claim or title, by virtue of any former treaty, or otherwise, to the
country called Nova Scotia, and expressly to Port Royal, otherwise
Annapolis Royal." To these they added a manifest demonstration, founded
on indisputable facts, proving that the recital of the several sorts
of right which France had ever pretended to this country, and the
specification of both terms, Acadia or Nova Scotia, were intended by
Great Britain to obviate all doubts which had ever been made concerning
the limits of Acadia, and to comprehend with more certainty all that
country which France had ever received as such; finally, to specify what
France considered as Acadia. During the treaty, they referred to the
offers of that crown in the year one thousand seven hundred and twelve,
in which she proposed to restrain the boundary of Acadia to the river
St. George, as a departure from its real boundary, in case Great Britain
would restore to her the possession of that country. From all these
facts it plainly appears that Great Britain demanded nothing but what
the fair construction of the words of the treaty of Utrecht necessarily
implies; and that it is impossible for any thing to have more evident
marks of candour and fairness in it, than the demand of the English on
this occasion. From the variety of evidence brought in support of this
claim, it evidently results that the English commissaries assigned no
limits as the ancient limits of Acadia, but those which France
herself determined to be such in the year one thousand six hundred
and thirty-two; and which she possessed, in consequence of that
determination, till the year one thousand six hundred and fifty-four;
that in one thousand six hundred and sixty-two, France claimed, and
received in one thousand six hundred and sixty-nine, the country which
Great Britain now claims as Acadia, restored to France by the treaty
of Breda under that general denomination; that France never considered
Acadia as having any other limits than those which were assigned to it
from the year one thousand six hundred and thirty-two, to the year one
thousand seven hundred and ten; and that, by the treaty of Utrecht, she
engaged to transfer that very same country as Acadia, which France has
always asserted and possessed, and Great Britain now claims, as such.
Should the crown of France, therefore, be ever willing to decide what
are the ancient limits of Acadia, by her own declarations so frequently
made in like discussion