74 BRITISH AMERICA.

following the middle of that river, and the great lakes to the head of Lake Superior, &c., leaving all the lands north of this line to the Crown of Great Britain.

The commissioners appointed on the part of Great Britain, agreeably to the treaty of Ghent, seem to have been most unaccountably ignorant of the natural configuration of America, and they do not even appear to know which river was, in reality, meant for the St Croix, but took for granted the one named by the American agents.

If we examine a map of the country lying between the Atlantic and the St Lawrence, we will have little difficulty in concluding, that the Penobscot was the St Croix understood at the treaty of 1783. It is also well known, that the general name of St Croix was given to all the rivers falling into the Atlantic, from Massachusetts Bay to the river St John, from the French having, on first frequenting the country, erected crosses along the coast, which, from this circumstance, long obtained the name of Terre du St Croix, or Country of the Holy Cross.

As the country claimed by the United States is of vast importance to the power that may possess it, the final adjustment of the boundary line is an object that will likely be attended with considerable difficulty.9K

The physical aspect of British America preSents, along the Atlantic coasts, with but few exceptions,

"* Note A. I'