The death of the Marquis de Vandreuil in October, 1725, was deservedly lamented by the Canadians. He was succeeded in 1726 by the Marquis de Beauharnois, (a natural son of Louis XIV.) whose ambitious administration excited yet more the alarm and jealousy of the English colonists of New York and New England; while the intrigues of the Jesuits with the Indians, contributed not a little to bring about the final struggle for dominion on the American continent, between the two most powerful nations of Europe. The war between Great Britain and France in 1745, led to the reduction in that year of Cape Breton, by a British naval and military force, combined with the provincial troops of the New England colonies; but the successful battle of Fontenoy roused the martial spirit of the Canadians to attempt the re-conquest of Nova Scotia in 1746 and 1747, in which they failed, and the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748 suspended further hostilities. Commissioners were then appointed to settle a boundary line between the British and French territories in North America. The object of the French was to confine the English within the boundary of the Alleghany mountains, and prevent their approach to the Lakes, the St. Lawrence, the Mississippi, (where the former were now establishing themselves,) and their tributary streams. The Canadian Government, without any authority from home, and accompanied by a display of military pomp, calculated to impress on the minds of the Indians the idea that France would assert her territorial right to the limits marked, proceeded to survey the projected line of demarcation between the possessions of France and those which the Canadian Governor was pleased, _in his liberality_, to assign to England: leaden plates, bearing the royal arms of France, were sunk at proper distances, and the whole ceremony was concluded with much formality. Such an imprudent step, it may be imagined, seriously alarmed the Indians, as well as the English, and terminated in their active cooperation for the utter expulsion of the French from North America.