subject. In pursuance of this application, a resolve was passed appointing the first Monday in April, 1807, as the time for the people to give in their votes on the measure.

The question was agitated at an unfortunate time for the advocates of the separation; political excitement was then raging violently, and absorbed every other subject of a public nature. Very little discussion took place in the papers, and the vote was almost silently taken. In this town, the ballot stood seventy-three yeas, and three hundred and ninety-two nays, while at the same meeting the votes for governor stood, for Strong, four hundred and ninety-two, Sullivan, four hundred and twenty-eight, making an aggregate of four hundred and fifty-five votes more than were given on the question of separation. In the one hundred and fifty towns, from which returns were made, the vote was three thousand three hundred and seventy for separation, and nine thousand four hundred and four against it.'

This decisive expression of public sentiment put the question, which had been before the public with little intermission for twenty-two years, at rest for some time, during which, the suspension of foreign intercourse and the war, became more engrossing topics of consideration. But soon after the conclusion of peace in 1815, the subject was again revived, and a more organized effort was made to accomplish the object; societies were formed in different places, public meetings were held, and leading gentlemen in the District made great exertions to arouse the people to a favorable consideration of the subject. They succeeded in procuring a number of petitions to the legislature for a separation; these were referred to a committee who reported favorably to the petitioners, and a day

1 The votes of Portland are not in the official returns.

* The Union Society established in June, 1815, for this District, in a circular sent to every town, remark—“In our exertions for the general good of our country, we must keep an eye to the separation of Maine from Massachusetts. This subject will soon be spread before the people."

was appointed for the people to give their votes in favor or against the measure. The whole number of votes returned on this occasion was sixteen thousand eight hundred and ninetyfour, of which ten thousand three hundred and ninety-three were in favor, and six thousand five hundred and one opposed to separation.1

On this state of things, the legislature passed an act regulating the principles on which a separation might take place, the detail of which it is not necessary here to give, and authorized the inhabitants to assemble in their respective towns on the first Monday in September, 1816, to choose delegates to a convention to meet at Brunswick on the last Monday in September. They were also required to give their votes on the question whether it is expedient to form the District into an independent State, which votes were to be returned to said convention; and if it appeared that a majority of five to four of the votes so returned were in favor of separation, the convention was to proceed and form a constitution and not otherwise.

Under this act the people proceeded to vote and to elect delegates to the convention. The whole number of votes returned was twenty-two thousand four hundred and sixty-six, of which number eleven thousand nine hundred and twentyseven were in favor and ten thousand five hundred and thirtynine against separation; a majority of five to four of the votes returned was twelve thousand four hundred and eighty-one and one-ninth, so that there was a deficiency of the number required of five hundred and fifty-four and one-ninth votes. The committee of the convention, however, to whom the subject was referred, by a peculiar mode of reasoning, arrived at a different conclusion. They construed the act to mean not

The whole number of legal voters in the District of Maine at that time was thirty-seven thousand eight hundred and fifty-eight.

John Holmes was chairman of the committee, Judge Preble, one of the members, and drew the report, in which a majority of the committee were with difficulty induced to concur. Mr. Holmes at first demurred.

an aggregate majority of five to four of all the votes returned, but this ratio of the majorities of the several towns and plantations. Their own language will perhaps make their meaning more clear: "As the delegates must be apportioned according to the respective majorities of their towns, so on the question of separation, the majorities of yeas in the towns and plantations in favor must be, to the majority of nays in those opposed as five to four of the votes returned. The corporate majoritie of yeas must be placed in one column, and those of nays in the other, and each added, then as five is to four, so is the aggregate majority of yeas in the towns and plantations in favor, to the aggregate majority of nays in those opposed." The result of this calculation gave six thousand and thirty-one yeas and four thousand eight hundred and twenty-five nays, exceeding the legislative majority by four hundred and sixteen votes. This report was accepted in the convention by a vote of one hundred and three to eighty-four; the minority entered their protest upon its journals. The convention proceeded to raise committees to draft a constitution in the recess, and to apply to Massachusetts and to Congress for the requisite sanctions; but all measures were suspended until the result of the application to the legislature of Massachusetts was known, which being unfavorable to the construction of the act given by the majority of the convention, no further proceedings were had on the subject. The protest earnestly contended against the construc

Of this convention William King was chosen president, and Samuel K. Whiting of Portland, secretary; the votes of Portland were yeas four hundred and seventy-five, nays two hundred and one. The convention consisted of ore hundred and eighty-eight members. Those from Portland were Ezekiel Whitman, Nicholas Emery, Isaac Adams, Mathew Cobb, William Widgery, and John H. Hall. Mr Whitman received the opposition votes for president.

