er, of the foregoing memorial
may have this good effect, that it will apprise the English of the
matter of accusation against them, and enable them to counter-work those
holy engines of state, and emissaries of ambition. It is also certain,
that this very memorial was drawn up by a French priest, purely to
furnish the French ministry a specious document to oppose to the most
just representations of the British government. Besides the fictions
with which it abounds, he has taken care to suppress the acts of cruelty
committed, and the atrocious provocations given by the savages, at the
instigation of his fellow-laborers sedition and calumny._]

LETTER

FROM

Mons. DE LA VARENNE,

TO HIS

FRIEND at ROCHELLE.

_Louisbourg_, the 8th of _May_, 1756.

Though I had, in my last, exhausted all that was needful to say on our
private business, I could not see this ship preparing for France,
especially with our friend _Moreau_ on board, without giving you this
further mark of how ardently I wish the continuance of our
correspondence. It will also serve to supplement any former deficiencies
of satisfaction to certain points of curiosity you have stated to me;
this will give to my letter a length beyond the ordinary limits of one:
and I have before-hand to excuse to you, the loose desultory way in
which you will find I write, as things present themselves to my mind,
without such method or arrangement, as a formal design of treating the
subject would exact. But who looks for that in a letter?

I need not tell you how severely our government has felt the
dismemberment of that important tract of country already in the
possession of the English, under the name of Acadia; to say nothing of
their further pretentions, which would form such terrible encroachments
on Canada. And no wonder it should feel it, considering the extent of so
fruitful, and valuable a country as constitutes that peninsula. It might
of itself form a very considerable and compact body of dominion, being,
as you know, almost everywhere surrounded by the sea, and abounding with
admirable and well-situated ports. It is near one hundred leagues in
length, and about sixty in breadth. Judge what advantages such an area
of country, well-peopled, and well-cultivated, and abounding in mines,
might produce. It is full of hills, though I could not observe any of an
extraordinary heighth, except that of Cape Doree, at the mouth of the
river _des Mines_, the most