A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 3, part 2: Martin Van Buren · Chapter 31Special Messages. (3)
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I have the honor to be, with high respect, your most obedient servant,
JOHN FAIRFIELD, Governor of Maine.
Mr. Forsyth to Mr. Fox.
DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, March 6, 1840.
HENRY S. FOX, Esq., etc.:
By the directions of the President, the undersigned, Secretary of State of the United States, communicates to Mr. Fox, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of Great Britain, the inclosed copy of a report65 made to the governor of the State of Maine by the agent commissioned on the part of the authorities of that State to ascertain the precise character and extent of the occupation of parts of the disputed territory by troops of Her Britannic Majesty and of the buildings and other public works constructed for their use and accommodation.
By that report and the three depositions which the undersigned informally communicated to Mr. Fox a few days since he will perceive that there must be some extraordinary misapprehension on his part of the facts in relation to the occupation by British troops of portions of the disputed territory. The statements contained in these documents and that given by Mr. Fox in his note of the 20th of January last exhibit a striking discrepancy as to the number of troops now in the territory as compared with those who were in it when the arrangement between Governor Fairfield and Lieutenant-Governor Harvey was agreed upon, and also as to the present and former state of the buildings there. The extensive accommodations prepared and preparing at an old and at new stations, the works finished and in the course of construction on the land and on the water, are not in harmony with the assurance that the only object is the preservation of a few unimportant buildings and storehouses for the temporary protection of the number of troops Her Majesty's ordinary service can require to pass on the road from New Brunswick to Canada.
The undersigned will abstain from any remarks upon these contradictory statements until Mr. Fox shall have had an opportunity to obtain the means of fully explaining them. How essential it is that this should be promptly done, and that the steps necessary to a faithful observance on the part of Her Majesty's colonial authorities of the existing agreements between the two Governments should be immediately taken, Mr. Fox can not fail fully to understand.
The undersigned avails himself of the occasion to renew to Mr. Fox assurances of his high consideration.
JOHN FORSYTH.
Mr. Fox to Mr. Forsyth.
WASHINGTON, March 7, 1840.
The undersigned, Her Britannic Majesty's envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary, has the honor to acknowledge the receipt of the official note of yesterday's date addressed to him by Mr. Forsyth, Secretary of State of the United States, to which is annexed the copy of a report from Mr. Benjamin Wiggin, an agent employed by the State of Maine to visit the British military post at Lake Temiscouata, and in which reference is made to other papers upon the same subject, which were informally communicated to the undersigned by Mr. Forsyth a few days before; and the attention of the undersigned is called by Mr. Forsyth to different points upon which the information contained in the said papers is considered to be materially at variance with that which was conveyed to the United States Government by the undersigned in his official note of the 26th of last January.
The undersigned had already been made acquainted by the lieutenant-governor of New Brunswick with the circumstance of Mr. Wiggin's visit to the military post at Lake Temiscouata, where the officer in command very properly furnished to Mr. Wiggin the requisite information upon all matters connected with the British station which he appeared desirous to inquire about.
The alleged points of variance, after deducting what is fanciful and conjectural in the reports now produced and after comparing what is there stated in contradiction to other reports before produced from the same quarters, do not appear to the undersigned to be by any means so material as they seem to have been considered by the Government of the United States. The British military detachment stationed at Lake Temiscouata, which the agents employed by the State of Maine had, in the first instance with singular exaggeration represented as amounting to two regiments, is now discovered by the same parties to amount to 175 men, which instead of two regiments is something less than two companies. It is indeed true, should such a point be considered worth discussing, that the undersigned might have used a more technically correct expression in his note of the 26th of January if he had stated the detachment in question to consist of from one to two companies instead of stating it to consist of one company. But a detachment of Her Majesty's troops has been stationed at the Lake Temiscouata from time to time ever since the winter of 1837 and 1838, when the necessity arose from marching reenforcements by that route from New Brunswick to Canada; and it will be remembered that a temporary right of using that route for the same purpose was expressly reserved to Great Britain in the provisional agreement entered into at the beginning of last year.
It is not, therefore, true that the stationing a military force at the Lake Temiscouata is a new measure on the part of Her Majesty's authorities; neither is it true that that measure has been adopted for other purposes than to maintain the security of the customary line of communication and to protect the buildings, stores, and accommodations provided for the use of Her Majesty's troops when on march by that route; and it was with a view to correct misapprehensions which appeared to exist upon these points, and thus to do away with one needless occasion of dispute, that the undersigned conveyed to the United States Government the information contained in his note of the 26th of January.
