[Footnote 47:  See Note VI, p. 147.]

The colony of Massachusetts, therefore, could not be charged with any want of energy in asserting her chartered rights to the territory in question.  It is, in fact, due to her exertions that both Nova Scotia and New Brunswick came at so early a period into the possession of the British Crown.  In 1654 the French settlements as far as Port Royal, at the head of the Bay of Fundy, were reduced by Major Sedgwick, but by the treaty of Breda they were restored to France.

In 1690 Sir William Phips, governor of Massachusetts, with a force of 700 men, raised in that colony, again conquered the country, and although on his return the French dislodged the garrison possession was forthwith resumed by an expedition under Colonel Church.  Acadie, however, or Nova Scotia, was ceded again to France by the treaty of Ryswick.  After several spirited but unsuccessful attempts during the War of the Succession, General Nicholson, with a force of five regiments, four of which were levied in Massachusetts, reduced Port Royal, and by its capitulation the present Provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick were permanently annexed to the British Crown.[48] Finally the militia of Massachusetts, during the War of 1776, took possession of the territory, and occupied it until the date of the treaty of 1783.  This occupation was not limited by the St. Croix, or even by the St. John, but included the whole of the southern part of New Brunswick, while the peninsula of Nova Scotia was only preserved to Great Britain by the fortification of the isthmus which unites it to the mainland.[49]

[Footnote 48:  Haliburton’s History, Vol.  I, pp. 83-87.]

[Footnote 49:  Haliburton’s History, Vol.  I, pp. 244-289.]

The recession of Acadie, or Nova Scotia, to France by the treaty of Ryswick divested Massachusetts only of the territory granted her in the charter of 1691 under the latter name.  Her war title to Sagadahock was confirmed by a conquest with her own unaided arms; and even the cession of Nova Scotia was a manifest injustice to her, as she was at the moment in full possession of it.  It, however, suited the purpose of Great Britain to barter this part of the conquest of that colony for objects of more immediate interest.

Admitting that England did convey a part or the whole of Sagadahock to France under the vague name of Acadie or Nova Scotia,[50] the conquest by Massachusetts in 1710 renewed her rights to this much at least, and although the Crown appropriated to itself the lion’s share of the spoils by making Nova Scotia a royal province, it did not attempt to disturb her possession of Sagadahock.  So far from so doing, the commission of the royal governors was limited to the west by the St. Croix, although it was stated in a saving clause that the Province of Nova Scotia extended of right to the Penobscot.  From that time until the breaking out of the Revolutionary War, a space of more than sixty years, the Province of Sagadahock was left in the undisturbed possession of Massachusetts under the charter of 1691.