From Thomas Jefferson to the Senate, 24 October 1803
To the Senate
To the Senate of the United States.
I lay before you the Convention signed on the 12th. day of May last, between the United States and Great Britain, for settling their boundaries in the North Eastern & North Western parts of the United States, which was mentioned in my general message of the 17th. instant; together with such papers relating thereto as may enable you to determine whether you will advise & consent to it’s ratification.
Th: Jefferson
RC (DNA: RG 46, EPFR, 8th Cong., 1st sess.); endorsed by Senate clerks. PrC (DLC). Recorded in SJL with notation “Conventn. with Gr. Br.” Enclosures: (1) Convention between the United States and Great Britain, 12 May, signed by Rufus King and Lord Hawkesbury, consisting of five articles relating to running the boundaries specified in the 1783 treaty of peace; the first article defines the course of the boundary between various islands from the mouth of the Saint Croix River to the Bay of Fundy; the convention also requires the appointment of three commissioners to determine the northwest angle of Nova Scotia and have the boundary between it and the source of the Saint Croix marked; the commissioners will then determine the northwesternmost head of the Connecticut River and have the boundary between that point and the northwest angle of Nova Scotia marked; the fifth article notes that it is now uncertain that the Mississippi River extends far enough to the north to be intersected by a line drawn due west from the northwesternmost point of Lake of the Woods, as specified for the course of the boundary by the 1783 treaty; that boundary is now declared to be the shortest line between the northwest point of the Lake of the Woods and the nearest source of the Mississippi River, and on the demand of either government, commissioners will be appointed to ascertain those geographical points and have that segment of the boundary run (Tr in DNA: RG 46, EPFR, in multiple clerks’ hands; , Foreign Relations, 2:584-5). (2) Madison to King, 28 July 1801, extract, recommending that the boundary through Passamaquoddy Bay from the mouth of the Saint Croix to the Bay of Fundy be defined in a way that allows both nations access to the navigable channel, which appears to be the intent of the 1783 treaty (Tr in DNA: RG 46, EPFR, in a clerk’s hand; , Sec. of State Ser., 1:484). (3) Madison to King, 8 June 1802, providing instructions for settling “whatever remains to be decided in relation to the boundaries between the two nations”; he reports that it is “now well understood” that the most northern source of the Mississippi River is south of the Lake of the Woods; as a remedy, King may agree to “a line running from that source of the Mississippi which is nearest to the Lake of the Woods, and striking it Westwardly as a tangent and from the point touched along the Watermark of the Lake to its most Northwestern point at which it will meet the line running thro’ the Lake”; Madison refers King to the map in Alexander Mackenzie’s Voyages (Tr in DNA: RG 46, EPFR, in a clerk’s hand; , Sec. of State Ser., 3:287-9); enclosing James Sullivan to Madison, 20 May 1802 from Boston; Sullivan, the agent of the United States for the commission on the Saint Croix boundary in 1798, sends detailed information about the channels and provides his interpretation of the requirements of the treaty (RC in DNA: RG 46, EPFR, in a clerk’s hand, with closing and signature by Sullivan, endorsed for the State Department as received 28 May; , Sec. of State Ser., 3:237-42, 289n). (4) Christopher Gore to Madison, 6 Oct. 1802 from London, reporting his discussions with the British government on the boundary issue in King’s absence; he encloses his notes to Hawkesbury of 24 Aug., 22 Sep., and 28 Sep., “Minutes &c.” of some of the points of discussion, and a reply from Hawkesbury dated 4 Oct. (Trs in DNA: RG 46, EPFR, in a clerk’s hand; , Sec. of State Ser., 3:611-13; , Foreign Relations, 2:587-9). (5) Madison to King, 16 Dec. 1802, extract, reporting that the president is disappointed that the British are not satisfied with the propositions of the United States for resolving the boundary between Lake of the Woods and the Mississippi River, inasmuch as the propositions were favorable to Britain; the U.S. will not press that matter at this time but hopes to have the other boundary questions resolved, and meanwhile both nations can gather more information about the headwaters of the Mississippi, “it being understood that the United States will be as free to be guided by the result of such enquiries in any future negociation, as if the proposition above referred to had never been made by them” (Tr in DNA: RG 46, EPFR, in a clerk’s hand; , Sec. of State Ser., 4:193). (6) King to Madison, 28 Feb. 1803, extract, reporting his progress in discussions on some of the boundary issues (Tr in DNA: RG 46, EPFR, in a clerk’s hand; summarized in , Sec. of State Ser., 4:359-60). (7) King to Madison, 13 May, enclosing the convention; according to Mackenzie’s report, the Lake of the Woods is “nearly circular” and the source of the Mississippi River nearest to the lake is about 20 miles away, which means that the course of the line contained in the convention is “equally advantageous with the Lines we had proposed” (Dupl in DNA: RG 46, EPFR, endorsed for the State Department as received 8 July; also Tr in same; , Sec. of State Ser., 4:607).
whether you will advise & consent: Lewis Harvie delivered the message to the Senate on the 24th. After some consideration of the convention during executive sessions, the Senate on 15 Nov. handed the matter over to a committee consisting of John Quincy Adams, Wilson Cary Nicholas, and Robert Wright (several weeks later, Abraham Venable replaced Nicholas, who was absent). Adams wrote to Madison on 3 Dec. to say that a question had come up about whether the fifth article of the convention “may by a possible future construction, be pretended to operate as a limitation to the claims of Territory” that the United States acquired through the purchase of Louisiana. Adams asked if the negotiators had known of the Louisiana transaction when they framed that article. On 16 Dec., Madison passed along an answer from King in New York, who stated that the terms of the convention had been worked out and agreed to before news of the Louisiana deal reached London. The committee reported to the Senate late in December, declaring that without “means of ascertaining the precise northern limits of Louisiana, as ceded to the United States,” it was not possible to say where the boundary projected by the convention would fall relative to the limits of Louisiana. When ratification of the convention finally came to a vote on 9 Feb. 1804, only nine senators, including Adams but not the other members of the committee, favored keeping the article that related to the boundary between the Lake of the Woods and the Mississippi River. Unable to win approval of the convention in its entirety, they joined the majority to give unanimous approval of ratification “with the exception of the 5th article.” The British government declined to accept the conditional approval of the agreement by the United States, and the convention did not take effect (, 1:451-2, 454, 461-4; , Sec. of State Ser., 6:134, 141, 152-3, 180; , 14:1253; Bradford Perkins, The First Rapprochement: England and the United States, 1795-1805 [Berkeley, Calif., 1967], 143-9).