LETTER FROM EDMUND BUEKE.                         221
However, as a mer<5 unconnected arrangement, it was right to define with clearness, although such a plan of policy never had existed, or thould pass away, as I hope and think in some degree it has, with the first heats.
The bill passed through, the House of Lords, with some opposition, but no amendment; but when it came into the House of Commons, the ministers confessed, that it was hastily drawn, and they professed great candor in admitting alterations. The part by which your province would be directly affected, was only the boundary clause.
As the boundary was, in the most material parts In the original bill, only constructive, and in general words of reference, "to the boundary lines of the other provinces, as adjudged or allowed by the Crown;" I thought it necessary to know, with regard to you, what lines had been actually drawn, and next what principles were to guide in adjudging your real boundaries in future.
With regard to the first point, I found, that a line of division between your colony and that of Quebec, had been allowed by the King in Council to be run from a point on Lake Champlain in forty-five degrees of north latitude. So far had been agreed between the Governors of the two provinces and allowed. But no line had been actually run in consequence of this agreement, except from the river Connecticut to the Lake, bven this lin« had not been formally allowed; and none at all had been run to the westward of Lake Champlain. So that your boundary on the north had never been perfectly delineated, though the principle upon which it should be drawn had been laid down. For a great part of the northern frontier, and for the whole of the western, until you met the line of New Jersey, you had no defined boundary at all. Your claims were indeed extensive, and I am persuaded just; but they had never been regularly allowed.
My next object of inquiry, therefore, was, upon what principles the Board of Trade would in the future discussions which must inevitably and speedily arise, determine what belonged to you, and what to Canada.
I was told, that the settled, uniform doctrine and practice of the Board of Trade, was this: that in questions of boun-dary, where the jurisdiction and soil in both the litigating provinces belonged to the Crown, there was no rule but the King's will, and that he might allot as he pleased, to the one or th.e other. They said also, that under these circumstances, even where the King had actually adjudged a ter-