Page:History of the United States of America, Spencer, v1.djvu/197

] governments, and to pass acts which should bind each province to be subject to their determinations; but the suggestion had not been acted upon. This year, however, commissioners were appointed, with Philip Livingston, of New York, as president, to settle the dispute. Greatly to the mortification of Massachusetts, it was decided against her, and the result was, New Hampshire gained several hundred thousand acres more than she had ever claimed. In 1741, Benning Wentworth was appointed governor, an office which he filled for the next twenty years. Massachusetts was equally unsuccessful in the matter of disputed boundaries as respected Maine and Rhode Island. The western boundary of Maine was fixed as it now runs, which was according to the claims of New Hampshire. Rhode Island also obtained a decision in her favor for all that tract which Massachusetts claimed to be within the old Plymouth patent.

The third intercolonial war took its rise from the effort, on the part of Spain, to maintain that jealous system of colonial monopoly which she had adopted in its utmost rigor, and in which she was imitated, with less stringency, by the French and English. The latter had acquired, by the treaty of Utrecht, the privilege of transporting a certain number of slaves annually lo the Spanish colonies, under cover of which a wide-spread system of smuggling had been introduced, against which the Spaniards vainly sought to protect themselves by the establishment of revenue cruisers. Some of these Spanish vessels had attacked English ships engaged in lawful traffic, and had committed several instances of barbarity, which had greatly moved the popular indignation, and excited a clamor for war, to which Walpole the minister was reluctantly obliged to consent. Soon after, a general European war broke out, under George II., and the colonies in America were of course involved in new struggles.

The first intimation which New England had of the actual state of things, was in May, 1743, when an expedition crossed over from Cape Breton, broke up the fishery, and attacked and captured Fort Canso, in Nova Scotia. Annapolis was twice besieged by Indians and Canadians, but obtained seasonable relief from Massachusetts. Privateers issuing from Louisburg did great damage to the New England fisheries and commerce, and the eastern Indians renewed their ravages on the frontiers of Maine.

The French had expended large sums in erecting the fortress of Louisburg, on the island of Cape Breton. To effect its reduction was therefore of the most vital importance; yet the attempt might well have appeared all but desperate. The walls of the fortress, surrounded with a moat, were prodigiously strong, and furnished with nearly two hundred pieces of cannon. A body of prisoners, however, who, having been seized at the English settlement of Canso and carried to Louisburg, were allowed to return to Boston on parole, disclosed the important fact that the garrison was both weak and disaffected. Shirley, the governor, proposed to the legislature of Massachusetts to attempt its