the Sieur de Gaspe
complained that he had not been able to make the soldiers of the
garrison work. He says "they are very bad subjects" and he dared not
compel them to work apprehending their desertion. The fort was
surrounded by four bastions and, in addition to the barracks and
magazines, it was proposed to construct a building of logs, squared
with the axe, to accommodate the chaplain and surgeon and to serve as
a guard house.

Fort Boishebert, at Woodman's Point on the Nerepis, was a difficult
post to maintain owing to the insufficiency of the troops at de
Gaspe's disposal. He complains that the savages had broken in the door
of the cellar and he thought it advisable to abandon it altogether.
The Marquis de la Jonquiere ordered him to consult with Father Germain
on the subject and meanwhile to double the guard. The missionary wrote
he was of the same opinion as the Sieur de Gaspe, and permission was
accordingly given to abandon the fort and to transport the supplies
wherever they might be needed.

The Jesuit missionary at Penobscot, Father Gounon, proposed to spend
the winter at "Nerepisse" with his Indians, but the governor of Canada
did not at all approve of it, fearing that if the savages were to
abandon their village the English would advance from the westward
towards the River St. John. He apprehended that if only a small number
of Indians remained at Penobscot, and these without a missionary, the
enemy would win them to their side and, as a direful result, the
English would presently establish themselves at Matsipigouattons,
advancing to Peskadamokkanti (or Passamaquoddy) and so by degrees to
the River St. John.

CHAPTER XI.

THE FRENCH ANXIOUS TO HOLD POSSESSION OF THE RIVER ST. JOHN.

The situation on the St. John had now become a matter of international
interest in view of the boundary dispute. The deliberations of the
French and English commissioners began in 1750 and lasted four years.
In preparing the French case the Marquis de la Galissonniere summoned
to his aid the Abbes de L'Isle-Dieu and Le Loutre, who were both well
informed as to the situation of Acadia and also filled with intense
zeal for the national cause. We learn from letters of the Abbe de
L'Isle-Dieu, written at Paris to the French minister early in the year
1753, that the two missionaries, in consultation with the Count de la
Galissonniere, prepared several documents to elucidate the French
case. Copies of these very inter