The maritime provinces never suffered from invasion, but on the contrary obtained some advantages from the presence of large numbers of British men-of-war in their seaports, and the expenditure on military and naval supplies during the three years of war. Following the example of the Canadas, the assemblies of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia voted large sums of money and embodied the militia for active service or general purposes of defence. The assembly of New Brunswick, essentially the province of the Loyalists, declared in 1813 that the people were "ready and determined to repel every aggression which the infatuated policy of the American government may induce it to commit on the soil of New Brunswick." But the war was so unpopular in the state of Maine and other parts of New England that the provinces by the sea were comparatively safe from aggression and conflict. Soon after the commencement of hostilities the governors of Maine and New Brunswick issued proclamations which prevented hostilities for two years along their respective borders. In Nova Scotia there was much activity during the war, and letters of marque were issued to privateers which made many captures, and offered some compensation for the losses inflicted on the coasting and fishing interests by the same class of American vessels. In 1814 it was decided by the imperial authorities to break the truce which had practically left Maine free from invasion, and Sir John Sherbrooke, then governor of Nova Scotia, and Rear-Admiral Griffith took possession of Machias, Eastport, Moose, and other islands in Passamaquoddy Bay. The people of the United States generally welcomed the end of a war which brought them neither honour nor profit and seemed likely to break the union into fragments in consequence of the hostility that had existed in New England through the conflict from the very beginning. The news of Prevost's retreat from Plattsburg no doubt hastened the decision of the British government to enter into negotiations for peace, which was settled on terms by no means favourable to Canadian interests. The question of the New Brunswick boundary might have been then adjusted on conditions which would have prevented at a later day the sacrifice of a large tract of territory in Maine which would be now of great value to the Dominion. The only advantage which accrued to the Canadians was a later convention which gave the people of the provinces full control of fisheries, ignorantly sacrificed by the treaty of 1783.