[GANONG ] BOUNDARIES OF NEW BRUNSWICK 197 
interests of their American colonies, refused to yield it, and it was con- 
firmed to England by the Treaty of Utrecht. Very soon after the treaty 
was signed, however, the French began to claim that the Acadia ceded 
by them was not the Acadia which France had held prior to 1710, but 
an Acadia of ancient limits which included only the peninsula of Nova 
Scotia. This comes out clearly in a letter from de Vaudreuil and 
Begon to de Pontchartrain, dated after the signing of the treaty in 1713. 
Who first originated this claim we do not know, but it is probable that 
it was in the minds of the French even before the Treaty of Utrecht was 
signed.t The words “ according to its ancient limits” did not, however, 
originate with them, for they first appear in the English proposals 
(Memorials, 662). The first statement of the French to the English, 
that they had not ceded the mainland, that I have found, is in a letter of 
1718 written by de Vaudreuil to Governor Doucett of Nova Scotia, in 
which he asks the latter “ not to permit your English vessels to go into 
the river St. John, which is always of the French dominion” (Mur- 
doch, I., 354), and after this the French claim to the mainland was 
constantly maintained. Jefferys in his “ Conduct of the French” states 
(44) that it was in 1719 the French began to raise objections about the 
bounds of Nova Scotia. | 
In 1720 the French claim was set forth in a memoir by Père 
Aubrey, which is published in full in the documents relative to the 
Colonial History of the State of New York, IX., 894. He speaks of a 
map earlier sent to the Court with a memoir explaining the boundaries 
of Acadia? in order that the Court might not through ignorance cede to 
the English lands not part of Acadia. He then makes positive state- 
ments, unsupported by evidence, that the mainland had “never been 
admitted to be Acadia by any of the Dutch, English or French Geogra- 
phers,” and he asserts, again without evidence, that Acadia is the penin- 
sula (though he applies the name to the entire peninsula), and he states 
that all of the mainland remains to the French as before the war. 
Through the memoir runs the idea of the danger to Canada if all the 
English claim as Acadia be ceded to them. 

1 But a few months after, June 28, 1713, the Minister wrote to MM. de 
Vaudreuil and Begon ;—‘‘ Has found in their memorial no papers respecting 
the limits of Acadia. They must endeavour to find evidence establishing 
the limit at Pesmokouady. It would be far better should they find documents 
limiting Acadia to the Peninsula.” (Archives, 1899, Supplement, 471). In this 
letter we get a glimpse of the very genesis of the French claim. 
* This map is unknown, but the mémoire appears to be in the Parkman 
MSS. in Mass. Hist. Soc. New France, I., 9. (Winsor, ‘‘America,’” V., 475.) 
They were sent to the Court in 1713, shortly after the treaty was signed, as 
is shown by a note in N.Y. Colonial Documents, IX., 931. 
