From John Jay to Benjamin Lincoln, 17 August 1784
To Benjamin Lincoln
New York 17 Augt. 1784
Sir
I have just been honored with a Letter from General Knox of the 29 Ult,1 requesting to be informed “Whose map of the River St Croix2 was used as an authority by the ministers who negociated the Peace” and desiring me to address my answer to You. This Letter arrived during my absence in the Country, from whence I returned the Day before Yesterday.
The Map which the Ministers used, and on which they schetched the Boundary Lines of the united States, was a large Map compiled by Mitchel;3 and if I remember right he lays down he lays down but one River of the name of St. Croix—
Altho’ there may ^in fact^ be several Rivers of that name, yet as the only point which can be in question is, which of them was intended by the Treaty, I think the Matter may be easily decided by that map, especially if it mentions but one River of that name, which I believe is the Case—4 I have the Honor to be with great Respect & Esteem Sir your most obt & very h’ble Servt Majr Gen. Lincoln
John Jay
ALS, MHi: Henry Knox (EJ: 4704). Addressed: “Majr. Gen. Lincoln / Boston”. Endorsed. Postmarked: “N-York Aug 26th”.
1. Along with George Partridge (1740–1828) and Benjamin Lincoln, who had recently retired as secretary of war, Knox had been named by the Massachusetts General Court on 7 July 1784 to investigate Nova Scotian encroachments on the U.S. side of the northeastern boundary. The Massachusetts authorities had acted in response to a request from the Continental Congress. , 26: 52, 53.
2. The “River St. Croix,” fixed in the 1783 Peace Treaty with Great Britain as the boundary line between the United States and Nova Scotia, was a cartographic fantasy. Not one but three rivers flowed into Passamaquoddy Bay—the Cobscook, the Schoodic, and the Magaguadavic—each of which had at one time or another been called the “St. Croix.” See Richard Oswald to Thomas Townshend, 7 Oct. 1782, note 3, above; , 22: 88.
3. On the Mitchell map, see : 382–84n.
4. While the Nova Scotians continued to insist that the Schoodic was the proper “St. Croix,” Knox and Lincoln, after visiting the Passamaquoddy region and examining the Mitchell map, reported that the Magaguadavic, in present-day New Brunswick, was the river intended in the treaty. JJ had not heard the last of the “St. Croix” boundary: the treaty which he negotiated with Great Britain in 1794 provided for an Anglo-American commission to settle the dispute. See Henry S. Burrage, Maine in the Northeastern Boundary Controversy (Portland, 1919), chs. 1, 2; , 364–65; John Bassett Moore, ed., History and Digest of International Arbitration (6 vols.; Washington, D.C., 1898), 1: 19–22.