tion of Acadia: whether the treaty gave
England a vast country, or only a strip of seacoast. Next, that of
northern New England and the Abenaki Indians, many of whom French policy
still left within the borders of Maine, and whom both powers claimed as
subjects or allies. Last and greatest was the question whether France or
England should hold the valleys of the Mississippi and the Great Lakes,
and with them the virtual control of the continent. This was the triple
problem that tormented the northern English colonies for more than a
generation, till it found a solution at last in the Seven Years' War.

Louis XIV. had deeply at heart the recovery of Acadia. Yet the old and
infirm King, whose sun was setting in clouds after half a century of
unrivalled splendor, felt that peace was a controlling necessity, and he
wrote as follows to his plenipotentiaries at Utrecht: "It is so
important to prevent the breaking off of the negotiations that the King
will give up both Acadia and Cape Breton, if necessary for peace; but
the plenipotentiaries will yield this point only in the last extremity,
for by this double cession Canada will become useless, the access to it
will be closed, the fisheries will come to an end, and the French marine
be utterly destroyed."[186] And he adds that if the English will restore
Acadia, he, the King, will give them, not only St. Christopher, but
also the islands of St. Martin and St. Bartholomew.

The plenipotentiaries replied that the offer was refused, and that the
best they could do without endangering the peace was to bargain that
Cape Breton should belong to France.[187] On this, the King bid higher
still for the coveted province, and promised that if Acadia were
returned to him, the fortifications of Placentia should be given up
untouched, the cannon in the forts of Hudson Bay abandoned to the
English, and the Newfoundland fisheries debarred to Frenchmen,[188]--a
remarkable concession; for France had fished on the banks of
Newfoundland for two centuries, and they were invaluable to her as a
nursery of sailors. Even these offers were rejected, and England would
not resign Acadia.

Cape Breton was left to the French. This large island, henceforth called
by its owners Isle Royale, lies east of Acadia, and is separated from it
only by the narrow Strait of Canseau. From its position, it commands the
chief entrance of the gulf and river of St. Lawrence. Some years before,
the intendant Raudot had sen