Contests which resulted from conflicting grants to French and English pioneers culminated in a decisive victory for the latter in 1710. Three years later the treaty signed at Utrecht gave Nova Scotia and Newfoundland to England, and Cape Breton and the Miquelon Islands to France. Cape Breton Island was re-named L'isle Royale. Louisbourg, which commanded the entrance to the Gulf of St. Lawrence through Cabot Straits, was made the chief fortress and fishing-port of French territory.
The French colony at Port Royal had been absorbed by the English village of Annapolis,—Anne's Town,—in 1710. In 1715, after Louis XV had ceded Acadie to England's queen, a group of Acadians established the first settlement on Prince Edward Island, then the Island of St. John. It is not generally remembered that the Dutch, who in 1673 were at war with Great Britain, stormed and seized several Acadian forts and (1674-5) attempted to confirm their possession of the country which they duly named "New Holland."
Though millions of francs had been spent to fortify Louisbourg, the supposedly unconquerable stronghold succumbed in 1745 to a fifty-day siege by Massachusetts colonists whose resentment had been aroused by French interference with their fishing pursuits. The amazing success of the
