181 | From The Board Of Trade

    Whitehall Decemr 24th. 1762

    Sir

    The inclosed copy of the Minutes of our proceedings upon some papers which we have lately received from the Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia, will mark out to you the Sense we have of your conduct, in entring upon a negotiation with the Government of Nova Scotia for ascertaining the Boundary Line between that Province and the Massachusets Bay, without having communicated the affair to Us as it was your Duty to have done.

    You cannot be ignorant that the River Penobscot has always been deem’d and declared to be the western boundary of Accadia or Nova Scotia, as possessed by France under the Treatys of Breda and Ryswick, and as ceded to Great Britain by the Treaty of Utrecht, and tho~ we do not take upon us to declare that the Province of Massachusets Bay is, under this circumstance, absolutely precluded from any claim of property to the Eastward of that River, yet it was so far a matter of question, that, We cannot but think, that it was improper in you to assent to any Grants of Lands between Penobscot and St Croix, untill the question was determined; and that the Countenancing a proposition for ascertaining a Boundary which implys a restriction of the limits of Acadia to the River St Croix, without the participation of the Crown, was such an aggravation of your misconduct as our Duty to His Majesty will not permit us to pass over without animadversion.

    We are Sir Your most Obedient humble Servants

    Soame Jenyns

    Ed Bacon

    John Yorke674

    Edmond Thomas

    Francis Bernard Esqr Governor of Massachusets Bay

    LS, RC BP, 10: 41-44.

    On 10 Dec. the Board of Trade, considered a memorial from Richard Jackson on behalf of the province’s land grants in Sadagahoc and for the moment upheld Belcher’s argument. JBT, 11: 312-313.