} 
210 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
meant to them in their efforts to hold their possessions in America, 
made a desperate effort to hold the, to them, most valuable part of it 
by diplomacy. In the face of the words of the treaty, however, they 
had a difficult task before them, and we cannot but admire, even if 
we do not approve, the ingenuity they displayed in their efforts to 
retain it. Their commissioners took immediate advantage of the only 
foothold the wording of the treaty allowed them, namely the expres- 
sion “Acadia within its ancient limits,” and the mention of Acadia 
and Port Royal, which permitted a claim that the latter was not in 
Acadia. Accordingly they claimed that the Acadia of the Treaty of 
Utrecht, and hence the only Acadia in question, was not the Acadia 
of the preceding eighty years, but the ancient Acadia antedating the 
Treaty of Saint Germain, and the ancient limits of this Acadia they 
claimed comprehended but a part of the peninsula. In their contention 
that this ancient Acadia included but a part of the peninsula they were 
indeed upon firm ground, for upon the whole the evidence : favours 
this contention * and this point the English were never able to answer 
effectually, though, indeed, they had no need to, for on their conten- 
tion, these ancient limits were not in question. But a great difficulty 
faced the French in the fact that the Treaty of Utrecht ceded Nova 
Scotia or Acadia as if they were synonymous, and there was ample and 
incontestable evidence that Nova Scotia included the mainland. It is 
in meeting this point that the French commissioners display the great- 
est ingenuity, and by a subtle dissociation of words from ideas and a 
concentration of their attention ‘upon the former, they are able to give 
a verisimilitude of truth to their contention that the word Nova Scotia 
was without meaning to the French, and indeed only a fanciful word 
with no legal or other real existence until the Treaty of Utrecht, and 
that treaty gave it an official standing as exactly equivalent to Acadia 
within its ancient limits. This contention was of course groundless in 
fact, and the English easily met it. 
The Memorials themselves are of extreme interest to any one con- 
cerned with the History of Acadia, and as well of the greatest value 
to Acadian history. Both sets of documents are unusually fine ex- 
amples of partisan pleadings. They are remarkably clear in their 
style, and most dignified and courteous im their tone. Both use every 
device to prejudice the reader in favour of their respective sides. 
Both abound in the most positive declarations as to the completeness 
and finality of their own proofs, and the weakness of those of their op- 
ponents, and both endeavour, not only to meet and answer the argu- 
ments of their opponents, but to turn them into evidence against them. 

* See earlier, page 162. 
