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 How BRITISH AND AMERICAN SUBJECTS UNITE 155 edge of it as shown in the address could hardly have been obtained prior to that time. The address could not have been written in 1843 because the reference to action taken "last year" would have no meaning. No constitution and laws were issued in 1842. Those writers who have found internal evidence for 1842 or 1843 as the date of the address have depended on its 5th clause as given in the printed English translation. This clause is there made to read, "we are opposed to the regulations an- ticipated." This seems to imply foreknowledge on the part of the Canadians as to the. kind of constitution and laws the Americans intended to adopt in 1843, and thus makes intelligible the objections found in the address. The Canadians really said something entirely different as shown by an examination of the same clause of the French original. "We oppose any regula- tions too much in advance of our state of society" is what they really said. It seems entirely possible that the indorsement on the back of the English copy which has heretofore led the unwary his- torian astray may be correct in everything but the year. If it was made by some one at a later period the mistake would be easy to understand, or even if written at the time by some one of the secretaries (the ink is the same as that of the sig- natures on French document) it would have been easy for the slip to be made. With the evidence thus conclusive that the address was composed in 1844, with other independent evi- dence that of the McLoughlin letter of March 20, 1845, that it was presented at a meeting in March, it seems quite prob- able that this meeting was held on March 4, the day of the month given in the indorsement. The Canadians stood out in this address for a union that would incorporate all the various elements of the community. The plan of government adopted in 1843 was as they express it "too individual," meaning too distinctly American. Until the boundary of the territory has been definitely fixed by treaty between Great Britain and the United States they insist that the country must be open alike to citizens of every na-