127 | To Jonathan Belcher

    Boston June 17: 1762

    Sr:

    I wrote to you on the 3d: of April last511 inclosing a resolve of the General Court to which I have had no Answer I now inclose another Resolve of the same kind, I have only to add that from what appears to me, the sole doubt concerning the Line dividing the two Provinces will arise from this Question; which of the Rivers which fall into the Bay of St: Croix is the River St: Croix? And this will depend upon the comparison of those Rivers with the accounts given of them by the first Voyagers particularly Champlain.

    I am with regard &c.

    (Signed) Fra Bernard

    Honble: Jona. Belcher Esqr.512

    L, Copy CO 5/891, f 153.

    The provincial governments of Nova Scotia and Massachusetts were confused as to which particular river it was that in 1604 French explorers named the “St. Croix” and that Samuel de Champlain (1567-1635) recorded in a map of the region. The different toponomic practices of the emigrants settled in the area and the Native peoples they displaced added to the uncertainty. Demeritt, “Representing the ‘True’ St Croix.” See also No. 154.