In this it was stipulated that Mitchell's and Map A should be admitted to the exclusion of all others "as the only maps that shall be considered as evidence" of the topography of the country, and in the latter of these maps, constructed under the joint direction of the British and American negotiators by the astronomer of the British Government, it was agreed that nothing but the water courses should be represented. Finally, it was admitted in the report of Messrs. Featherstonhaugh and Mudge that the terms highlands and height of land are identical. The decision of the King of the Netherlands, to which Great Britain gave her assent in the first instance, recognizes the correctness of the views entertained in the American statements.[56] All discussion on this subject is, however, rendered unnecessary by the knowledge which the undersigned have obtained of the country. The line surveyed by them not only divides rivers, but possesses in a preeminent degree the character by which in the British argument highlands are required to be distinguished.
It is sufficient for the present argument that the identity of the lines pointed out by the proclamation of 1763 and the act of 1774 with the boundary of the treaty of 1783 be admitted. Such has been the uniform claim of the Government of the United States and the State of Massachusetts, and such is the deliberate verdict of the British commissioners.[57] The words of the proclamation of 1763 have already been cited. By reference to them it will be seen that the origin of "the highlands" is to be sought on the _north_ shore of the Bay of Chaleurs. If they are not to be found there, a gap exists in the boundary of the proclamation, which it is evident could not have been intended. It has been thought by some that the gap did actually exist, but this idea was founded on an imperfect knowledge of the country. The Bay of Chaleurs seems, in fact, to have been better known to the framers of the proclamation of 1763 and the act of 1774 than to any subsequent authorities, whether British or American. Researches made in the year 1840 show that at the head of the tide of the Bay of Chaleurs a mountain rises immediately on the northern bank, which from its imposing appearance has been called by the Scotch settlers at its foot Ben Lomond. This, indeed, has by measurement been found to be no more than 1,024 feet in height, but no one can deny its title to the name of a highland. From this a continuous chain of heights has been ascertained to exist, bounding in the first instance the valley of the Matapediac to the sources of that stream, which they separate from those of the Metis. The height of land then passes between the waters of Metis and Restigouche, and, bending around the sources of the latter to the sources of the Rimouski, begins there to separate waters which fall into the St. Lawrence from those which fall into the St. John, which they continue to do as far as the point where they merge in the line admitted by both parties.