each other, and were continued until finally settled in the year 1763, bythe treaty of Paris.
Each nation had granted and partially settled the country, denominatedby the French, Acadie, and by the English, Nova Scotia . By the twelftharticle of the treaty of Utrecht , made in 1703, his most Christian majestyceded to the Queen of Great Britain, “all Nova Scotia or Acadie , with itsancient boundaries.” A great part of the ceded territory was in the pos-session of the Indians, and the extent of the cession could not be adjustedby the commissioners to whom it was to be referred.
The treaty of Aix la Chape lie, which was made on the principle of thestatus ante bellum, did not remove this subject of controversy. Commis-sioners for its adjustment were appointed, whose very able and elaborate,though unsuccessful arguments, in favour of the title of their respectivesovereigns, show how entirely each relied on the title given by discoveryto lands remaining in the possession of Indians.
After the termination of this fruitless discussion, the subject was trans-ferred to Europe, and taken up by the cabinets of Versailles and London .
This controversy embraced not only the boundaries of New England,
Nova Scotia, and that part of Canada which adjoined those colonies, butembraced our whole western country also. France contended not onlythat the St. Lawrence was to be considered as the centre of Canada , butthat the Ohio was within that colony. She founded this claim on disco-very, and on having used that river for the transportation of troops, in awar with some southern Indians.
This river was comprehended in the chartered limits of Virginia; but,though the right of England to a reasonable extent of country, in virtueof her discovery of the seacoast, and of the settlements she made on it,was not to be questioned; her claim of all the lands to the Pacific ocean ,because she had discovered the country washed by the Atlantic, might,without derogating from the principle recognised by all, be deemed ex-travagant. It interfered, too, with the claims of France , founded on thesame principle. She therefore sought to strengthen her original title tothe lands in controversy, by insisting that it had been acknowledged byFrance in the fifteenth article of the treaty of Utrecht . The dispute re-specting the construction of that article, has no tendency to impair theprinciple, that discovery gave a title to lands still remaining in the posses-sion of the Indians. Wluchever title prevailed, it was still a title to landsoccupied by the Indians, whose right of occupancy neither controverted,and neither had then extinguished.
These conflicting claims produced a long and bloody war, which wasterminated by the conquest of the whole country east of the Mississippi .
In the treaty of 1763, France ceded and guarantied to Great Britain , allNova Scotia or Acadie, and Canada , with their dependencies; and it wasagreed, that the boundaries between the territories of the two nations, inAmerica , should be irrevocably fixed by a line drawn from the source ofthe Mississippi , through the middle of that river and the lakes Maurepasand Ponchartrain, to the sea. This treaty expressly cedes, and has alwaysbeen understood to cede, the whole country, on the English side of thedividing line, between the two nations, although a great and valuable partof it was occupied by the Indians. Great Britain , on her part, surrenderedto France all her pretensions to the country west of the Mississippi . Ithas never been supposed that she surrendered nothing, although she wasnot in actual possession of a foot of land. She surrendered all right toacquire the country; and any after attempt to purchase it from the Indians,would have been considered and treated as an invasion of the territoriesof France .
By the 20th article of the same treaty, Spain ceded Florida , with itsdependencies, and all the countries she claimed east or south-east of theMississippi, to Great Britain . Great part of this territory also was in pos-session of the Indians.
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