With regard again to the construction of barracks and other buildings and the preserving them in an efficient state of repair and defense, a similar degree of error and misapprehension appears still to prevail in the minds of the American authorities.
The erection of those buildings within the portion of the disputed territory now referred to, for the shelter of Her Majesty's troops while on their march and for the safe lodgment of the stores, is no new act on the part of Her Majesty's authorities. The buildings in question have been in the course of construction from a period antecedent to the provisional agreements of last year, and they are now maintained and occupied along the line of march with a view to the same objects above specified, for which the small detachments of troops also referred to are in like manner there stationed.
The undersigned will not refrain from here remarking upon one point of comparison exhibited in the present controversy. It is admitted by the United States authorities that the armed bands stationed by the government of Maine in the neighborhood of the Aroostook River have fortified those stations with artillery, and it is now objected as matter of complaint against the British authorities with reference to the buildings at Lake Temiscouata, not that those buildings are furnished with artillery, but only that they are defended by palisades capable of resisting artillery. It would be difficult to adduce stronger evidence of the acts on the one side being those of aggression and on the other of defense.
The fact, shortly, is (and this is the essential point of the argument) that Her Majesty's authorities have not as yet altered their state of preparation or strengthened their military means within the disputed territory with a view to settling the question of the boundary, although the attitude assumed by the State of Maine with reference to that question would be a clear justification of such measures, and it is much to be apprehended that the adoption of such measures will sooner or later become indispensable if the people of Maine be not compelled to desist from the extensive system of armed aggression which they are continuing to carry on in other parts of the same disputed territory.
The undersigned avails himself of this occasion to renew to the Secretary of State of the United States the assurance of his distinguished consideration.
H.S. FOX.
WASHINGTON, March 9, 1840.
To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States:
I transmit to Congress, for their consideration, copies and translations of a correspondence between the Secretary of State and the Spanish legation, growing out of an application on the part of Spain for a reduction of tonnage duty on her vessels in certain cases.
By a royal order issued on the 29th of April, 1832, by the King of Spain, in consequence of a representation made to his Government by the minister of the United States against the discriminating tonnage duty then levied in the ports of Spain upon American vessels, said duty was reduced to 1 real de vellon, equal to 5 cents, per ton, without reference to the place from whence the vessel came, being the same rate as paid by those of all other nations, including Spain.
By the act approved on the 13th of July, 1832, a corresponding reduction of tonnage duty upon Spanish vessels in ports of the United States was authorized, but confined to vessels coming from ports in Spain; in consequence of which said reduction has been applied to such Spanish vessels only as came directly from ports in the Spanish Peninsula.
The application of the Spanish Government is for the extension of the provisions of the act to vessels coming from other places, and I submit for the consideration of Congress whether the principle of reciprocity would not justify it in regard to all vessels owned in the Peninsula and its dependencies of the Balearic and Canary islands, and coming from all places other than the islands of Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippine, and the repayment of such duties as may have been levied upon Spanish vessels of that class which have entered our ports since the act of 1832 went into operation.
M. VAN BUREN.
WASHINGTON, March 10, 1840.
To the House of Representatives of the United States:
In compliance with a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 2d of March, 1839, I communicate reports66 from the several Departments, containing the information requested by the resolution.
M. VAN BUREN.
WASHINGTON, March 11, 1840.
To the Senate:
In compliance with the resolution of the Senate dated the 4th of February, 1840, I have the honor to transmit herewith copies of the correspondence between the Department of War and Governor Call concerning the war in Florida.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
M. VAN BUREN.
WASHINGTON CITY, March, 1840.
To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States:
I lay before you for your consideration a communication of the Secretary of War, accompanied by a report of the Surgeon-General of the Army, in relation to sites for marine hospitals selected in conformity with the provisions of the act of March 3, 1837, from which it will be seen that some action on the subject by Congress seems to be necessary.
M. VAN BUREN.
WASHINGTON, D.C., March 12, 1840.
To the House of Representatives of the United States:
I transmit to the House of Representatives, in answer to resolution of that body dated on the 9th instant, the inclosed report of the Secretary of State.
M. VAN BUREN.
DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, March 12, 1840.
The PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES:
The Secretary of State, to whom has been referred a resolution of the House of Representatives dated the 9th instant, requesting the President to communicate to that body "whether any, and, if any, what, measures have been taken since the rejection of the recommendation of the King of Holland of a new line of boundary between the United States and the Province of New Brunswick to obtain information in respect to the topography of the territory in dispute by a survey or exploration of the same on the part of the United States alone, and also whether any measures have been adopted whereby the accuracy of the survey lately made under the authority of the British Government, when communicated, may be tested or examined," has the honor to report to the President that no steps have been thought necessary by this Government since the date above referred to to obtain topographical information regarding the disputed territory, either by exploration or survey on its part alone, nor has it thought proper to adopt any measures to test the accuracy of the topographical examination recently made by a British commission, the result of which has not been made public or communicated to the United States.
Respectfully submitted,
JOHN FORSYTH.
WASHINGTON CITY, March 19, 1840.
To the Senate of the United States:
I submit herewith for your consideration and constitutional action the treaty accompanying the inclosed communication of the Secretary of War, made with the Shawnee Indians west of the Mississippi River, for the purchase of a portion of their lands, with the view of procuring for the Wyandot Indians of Ohio a satisfactory residence west.
M. VAN BUREN.
WAR DEPARTMENT, March, 1840.
The PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
SIR: I have the honor to submit for your consideration, and, if it meets your approbation, for transmission to the Senate, a treaty concluded on the 18th December last with the Shawnee Indians by their chiefs, headmen, and counselors, and an explanatory communication of the 17th instant from the Commissioner of Indian Affairs.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
J.R. POINSETT.
WAR DEPARTMENT, OFFICE INDIAN AFFAIRS, March 17, 1840.
Hon. J.R. POINSETT, Secretary of War.
SIR: Negotiations with the Wyandots for a cession of their lands in Ohio and removal to the country west of the Mississippi have been pending for some years. During the past season two exploring parties from that tribe have visited the West and were tolerably well pleased with the district to which it was proposed to remove them, but expressed a strong preference for a tract which the Shawnees and Delawares offered to sell to the United States for them. The commissioner charged with the business of treating with the Wyandots was of opinion that if this tract could be procured there would be little difficulty in concluding a treaty. He was therefore under these circumstances instructed to make the purchase, subject to the ratification of the President and Senate and dependent on the condition that the Wyandots will accept it, and on the 18th of December last effected a treaty with the Shawnees by which they ceded a tract of about 58,000 acres on those conditions at the price of $1.50 per acre. No purchase has been made from the Delawares, as they refuse to sell at a less price than $5 per acre, and it is thought that the land ceded by the Shawnees will be amply sufficient for the present.
I have the honor herewith to submit the treaty with the Shawnees, to be laid, if you think proper, before the President and Senate for ratification.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
T. HARTLEY CRAWFORD.
WASHINGTON, March 24, 1840.
To the House of Representatives of the United States:
I transmit herewith a report from the Secretaries of State, Treasury, and Navy and the Postmaster-General, with the documents which accompanied it, in compliance with the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 5th instant, relative to the General Post-Office building and the responsibilities of the architect and Commissioner of the Public Buildings, etc.
M. VAN BUREN.
WASHINGTON, March 26, 1840.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate herewith copies of official notes which have passed between the Secretary of State and the British minister since my last message on the subject of the resolutions of the 17th of January.
M. VAN BUREN.
Mr. Fox to Mr. Forsyth.
WASHINGTON, March 13, 1840.
Hon. JOHN FORSYTH, etc.:
The undersigned, Her Britannic Majesty's envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary, has been instructed by his Government to make the following communication to the Secretary of State of the United States in reference to the boundary negotiation and the affairs of the disputed territory.
Her Majesty's Government have had under their consideration the official note addressed to the undersigned by the Secretary of State of the United States on the 24th of last December in reply to a note from the undersigned of the 2d of November preceding, in which the undersigned protested in the name of his Government against the extensive system of aggression pursued by the people of the State of Maine within the disputed territory, to the prejudice of the rights of Great Britain and in manifest violation of the provisional agreements entered into between the authorities of the two countries at the beginning of the last year.
Her Majesty's Government have also had their attention directed to the public message transmitted by the governor of Maine to the legislature of the State on the 3d of January of the present year.
Upon a consideration of the statements contained in these two official documents, Her Majesty's Government regret to find that the principal acts of encroachment which were denounced and complained of on the part of Great Britain, so far from being either disproved or discontinued or satisfactorily explained by the authorities of the State of Maine, are, on the contrary, persisted in and publicly avowed.
Her Majesty's Government have consequently instructed the undersigned once more formally to protest against those acts of encroachment and aggression.
