one of the British commissioners in 1782, which showed the
boundary as the United States claimed it to be. Though they had
been found too late to affect the negotiations, these maps
disturbed the Senate discussion of the matter. Yet, as they
offset each other, they perhaps facilitated the acceptance of the
treaty.

Rapidly Webster and Ashburton cleared the field. Webster obtained
the release of McLeod and effected the passage of a law to
prevent a similar crisis in the future by permitting such cases
to be transferred to a federal court. The Caroline affair was
settled by an amicable exchange of notes in which each side
conceded much to the other. They did not indeed dispose of the
slave trade, but they reached an agreement by which a joint
squadron was to undertake to police efficiently the African seas
in order to prevent American vessels from engaging in that trade.

Upon the more important matter of boundary, both Webster and
Ashburton decided to give up the futile task of convincing each
other as to the meaning of phrases which rested upon half-known
facts reaching back into the misty period of first discovery and
settlement. They abandoned interpretation and made compromise and
division the basis of their settlement. This method was more
difficult for Webster than for Ashburton, as both Maine and
Massachusetts were concerned, and each must under the
Constitution be separately convinced. Here Webster used the "Red
Line" map, and succeeded in securing the consent of these States.
They finally settled upon a boundary which was certainly not that
intended in 1782 but was a compromise between the two conceptions
of that boundary and divided the territory with a regard for