The answer of John Jay, who, was one of the Commissioners by whom the Treaty of Peace between Great Britain & the United States was negotiated, to the Interrogatories put to him at the Instance of the Agent on the part of the United States, by the board of Commissioners for ascertaining the River St. Croix, intended in and by the said Treaty.

The said John Jay having been duly sworn answers & says— that in the course of the said Negotiations, difficulties arose respecting the Eastern extent of the United States— That Mitchels map was before them & was frequently consulted for Geographical information. That in settling the Eastern boundary line (described in the Treaty) and of which the River St. Croix forms a part, it became a question which of the rivers in those parts, was the true River St. Croix; it being said that several of them had that name. That they did finally agree that the River St. Croix laid down on Mitchel’s Map, was the river St. Croix which ought to form a part of the said Boundary line.— But whether that River was then so decidedly and permanently adopted & agreed upon by the Parties as conclusively to bind the two Nations to that Limit, even in case it should afterwards appear that Mitchel had been mistaken, & that the true River St. Croix was a different one from that which is delineated by that name on his Map, is a question or case, which he does not recollect nor believe was then put or talked of— By whom in particular that map was then produced, and what other Maps, Charts, & Documents ^of state^ were then before the Commissioners at Paris, and whether the British Commissioner then produced or mentioned an act of Parliament respecting the boundaries of Massachusetts are circumstances which his recollection does not enable him to ascertain.— It seems to him that certain Lines were marked on the Copy of Mitchel’s map which was before them at Paris: but whether the map mentioned in the Interrogatory as now produced, is that Copy—or whether the lines said to appear on it are the same lines he cannot without inspecting and examining it undertake to judge—1

To the last Interrogatory he answers— That for his own part he was of opinion that the Easterly Boundaries of the United States ought on principles of Right & Justice to be the same with the Easterly Boundaries of the late Colony or Province of Massachusetts.— Altho’ much was said & reasoned on the Subject, yet he does not at this distance of time remember any particular & explicit declarations of the Parties to each other which would authorize him to say that the part of the said line (described in the Treaty) which is formed by the River St. Croix, was mutually & clearly conceived and admitted to be also a part of the Eastern Boundary line of Massachusetts.— He doubts there having then been very clear conceptions relative to the just & precise Easterly extent of Massachusetts: for he has reason to beleive that respectable opinions in America at that time considered the River St. John as the proper Eastern Limit of the United States.