Subsequently the two French commanders quarrelled, and, engaging in active hostilities, made efforts (not altogether unsuccessful) to enlist Massachusetts in their quarrel. For this purpose La Tour visited Boston in person in the summer of 1643, and was hospitably entertained.[413] He was not able to secure the direct co-operation of Massachusetts, but he was permitted to hire four vessels and a pinnace to aid him in his attack on D’Aulnay.[414] The expedition was so far successful as to destroy a mill and some standing corn, belonging to his rival. In the following year La Tour made a second visit to Boston for further help; but he was able only to procure the writing of threatening letters from the Massachusetts authorities to D’Aulnay. Not long after La Tour’s departure from Boston, envoys from D’Aulnay arrived here; and after considerable delay a treaty was signed pledging the colonists to neutrality, which was ratified by the Commissioners of the United Colonies in the following year; but it was not until two years later that it was ratified by new envoys from the crafty Frenchman.[415]
In this interval D’Aulnay captured by assault La Tour’s fort at St. John, securing booty to a large amount; and a few weeks afterward Madame la Tour, who seems to have been of a not less warlike turn than her husband, and who had bravely defended the fort, died of shame and mortification. La Tour was reduced to the last extremities; but he finally made good his losses, and in 1653 he married the widow of his rival, who had died two or three years before.[416]
[The site of the old fort was on the shore, at a point just below the letter _i_ in the name _Castine_ on the peninsula. Harrisse (no. 198) cites a plan of 1670 in the French Archives.—ED.]]
In 1654, in accordance with secret instructions from Cromwell, the whole of Acadia was subjugated by an English force from Boston under the command of Major Robert Sedgwick, of Charlestown, and Captain John Leverett, of Boston. To the latter the temporary government of the country was intrusted. Ineffectual complaints of this aggression were made to the British Government; but by the treaty of Westminster in the following year England was left in possession, and the question of title was referred to commissioners. In 1656 it was made a province by Cromwell, who appointed Sir Thomas Temple governor, and granted the whole territory to Temple and to one William Crown and Stephen de la Tour, son of the late governor. The rights of the latter were purchased by the other two proprietors, and Acadia remained in possession of the English until the treaty of Breda, in 1667, when it was ceded to France with undefined limits.[417]