Her Majesty's Government claim and expect, from the good faith of the Government of the United States, that the people of Maine shall replace themselves in the situation in which they stood before the agreements of last year were signed; that they shall, therefore, retire from the valley of the St. John and confine themselves to the valley of the Aroostook; that they shall occupy that valley in a temporary manner only, for the purpose, as agreed upon, of preventing depredations; and that they shall not construct fortifications nor make roads or permanent settlements.
Until this be done by the people of the State of Maine, and so long as that people shall persist in the present system of aggression, Her Majesty's Government will feel it their duty to make such military arrangements as may be required for the protection of Her Majesty's rights. And Her Majesty's Government deem it right to declare that if the result of the unjustifiable proceedings of the State of Maine should be collision between Her Majesty's troops and the people of that State the responsibility of all the consequences that may ensue therefrom, be they what they may, will rest with the people and Government of the United States.
The undersigned has been instructed to add to this communication that Her Majesty's Government are only waiting for the detailed report of the British commissioners recently employed to survey the disputed territory, which report it was believed would be completed and delivered to Her Majesty's Government by the end of the present month, in order to transmit to the Government of the United States a reply to their last proposal upon the subject of the boundary negotiation.
The undersigned avails himself of this occasion to renew to the Secretary of State of the United States the assurance of his distinguished consideration.
H.S. FOX.
Mr. Forsyth to Mr. Fox.
DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, March 25, 1840.
HENRY S. FOX, Esq., etc.:
The undersigned, Secretary of State of the United States, acknowledges to have received Mr. Fox's communication of the 13th instant, in reference to the boundary negotiation and the affairs of the disputed territory. The information given in the closing part of it—that a reply to the last proposition of the United States upon the subject of the boundary may be expected in a short time—is highly gratifying to the President, who has, however, given directions to the undersigned, in making this acknowledgment, to accompany it with the expression of his profound regret that Mr. Fox's note is in no other respect satisfactory.
After the arrangements which in the beginning of last year were entered into on the part of the two Governments with regard to the occupation of the disputed territory, the President had indulged the hope that the causes of irritation which had grown out of this branch of the subject could have been removed. Relying on the disposition of Maine to cooperate with the Federal Government in all that could lead to a pacific adjustment of the principal question, the President felt confident that his determination to maintain order and peace on the border would be fully carried out. He looked upon all apprehensions of designs by the people of Maine to take possession of the territory as without adequate foundation, deeming it improbable that on the eve of an amicable adjustment of the question any portion of the American people would without cause and without object jeopard the success of the negotiation and endanger the peace of the country. A troublesome, irritating, and comparatively unimportant, because subordinate, subject being thus disposed of, the President hoped that the parties would be left free at once to discuss and finally adjust the principal question. In this he has been disappointed. While the proceedings of Her Majesty's Government at home have been attended with unlooked-for delays, its attention has been diverted from the great subject in controversy by repeated complaints imputing to a portion of the people of the United States designs to violate the engagements of their Government—designs which have never been entertained, and which Mr. Fox knows would receive no countenance from this Government.
It is to be regretted that at this late hour so much misapprehension still exists on the side of the British Government as to the object and obvious meaning of the existing arrangements respecting the disputed territory. The ill success which appears to have attended the efforts made by the undersigned to convey through Mr. Fox to Her Majesty's Government more correct impressions respecting them calls for a recurrence to the subject, and a brief review of the correspondence which has grown out of it may tend to remove the erroneous views which prevail as to the manner in which the terms of the arrangements referred to have been observed.
As Mr. Fox had no authority to make any agreement respecting the exercise of jurisdiction over the disputed territory, that between him and the undersigned of the 27th of February, 1839. had for its object some provisional arrangement for the restoration and preservation of peace in the territory. To accomplish this object it provided that Her Majesty's officers should not seek to expel by military force the armed party which had been sent by Maine into the district bordering on the Restook River, and that, on the other hand, the government of Maine would voluntarily and without needless delay withdraw beyond the bounds of the disputed territory any armed force then within them. Besides this, the arrangement had other objects—the dispersion of notorious trespassers and the protection of public property from depredation. In case future necessity should arise for this, the operation was to be conducted by concert, jointly or separately, according to agreement between the governments of Maine and New Brunswick.
