RC and enclosures (Adams Papers); internal address: “The Honorable John Adams Esqr. / Minister Plenipotentiary of the / Ud. Ss. at the Court of London.—”; endorsed: “[Se]cretary of States Letter / 1 Nov. 1785. / [Re]specting the Eastern Boundary.” Some loss of text due to a torn manuscript.

Congress’ resolution of 13 Oct. did more than require JA to make representations to the British government regarding the Massachusetts–Nova Scotia boundary dispute and enclose documents (all printed with this letter in Dipl. Corr., 1783–1789 , 2:431–454) 561to support his efforts. It empowered him, should his representations fail, to agree to the formation of an Anglo-American boundary commission to settle the dispute, and it vested him “with full powers on behalf of the United States of America” ( JCC , 28:287–290; 29:828–829).

The boundary question turned on precisely which river was the “St. Croix River” mentioned in Art. 2 of the Anglo-American definitive peace treaty (vol. 15:246–247). The enclosed documents, with the exception of the resolution and Jay’s two reports, stemmed directly from Massachusetts’ efforts to resolve that question in negotiations with the governments of Nova Scotia and then New Brunswick, following its creation in Aug. 1784, and two of them stand out. The first is the extract from JA’s 25 Oct. 1784 letter to Thomas Cushing wherein he indicated that the St. Croix River mentioned in the peace treaty was based solely on its designation as such in “Mitchell’s Map.” In a portion of the letter not included in the excerpt, JA indicated that “the line between Massachusetts and Nova Scotia gave me much Uneasiness at the Time . . . and Still continues to distress me” and noted that a number of rivers had been called at one time or another the St. Croix (vol. 16:347–348). The second is the deposition of John Mitchell, the surveyor who created the map primarily used in the negotiations. There he attested that the river on his map designated as the St. Croix was, in fact, based on the best information that he could obtain in 1764. It is not known when JA received this letter and its enclosures, but in his 2 June 1786 letter to James Bowdoin (LbC, APM Reel 113), he indicated that he had made representations to the British government regarding the boundary but presumed they would have little effect. JA was correct, and no settlement was reached during his tenure as minister. The issue was taken up again in the 1794 Jay Treaty and the 1814 Treaty of Ghent, but it was not finally settled until the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842 (Miller, Treaties , 2:249, 577–578; 4:364–365).

Jay’s 21 April 1785 report provided the substance for Congress’ 13 Oct. resolution, for which see note 1. In Jay’s second report, of 22 Sept., he suggested that Massachusetts be advised to garrison the disputed territory, without provoking hostilities, to discourage further incursions. He also recommended that France be apprised of the dispute, since Art. 11 of the 1778 Franco-American Treaty of Alliance contained a mutual guarantee of possessions. With this in mind Jay indicated his opinion that proper measures to bring about a settlement should be formed and pursued in concert with France ( JCC , 29:753–754; Miller, Treaties , 2:39–40).