194 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
Chapelle, in 1748, and while the commissioners appointed in accordance 
with that treaty were trying to decide upon the limits of Acadia, the 
English held themselves bound not to intrude upon the continental part; 
but when in 1755 the futile sessions of the commissioners came to a 
close, the English, feeling that right was upon their side, captured Fort 
Beauséjour, and in the succeeding years, especially in 1758, ravaged the 
French settlements on the St. John and the Miramichi, and made them- 
selves the actual masters of continental Acadia, which they never after- 
wards resigned. 
We have finally to note the lesser boundaries of this period, and so 
far as New Brunswick is concerned, there are none. The province was 
undivided from 1713 until after 1763, excepting for a single township 
of Harrington on the St. John of unknown location (N.S. Archives, IT., 
175). All the seigniories of the French period vanished under the pro- 
vision of the Treaty of Utrecht, which provided that all seigniors who 
abandoned the country were to lose their seigniories, and this was the 
case with every one in New Brunswick. 
The history of the transfers of Acadia from nation to nation in this 
period is most remarkable. Three times did the English seize the coun- 
try by force of arms, and three times did the French secure its return 
by diplomacy, but in the end force finally triumphed and the country 
passed permanently to England. The English have little cause to look 
with pride upon the history of this period, however, for it is marred by 
their arbitrary acts and failures to recognize the spirit of treaties. But 
the action of the French in trying to retain the Acadia they had ceded 
to England was little better, and neither nation can ever feel pride in 
its record in Acadia. 
Thus this period came to an end. Of all the numerous boundaries 
that had been established, not a single one survived to be transmitted to 
the next period except the western boundary of Nova Scotia, and even 
that was but an abstract, a legal St. Croix, for the identity of the real 
St. Croix of Champlain had been forgotten, and it was only recovered 
much later after considerable difficulty. 
To make clearer the subject of boundaries the following synopsis 
will be useful. | 

1 I have assumed here the separation of Nova Scotia in 1696. As this 
paper is in press however, the doubt on this point expressed on page 189 is 
confirmed by a letter from J. W. Fortescue, editor of the ‘‘Calendar of State 
Papers,’ who has been so kind as to search the records in his charge for me. 
He writes that not only does he find no document of 1696 separating Nova 
Scotia from Massachusetts, but that the Commission of Lord Bellomont, of 
June 18, 1697, as Governor of Massachusetts, recites the charter of 1691, men- 
tioning Nova Scotia and Acadia as included in that Province. 
