The design of invading New England was relinquished, and it was resolved to make an attempt on Annapolis. With this view the fleet sailed from Chebucto, but was again overtaken by a violent tempest which scattered the vessels composing it. Those which escaped shipwreck returned singly to France.[142]
"Never," says Mr. Belknap, "was the hand of divine providence more visible than on this occasion. Never was a disappointment more severe on the part of the enemy, nor a deliverance more complete, without human help, in favour of this country."
As soon as the fears excited by this armament were dissipated, the project of dislodging the French and Indians, who had invaded Nova Scotia, was resumed. Governor Shirley detached a part of the troops of Massachusetts on this service; and pressed the governors of Rhode Island and New Hampshire, to co-operate with him. The quotas furnished by these colonies were prevented by several accidents from joining that of Massachusetts, which was inferior to the enemy in numbers. The French and Indians, under cover of a snow storm, surprised the English at Minas; who, after an obstinate resistance, in which they lost upwards of one hundred men, were compelled to capitulate, and to engage not to bear arms against his Most Christian Majesty, in Nova Scotia for one year. De Ramsay, who commanded the French, returned soon afterwards to Canada.
No farther transactions of importance took place in America during the war, which was terminated by the treaty of Aix la Chapelle. By this treaty, it was stipulated that all conquests made during the war should be restored; and the colonists had the mortification to see the French re-possess themselves of Cape Breton.
The heavy expenses which had been incurred by the New England colonies, and especially by Massachusetts, had occasioned large emissions of paper money, and an unavoidable depreciation. Instead of availing themselves of peace, to discharge the debts contracted during war, they eagerly desired to satisfy every demand on the public treasury, by farther emissions of bills of credit, redeemable at future and distant periods. Every inconvenience under which commerce was supposed to labour, every difficulty encountered in the interior economy of the province, was attributed to a scarcity of money; and this scarcity was to be removed, not by increased industry, but by putting an additional sum in circulation. The rate of exchange, and the price of all commodities, soon disclosed the political truth that, however the quantity of the circulating medium may be augmented, its aggregate value cannot be arbitrarily increased; and that the effect of such a depreciating currency must necessarily be, to discourage the payment of debts, by holding out the hope of discharging contracts with less real value than that for which they were made; and to substitute cunning and speculation, for honest and regular industry. Yet the majority had persevered in this demoralising system. The depreciation had reached eleven for one; and the evil was almost deemed incurable, when the fortunate circumstance of a reimbursement in specie, made by parliament for colonial expenditures on account of the expeditions against Louisbourg and Canada, suggested to Mr. Hutchinson, speaker of the house of representatives in Massachusetts, the idea of redeeming the paper money in circulation, at its then real value.
This scheme, at first deemed Utopian, was opposed by many well meaning men who feared that its effect would be to give a shock to the trade and domestic industry of the province; and who thought that, as the depreciation had been gradual, justice required that the appreciation should be gradual also.
Paper money redeemed.
With great difficulty, the measure was carried; and the bills of credit in circulation, were redeemed at fifty shillings the ounce. The evils which had been apprehended were soon found to be imaginary. Specie immediately took the place of paper. Trade, so far from sustaining a shock, nourished more than before this change in the domestic economy of the colony; and the commerce of Massachusetts immediately received an impulse, which enabled it to surpass that of her neighbours who retained their paper medium.[143]
Renewal of contests with the French colonies respecting boundary.
The treaty of Aix la Chapelle did not remove the previously existing controversies between the colonies of France and England respecting boundary. These controversies, originating in the manner in which their settlements had been made, and at first of small consequence, were now assuming a serious aspect. America was becoming an object of greater attention; and, as her importance increased, the question concerning limits became important also.
1749
In settling this continent, the powers of Europe, estimating the right of the natives at nothing, adopted, for their own government, the principle, that those who first discovered and took possession of any particular territory, became its rightful proprietors. But as only a small portion of it could then be reduced to actual occupation, the extent of country thus acquired was not well ascertained. Contests respecting prior discovery, and extent of possession, arose among all the first settlers. England terminated her controversy with Sweden and with Holland, by the early conquest of their territories; but her conflicting claims with France and with Spain, remained unadjusted.
On the south, Spain had pretensions to the whole province of Georgia, while England had granted the country as far as the river St. Matheo, in Florida.
On the north, the right of France to Canada was undisputed; but the country between the St. Lawrence and New England had been claimed by both nations, and granted by both. The first settlement appears to have been made by the French; but its principal town, called Port Royal, or Annapolis, had been repeatedly taken by the English; and, by the treaty of Utrecht, the whole province, by the name of Nova Scotia, or Acadié, according to its ancient limits had been ceded to them.
But the boundaries of Nova Scotia, or Acadié, had never been ascertained. Though the treaty of Utrecht had provided that commissioners should be appointed by the two crowns, to adjust the limits of their respective colonies, the adjustment had never been made. France claimed to the Kennebec; and insisted "that only the peninsula which is formed by the bay of Fundy, the Atlantic ocean, and the gulf of St. Lawrence," was included in the cession of "Nova Scotia, or Acadié, according to its ancient limits." England, on the other hand, claimed all the country on the main land south of the river St. Lawrence. Under the treaty of Aix la Chapelle, commissioners were again appointed to settle these differences, who maintained the rights of their respective sovereigns with great ability, and laborious research; but their zeal produced a degree of asperity unfavourable to accommodation.
While this contest for the cold and uninviting country of Nova Scotia was carried on with equal acrimony and talents, a controversy arose for richer and more extensive regions in the south and west.
Discovery of the Mississippi.
So early as the year 1660, information was received, in Canada, from the Indians, that, west of that colony, was a great river, flowing neither to the north, nor to the east. The government, conjecturing that it must empty itself either into the gulf of Mexico or the south sea, committed the care of ascertaining the fact to Joliet, an inhabitant of Quebec, and to the Jesuit Marquette. These men proceeded from lake Michigan up the river of the Foxes, almost to its source, whence they travelled westward to the Ouisconsing, which they pursued to its confluence with the Mississippi. They sailed down this river to the 33d degree of north latitude, and returned by land, through the country of the Illinois, to Canada.
The mouth of the Mississippi was afterwards discovered by la Salle, an enterprising Norman, who, immediately after his return to Quebec, embarked for France, in the hope of inducing the cabinet of Versailles to patronise a scheme for proceeding by sea to the mouth of that river and settling a colony on its banks.
Having succeeded in this application, he sailed for the gulf of Mexico, with a few colonists; but, steering too far westward, he arrived at the bay of St. Bernard, about one hundred