true, but your excellency may nevertheless be assured that they had their origin in a sincere desire on the part of the Federal Government to discharge all its duties toward the State of Maine as a member of the Union, and were resorted to in the full belief that her just rights would be promoted by their adoption.

In speaking of the restrictions imposed upon Maine in reclaiming her rightful jurisdiction your excellency doubtlessly refers to the understanding between the Federal Government and that of Great Britain that each party should abstain from the exercise of jurisdiction over the disputed territory during the pendency of negotiation. Unless it be correct to say that the controversy was one that did not admit of negotiation, and that the duty of the Federal Government consisted only in an immediate resort to maintain the construction put by itself upon its own rights and those of the State of Maine, there would seem to be no reasonable objection to such an arrangement as that alluded to, whether it be viewed in respect to the interests or the pacific and just characters of the respective Governments. That this arrangement was not abrogated at the period at which your excellency is understood to suppose that it ought to have been done, viz, upon the failure of a settlement of the controversy by arbitration, is explained by events of subsequent occurrence. When the award of the arbitrator was submitted by the late President to the Senate of the United States, that body refused its advice and consent to the execution of the award, and passed a resolution recommending to him to open a new negotiation with Great Britain for the ascertainment of the boundary according to the treaty of peace of 1783. That negotiation was forthwith entered upon by the Executive, is still pending, and has been prosecuted with unremitting assiduity. It is under such circumstances that the Federal Executive has decided upon a continued compliance with the arrangement referred to, and has insisted also upon its observance on the part of Great Britain.

Considerations of a similar nature have induced the President to refrain hitherto from exercising the discretionary authority with which he is invested to cause the boundary line in dispute to be explored, surveyed, and monuments to be erected thereon. Coinciding with the government of Maine on the question of the true boundary between the British Provinces and the State, the President is yet bound by duty to consider the claim which has been set up by a foreign power in amity with the United States and the circumstances under which the negotiation for the adjustment of that claim has been transmitted to him. It could not be useful to examine the foundation of the British claim in a letter to your excellency. Respect for the authorities of a friendly nation compels us to admit that they have persuaded themselves that their claim is justly grounded. However that may be, the present President of the United States upon entering on the discharge of the duties of his office found that a distinct proposition had been made by his predecessor for the purpose of amicably settling this long-disputed controversy, to which no answer has yet been received. Under such circumstances the President was not able to satisfy himself, however anxious to gratify the people and the legislature of Maine, that a step like that recommended by them could be usefully or properly taken.

The clause containing the specific appropriation made by the last Congress for exploring, surveying, and marking certain portions of the northeastern boundary of the United States, to which your excellency alludes, is by no means imperative in its character. The simple legislative act of placing a sum of money under the control of the Executive for a designated object is not understood to be a direction that it must in any event be immediately applied to the prosecution of that object. On the contrary, so far from implying that the end in view is to be attained at all hazards, it is believed that it merely vests a discretionary power in the President to carry out the views of Congress on his own responsibility should contingencies arise to render expedient the proposed expenditure.

Under existing circumstances the President deems it proper to wait for the definitive answer of the British Government to the last proposition offered by the United States. When received, a further communication to your excellency may be found proper, and if so will be made without unnecessary delay.

It can not be necessary to assure your excellency that the omission to reply to your communication forwarding to this Department the resolutions of the legislature of Maine did not in any degree arise either from a want of respect for their wishes or for the wishes of your excellency, or from indifference to the interests of the State. When these resolutions were received, there was every reason at no distant day to expect what is now daily looked for--a definitive answer to the proposition just alluded to, to which the attention of the British Government had been again forcibly invited about the time those resolutions were on their passage. Under this expectation a reply to the application from Maine was temporarily delayed; the more readily as about the time of its reception the Representatives of Maine, acting in reference to one of those resolutions, had a full and free conversation with the President. The most recent proceedings relative to the question of boundary were shown to them in this Department by his directions, and the occasion thus afforded was cheerfully embraced of offering frank and unreserved explanations of the President's views.