The War of the Spanish Succession in Europe had for all practical purposes ceased, and the echo of it in America was dying away. The belligerents were weary; the English began to feel the burden of their National Debt; while the French were utterly exhausted, for in 1709 even nature had turned against the omnipotent Louis, and the country was impoverished by a winter which killed the fruits and vines. In 1713 terms were at last agreed to; and the Treaty of Utrecht, the first really great colonial treaty, was the result. It is idle to speculate on what enormous gains might have fallen to the English if party spirit and spite had not cut short the remarkable career of England's great captain. Had Marlborough been allowed to continue his unbroken series of triumphant victories, and had he been permitted to select a commander-in-chief in the West, it is most probable that the Treaty of Utrecht would have contained those clauses which made the Treaty of Paris so famous half a century later. As it was, the gains to England in the colonial world were not to be despised. Acadia was surrendered to Great Britain, with Hudson Bay and Newfoundland; on the other hand, Cape Breton Island was restored to France. The great faults of the treaty, as far as it concerned the Western Hemisphere, lay first in allowing the French certain fishing rights off the shores of Newfoundland, which remained until recently "a dangerous cause of quarrel between two great nations, a perpetual irritating sore, a bar to the progress and prosperity of the Colony;"[268] and, secondly, it was unwise to restore Cape Breton to the French, as it was the key to the St Lawrence. A Frenchman pointed this out in 1745, when he said that "it was necessary that we should retain a position that would make us at all times masters of the entrance to the river which leads to New France";[269] and even in 1713 the French Government realised something of the island's importance, and reared upon its desolate, fog-bound shore the mighty fortress of Louisburg, a stronghold that came to be regarded as impregnable, and second only in importance to that of Quebec.