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 o