New Ireland (Maine)

In 1779 the British adopted a strategy to capture parts of Maine, especially around Penobscot Bay, and transform it into a new colony to be called "New Ireland".

The Patriots, having been blocked from escaping by sea by the Royal Navy, burned their ships near present-day Bangor and walked home.

The failed Penobscot Expedition, which cost the revolutionaries eight million dollars and 43 ships, proved to be the greatest American naval defeat until Pearl Harbor in 1941.

At the end of the Revolutionary War, many American Loyalists in the area migrated eastward to the Canadian Maritimes, some towing their houses behind their boats.

In addition, many soldiers of the 74th chose to be disbanded in St. Andrews (last muster May 24, 1784), and took up land grants there along with the Loyalists, rather than return to Britain.

[16] The Treaty of Paris that ended the war was ambiguous in defining the boundary between Maine and the neighbouring British provinces of New Brunswick (Sunbury County, Nova Scotia) and Quebec.

Young, a retired Saint Mary's University history professor, said that the British “wanted to extend the border back down to what they thought was the historic frontier.”[18] The Treaty of Ghent returned this territory to the United States.

The brief life of the colony yielded customs revenues, called the "Castine Fund", which were subsequently used to finance a military library in Halifax and found Dalhousie College.