ohn river country is
concerned, for the French clung tenaciously to this territory as a
part of the dominions of their monarch until New France passed finally
into the hands of their rivals by the treaty of Paris in 1763.

There was no part of Acadia that was more familiar to the French than
the valley of the River St. John, and the importance attached to the
retention of it by France is seen very clearly in a memorandum,
prepared about this time for the use of the French commissioners on
the limits of Acadia. There can be no doubt that the Abbes de
L'Isle-Dieu and Le Loutre had a hand in the preparation of this
document, which is an able statement of the case from the French point
of view. They assert "that the British pretensions to ownership of the
territory north of the Bay of Fundy have no foundation. That the
French have made settlements at various places along the shores of the
Gulf of St. Lawrence, where they have always lived peaceably and
quietly under the rule of the French king. This is also the state
there at present, and the English desire to change it, without having
acquired any new right of possession since the treaty of Utrecht, and
after forty years of quiet and peaceable possession on the part of the
French. It is the same with regard to the River St. John and that part
of Canada which adjoins the Bay of Fundy. The French, who were settled
there before the treaty of Utrecht, have continued to this day to hold
possession under the jurisdiction and sovereignty of the King of
France, enjoying meanwhile the fruit of their labors. It is not until
more than forty years after the treaty of Utrecht that the English
commissioners have attempted, by virtue of a new and arbitrary
interpretation of the treaty, to change and overturn all the European
possessions of America; to expel the French, to deprive them of their
property and their homes, to sell the lands they have cultivated and
made valuable and to expose Europe by such transactions to the danger
of seeing the fires of war rekindled. Whatever sacrifices France might
be disposed to make, in order to maintain public tranquility, it would
be difficult indeed for her to allow herself to be deprived of the
navigation of the River St. John by ceding to England the coast of the
continent along the Bay of Fundy."

Continuing their argument, the writers of the document state: "That it
is by the River St. John that Quebec maintains her communication with
Isle Ro