of any attempts on the part of the governor to fund the improvement of defenses on the province's northern and eastern frontiers, where there were ongoing difficulties with the Wabanaki Confederacy. One of Shute's more notorious controversies concerned the assembly's refusal to grant him a regular salary. This was a frequent source of dispute, and it spilled over into other matters: Shute's veto of Cooke's appointment in 1719 resulted in a reduction of his salary grant. The salary issue would continue to be a regular source of disagreement between the provincial assembly and the governor until the Belcher administration of the 1730s. Shute attempted to impose press censorship after Cooke partisans published pamphlets harshly criticizing his policies, but the assembly refused to pass the proposed legislation, effectively legitimizing freedom of the press in the province. Boston's conservative religious establishment also expressed reservations over his attendance at Anglican church services, as well as his sometimes ostentatious and loud parties. Indian policy When the War of the Spanish Succession ended in 1713, its North American theater (where it was known as Queen Anne's War) came to an uneasy end. The Treaty of Utrecht that ended the war did not acknowledge any Native American claims, and contained ambiguous language concerning the French cession of Acadia. The contested areas of northern New England included present-day Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and eastern Maine. Joseph Dudley had in 1713 negotiated an end to hostilities with the tribes in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, but the written form of the Treaty of Portsmouth differed in content from the orally negotiated agreements, and its terms were being violated by British settlements encroaching on Abenaki lands on Maine's coasts and rivers. Furthermore, neighboring Nova Scotia's Mi'kmaq had not signed any treaties. Both France and Britain claimed the claimed suzerainty over the tribes inhabiting the contested area. The tribes, loosely organized into the Wabanaki Confederacy, asserted their own sovereignty and ownership of much of the disputed area. In a meeting at Arrowsic, Maine in 1717 Shute and representatives of some of the Wabanakis attempted to reach some agreement concerning colonial encroachment on Native lands and the establishment of provincially operated trading posts. The Kennebec sachem (chief) Wiwurna objected not only to the establishment of settlements on their lands, but also the construction of forts, and claimed sovereign control of those lands. Shute, who often rudely interrupted Wiwurna, bluntly reasserted British claims