[boueinot] builders OF NOVA SCOTIA. 9 



sent state of Maine — the portion east of the Kennebec — the province of 

 New Brunswick in its entirety, a small part of the province of Quebec 

 south of the St. Lawrence, and all of the peninsula of Nova Scotia. The 

 island of St. Jean, now Prince Edward Island, and Cape Breton, also 

 called Isle Eoyale after the treaty of Utrecht, when it became an impor- 

 tant part of the French dominions on account of its commanding the en- 

 trance to the gulf of St. Lawrence, were never generally considered by 

 France as parts of the original Acadia and were not included in the 

 cession of Nova Scotia in 171:^. The treaty ceded " likewise all Nova 

 Scotia or Acadie with its ancient boundaries as also the city of Port Eoyal, 

 now called Annapolis Eoyal," but it was not long before disputes arose 

 between the rival nations as to these "ancient boundaries", and France 

 eventually asserted the untenable pretension that the Acadia they had 

 given up to England meant only one-half of the peninsula of Nova Scotia, 

 and actually fortified the isthmus of Chignecto in the assertion of their 

 unwarrantable claim to the rest of the Acadian region. Commissioners 

 were appointed on behalf of the contesting nations to settle the dispute, 

 but the only results were the complication of the question and the accu- 

 mulation of documents which are now merely of interest to students of 

 the past, since the question of our eastern boundaries no longer enters 

 into the domain of practical international politics. No doubt, however, 

 can exist in the minds of those who have carefully studied the history of 

 Acadia from its first occupation by the French until the treaty of Utrecht 

 that the name was generally given to the territory I have just mentioned 

 and was not limited in its application to the peninsula of Nova Scotia. 

 All disputes, however, were settled for ever by the treaty of Paris in 1763, 

 in which the French king " renounces all pretensions which he has here- 

 tofore formed or might form to Nova Scotia or Acadie, in all its parts, 

 and guarantees the whole of it with all its dependencies," to the King 

 of Great Britain. By the same treaty, France ceded to England the 

 important island of Isle Eoyale or Cape Breton, which, for the greater 

 part of its history since 1763, has formed a valuable section of the pro- 

 vince of Nova Scotia. 



The Acadian settlement of Nova Scotia lasted until 1755, although 

 the troubles of the people commenced immediately with the foundation 

 of Halifax, and led many of them to find their way to New Brunswick, 

 St. John's Island, and Cape Breton, before the stern mandate came to 

 drive them from the lands they loved so well, and which they had made 

 their own by their patient industr}^ In 1749 there were probably at 

 least ten thousand French Acadians — though correct statistics on the 

 point are not available — living in the Annapolis country, on the lands 

 watered by the Gaspereau and other rivers that flow into the basin of 

 Minas— the district of Grand Pré and Mines— at Piziquid (Windsor), at 

 Cobequit (Truro), and at Beaubassin and other places on the isthmus of 



