The War of the Austrian Succession, which raged in Europe, and on the ocean, and in India and America, from 1740 to 1748 (see AUSTRIA: A. D. 1718-1738, 1740-1741, and after), was brought to an end in the latter year by a Congress of all the belligerents which met at Aix-la-Chapelle, in April, and which concluded its labors on the 18th of October following. "The influence of England and Holland ... forced the peace upon Austria and Sardinia, though both were bitterly aggrieved by its conditions. France agreed to restore every conquest she had made during the war, to abandon the cause of the Stuarts, and expel the Pretender from her soil; to demolish, in accordance with earlier treaties, the fortifications of Dunkirk on the side of the sea, while retaining those on the side of the land, and to retire from the conquest without acquiring any fresh territory or any pecuniary compensation. England in like manner restored the few conquests she had made, and submitted to the somewhat humiliating condition of sending hostages to Paris as a security for the restoration of Cape Breton. ... The disputed boundary between Canada and Nova Scotia, which had been a source of constant difficulty with France, was left altogether undefined. The Assiento treaty for trade with the Spanish colonies was confirmed for the four years it had still to run; but no real compensation was obtained for a war expenditure which is said to have exceeded sixty-four millions, and which had raised the funded and unfunded debt to more than seventy-eight millions. Of the other Powers, Holland, Genoa, and the little state of Modena retained their territory as before the war, and Genoa remained mistress of the Duchy of Finale, which had been ceded to the king of Sardinia by the Treaty of Worms, and which it had been a main object of his later policy to secure. Austria obtained a recognition of the election of the Emperor, a general guarantee of the Pragmatic Sanction, and the restoration of everything she had lost in the Netherlands, but she gained no additional territory. She was compelled to confirm the cession of Silesia and Glatz to Prussia, to abandon her Italian conquests, and even to cede a considerable part of her former Italian dominions. To the bitter indignation of Maria Theresa, the Duchies of Parma, Placentia and Guastella passed to Don Philip of Spain, to revert, however, to their former possessors if Don Philip mounted the Spanish throne, or died without male issue. The King of Sardinia also obtained from Austria the territorial cessions enumerated In the Treaty of Worms [see ITALY: A. D. 1743], with the important exceptions of Placentia, which passed to Don Philip, and of Finale, which remained with the Genoese. {22} For the loss of these he obtained no compensation. Frederick