[Footnote 65: Omitted.]
_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.