An anecdote was related to me in 1825, by a democratic member of the convention, which I have never disclosed and which was never made public. At a caucus, he said, of the leading friends of the separation, previous to organization, much uneasiness was felt that the requisite majority had not been obtained. The town of Elliot was strongly opposed to separation, and choosing no delegate, she

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tion given to the word majority by the committee, and against adjournment or the appointment of committees with reference to a future meeting of the convention, declaring that the majority required by the legislature not having been obtained, the duty of the convention then terminated, and "the exercise of further powers" by it was "usurpation."

The legislature of Massachusetts sustained the views of the minority and resolved "that the powers of the Brunswick convention have ceased," and that it was inexpedient for the present General Court to adopt any measures in regard to the separation of the District of Maine.

Thus terminated at this time the struggle in which the most strenuous and persevering exertions had been used, and in

sent her votes by the delegate of a neighboring town. The votes of that town were not counted nor reported; if they had been, even the ingenious evasion of the plain language of the statute in regard to the majority, would not have availed. It is to the fate of the Elliot vote that my anecdote relates. The package of votes was handed to a prominent member of the caucus, who threw it out of the window of Dr. Page's house where the caucus was held, he then went out and picking it up, handed it to my informant, saying, "See that that packet does not go into the house." The person who thus received it, gave it to another member and he to another, until all trace of it was lost. The convention instituted an inquiry for the lost votes, and several members were examined in regard to them, but all knowledge was denied, and they accordingly found no place on the journal or in the count, and the gross fraud proved partially successful. All the parties to the transaction are dead, and I give no names. The vote of Elliot on the next trial in 1819, was twenty in favor of separation and one hundred and twenty-two against it.

A committee of the legislature of Massachusetts, to whom the subject was committed, use the following language in their report relative to the construction of the convention, they "have no hesitation in saying that the committee have misconstrued the act by which their powers were defined: that the word 'majority' refers to the majority of votes returned, and not to the aggregate of local and municipal majorities: that this is a self-evident position, resulting from the perusal of the act and not susceptible of illustration or contravention by any argument. That of consequence the contingency provided by the act as prerequisite to the formation of a constitution, and as a condition of the consent of this legislature, to the separation of Maine, has not occurred, and the powers of said convention are at an end."

which for the first time a majority in favor of separation had been obtained.

The proceedings and unfavorable result of the Brunswick convention, for a time rendered the cause of separation unpopular, and chilled the ardor of its friends. The first attempt made to revive it was in December, 1817, by a committee, of which Gen. Chandler of Monmouth was chairman, which addressed letters to gentlemen in various parts of the District, with a view to sound them and ascertain the expediency of again acting on the subject. A meeting of a number of members of the legislature, of which Gen. King was chairman, was held in Boston early in February following, before which the doings of this committee were laid, and which proceeded languidly at first to resuscitate the favorite measure. Nothing material was done until the session of the legislature in January, 1819, when another meeting was held in Boston of persons friendly to separation, which appointed a committee of fifteen gentlemen, under instructions to make preparatory arrangements for carrying into effect a separation from Massachusetts, and the establishment of an independent State government."

This committee published a circular in April, urging the people to active exertions in the cause, and the several towns to send a full representation to the legislature, and to forward petitions to the next session, "soliciting the passage of a law authorizing the sense of the inhabitants of the District to be again taken." This appeal set the ball once more in full motion, and the question was discussed with much animation.

The subject came early before the legislature in June, 1819, and was committed to a large joint committee, who entered I CIRCULAR. It is a noticeable fact that in most of the later attempts at separation, the first movements proceeded from meetings held in Boston.

There were about one hundred petitions from incorporated towns and plantations, and others from individuals in favor of separation, and a number of remonstrances against it. The representatives from Maine were one hundred and twenty-five for, and twenty-five against separation.