ACADIA, the northeastern maritime possession of the Commonwealth, attached, with Newfoundland (q.v.), at the peace of 1713. Its history must be distinguished from that of Canada (q.v.), which entered the Commonwealth half a century later. The fisheries, timber, and sheltered anchorages gave Acadia a value which did not depend upon an early abundance of settled inhabitants. A government chiefly concerned with keeping ships at sea could find reasons to acquire such a country before it had formed any very precise intention of governing its interior.
The Peace of Utrecht (q.v.) closed the War of the Spanish Crown and confirmed the Commonwealth's northern maritime acquisition. The advantage was twofold. The fishing grounds and coasting trade were brought into a closer connexion with New England (q.v.), while the French position upon the approaches to the St Lawrence was narrowed. A treaty could state the transfer more simply than a succession of local officers could make its consequences understood. Harbour, fishing station, farm, and inland route were not interchangeable objects merely because they had been placed beneath one colour upon a map.
The Peace of Paris (q.v.) in 1763 extinguished the French crown's remaining claims in Acadia as part of the wider American settlement. This was a completion of the diplomatic reckoning, not the first attachment of the country. The distinction is occasionally lost in histories which make the greater conquest absorb the smaller acquisitions preceding it. Acadia had already been serving the Commonwealth's shipping while the possession of Canada remained in dispute.
In the present year its economy continues to face the sea. Fish must be cured or carried to a market; timber must reach a place from which it can be shipped. The scattered establishments serving those trades are connected by coastal carriage more readily than the traveller consulting an inland road alone would suppose. An anchorage convenient to one branch of the trade need not be convenient to another, and the apparent profusion of harbours should not be mistaken for a uniform distribution of commercial advantage. New England supplies both a market and much of the mercantile connexion; Newfoundland belongs to the same northern account without becoming, for that reason, a part of the same coast.
The province is thus a useful correction to the belief that the Commonwealth's American growth followed a single westward design. Its acquisition was directed northward and seaward. It concerned the position of vessels, the security of passages, and the products of a difficult shore before it concerned the arithmetic of continental settlement. Later representation and ordinary administration made a provincial business of what had first been a diplomatic convenience.
For the larger sequence see WESTERN EXPANSION (q.v.). Acadia's modest place in that narrative ought not to conceal the character of the success. The Commonwealth obtained something it already knew how to use. Its negotiators have not invariably been so fortunate when the territory offered was more extensive. (H. LeF.)