All this intrigue occurred in 1749
and the years following the treaty of peace. If the English
suffered, so did the Acadians. Le Loutre told them that if once
they became British subjects they would lose their priests and
find their religion suppressed. Acadians who took the oath would,
he said, be denied the sacraments of the Church. He would also
turn loose on the offenders the murderous savages whom he
controlled. If pressed by the English, the Acadians, rather than
yield, must abandon their lands and remove into French territory.
At this point arises the question as to what were the limits of
this French territory. In yielding Acadia in 1713, France had not
defined its boundaries. The English claimed that it included the
whole region stretching northeastward to the Gulf of St. Lawrence
from the frontier of New England. The French, however, said that
Acadia meant only the peninsula of Nova Scotia ending at the
isthmus between Baie Verte and the Bay of Chignecto; and for
years a Canadian force stood there on guard, daring the British
to put a foot on the north side of the little river Missaguash,
which the French said was the international boundary.
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