In this last-mentioned respect the agreement looked to some further arrangement between Maine and New Brunswick. Through the agency of General Scott one was agreed to on the 23d and 25th of March following, by which Sir John Harvey bound himself not to seek, without renewed instructions to that effect from his Government, to take military possession of the territory or to expel from it by military force the armed civil posse or the troops of Maine. On the part of Maine it was agreed by her governor that no attempt should be made, without renewed instructions from the legislature, to disturb by arms the Province of New Brunswick in the possession of the Madawaska settlements or interrupt the usual communications between that and the upper Provinces. As to possession and jurisdiction, they were to remain unchanged—each party holding, in fact, possession of part of the disputed territory, but each denying the right of the other to do so. With that understanding Maine was without unnecessary delay to withdraw her military force, leaving only, under a land agent, a small civil posse, armed or unarmed, to protect the timber recently cut and to prevent further depredations.
In the complaints of infractions of the agreements by the State of Maine addressed to the undersigned Mr. Fox has assumed two positions which are not authorized by the terms of those agreements: First. Admitting the right of Maine to maintain a civil posse in the disputed territory for the purposes stated in the agreement, he does so with the restriction that the action of the posse was to be confined within certain limits; and, second, by making the advance of the Maine posse into the valley of the Upper St. John the ground of his complaint of encroachment upon the Madawaska settlement, he assumes to extend the limits of that settlement beyond those it occupied at the date of the agreement.
The United States can not acquiesce in either of these positions.
In the first place, nothing is found in the agreement subscribed to by Governor Fairfield and Sir John Harvey defining any limits in the disputed territory within which the operations of the civil posse of Maine were to be circumscribed. The task of preserving the timber recently cut and of preventing further depredations within the disputed territory was assigned to the State of Maine after her military force should have been withdrawn from it, and it was to be accomplished by a civil posse, armed or unarmed, which was to continue in the territory and to operate in every part of it where its agency might be required to protect the timber already cut and prevent further depredations, without any limitation whatever or any restrictions except such as might be construed into an attempt to disturb by arms the Province of New Brunswick in her possession of the Madawaska settlement or interrupt the usual communication between the Provinces.
It is thus, in the exercise of a legitimate right and in the conscientious discharge of an obligation imposed upon her by a solemn compact, that the State of Maine has done those acts which have given rise to complaints for which no adequate cause is perceived. The undersigned feels confident that when those acts shall have been considered by Her Majesty's Government at home as explained in his note to Mr. Fox of the 24th of December last and in connection with the foregoing remarks they will no longer be viewed as calculated to excite the apprehensions of Her Majesty's Government that the faith of existing arrangements is to be broken on the part of the United States.
With regard to the second position assumed by Mr. Fox—that the advance of the Maine posse along the valley of the Restook to the mouth of Fish River and into the valley of the Upper St. John is at variance with the terms and spirit of the agreements—the undersigned must observe that if at variance with any of their provisions it could only be with those which secure Her Majesty's Province of New Brunswick against any attempt to disturb the possession of the Madawaska settlements and to interrupt the usual communications between New Brunswick and the upper Provinces. The agreement could only have reference to the Madawaska settlements as confined within their actual limits at the time it was subscribed. The undersigned in his note of the 24th of December last stated the reasons why the mouth of Fish River and the portion of the valley of the St. John through which it passes could in no proper sense be considered as embraced in the Madawaska settlements. Were the United States to admit the pretension set up on the part of Great Britain to give to the Madawaska settlements a degree of constructive extension that might at this time suit the purposes of Her Majesty's colonial authorities, those settlements might soon be made with like justice to embrace any portions of the disputed territory, and the right given to the Province of New Brunswick to occupy them temporarily and for a special purpose might by inference quite as plausible give the jurisdiction exercised by Her Majesty's authorities an extent which would render the present state of the question, so long as it could be maintained, equivalent to a decision on the merits of the whole controversy in favor of Great Britain. If the small settlement at Madawaska on the north side of the St. John means the whole valley of that river, if a boom across the Fish River and a station of a small posse on the south side of the St. John at the mouth of Fish River is a disturbance of that settlement, which is 25 miles below, within the meaning of the agreement, it is difficult to conceive that there are any limitations to the pretensions of Her Majesty's Government under it or how the State of Maine could exercise the preventive power with regard to trespassers, which was on her part the great object of the temporary arrangement. The movements of British troops lately witnessed in the disputed territory and the erection of military works for their protection and accommodation, of which authentic information recently received at the Department of State has been communicated to Mr. Fox, impart a still graver aspect to the matter immediately under consideration. The fact of those military operations, established beyond a doubt, left unexplained or unsatisfactorily accounted for by Mr. Fox's note of the 7th instant, continues an abiding cause of complaint on the part of the United States against Her Majesty's colonial agents as inconsistent with arrangements whose main object was to divest a question already sufficiently perplexed and complicated from such embarrassments as those with which the proceedings of the British authorities can not fail to surround it.