2 sician or private, shall be entitled to the compensation 3 mentioned in this act, unless he shall personally per4 form the duty required by law. Fines and Penalties. SEC. 22. Every non-commissioned officer, musi2 cian, or private, who shall unnecessarily neglect to 3 appear on the days, at the times and places appointed 4 for such duty, agreeably to the provisions of this act. 5 shall forfeit his annual pay, and shall also forfeit and 6 pay two dollars for each and every such neglect. SEC. 23. Whenever any volunteer company, which 2 has received any arms or equipments from the acting 3 quartermaster general, shall be disbanded, the acting 4 quartermaster general is required to receive said arms 5 or equipments, on presentation of the same by the 6 officers of said company or their agents. SEC. 24. An act to repeal the forty-second section 2 of the sixteenth chapter of the Revised Statutes, ap3 proved March 11, 1842, and an act to govern and 4 discipline the militia, approved March 22, 1844, are 5 hereby repealed, and so much of the sixteenth chapter 6 of the Revised Statutes and the act to amend the 7 sixteenth chapter of the Revised Statutes, approved 8 March 24, 1843, as was repealed by said act, approv9 ed March 22, 1814, and is not inconsistent with the 10 provisions of the foregoing act, are hereby revived. STATE OF MAINE. IN SENATE, Feb. 14, 1845. ORDERED, That 500 copies be printed for the use of the Legislature. J. O. L. FOSTER, Secretary. TWENTY-FIFTH LEGISLATURE. No. 17.] [HOUSE. To the members of the Senate and House of Representatives : I HAVE received a memorial, signed by Mr. Oliver Frost, of the city of Bangor, representing that since the ratification of the Treaty of Washington, he has been engaged, under permits from the States of Maine and Massachusetts, in the manufacture of pine timber upon that part of this State which is watered by the river St. John and its tributaries. The memorialist further states, that notwithstanding the clear and explicit provisions of said treaty, by which the free transit of the productions of that part of the State of Maine, through the river St. John, and to and from the seaport at its mouth, without the exaction of any tax, toll or duty, was supposed to be secured, he has been compelled to pay to the Provincial authorities of New Brunswick, an export duty upon said timber, amounting in the aggregate to the sum of $1,808.80. That believing the exaction of said duty to be in contravention of the plain and obvious meaning of the third article of said treaty, he has made application to the Congress of the United States for reimbursement and relief; and he asks the intervention of the government of this State, as well in his own behalf, as that the rights and interests of the citizens of Maine engaged in similar pursuits, may be protected from further imposition. Accompanying this memorial, and in proof of the allegations therein contained, are several documents marked from A to H, inclusive, all of which, together with said memorial, are herewith transmitted. Wm. T. Johnson, Printer to the State. In the early part of the last year, I was advised by letters from respectable and well informed individuals, that the law complained of by this memorialist had been passed by the Provincial Legislature of New Brunswick; and that under its operation, the lumber cut in the State of Maine and destined for market or shipment at the port of St. John, would be subject to an export duty of twenty cents per ton. Considering the imposition of this tax as in flagrant violation of an express stipulation of the treaty, I addressed a letter to John C. Calhoun, Secretary of State, under date of April 10, 1844, apprising him of the passage of said law, and requesting the interference of the general government to procure its repeal. A copy of this letter and his reply thereto, will also accompany this communication. It will be unnecessary to remind the Legislature that among the advantages and equivalents which the Treaty of Washington was supposed to provide, the free and unrestricted right to navigate the river St. John was considered by all the parties concerned in the negotiation, as of great importance to the interests of Maine. Aside from the pecuniary compensation awarded to the States of Maine and Massachusetts, it was in fact the only indemnity provided by the treaty for the large concessions she was called upon to make, and without which, it is safe to aver, the consent of her commissioners would not have been obtained. In consenting to the adjustment of a protracted controversy, upon terms involving so great a sacrifice of territorial rights, it was not anticipated that the provisions of the treaty intended to secure a partial compensation, would be evaded or denied. Should the claim now set up by the Provincial Legislature, sanctioned as it is by the superior authorities of Great Britain, be acquiesced in by our government, it is obvious that the use of the river for all the purposes mentioned in the treaty, can be enjoyed by our citizens only through the sufferance of our colonial neighbors. If the Legislature of New Brunswick can impose a duty of twenty cents per ton upon American timber shipped from the port at the mouth of the St. John, it may with equal propriety carry the |