fectually answered this purpose; for the Indians and Neutrals still
seized every opportunity of attacking the English in the interior parts
of the peninsula. In the course of the succeeding year they surprised
the little town of Dartmouth, on the other side of Halifax-bay, where
they killed and scalped a great number of people, and carried off some
prisoners. For these expeditions the French always supplied them with
boats, canoes, arms, and ammunition; and indeed they were conducted with
such care and secrecy, that it was almost impossible to prevent their
success. One sure remedy against the sudden and stolen incursions of
those savages might have been found in the use of staunch hounds, which
would have run upon the foot, detected the skulking parties of the
Indians, and frustrated all their ambuscades; but this expedient, so
easy and practicable, was never tried, though frequently recommended in
public to the attention of the government, and the consideration of the
colonists. The Indians continued to plunder and massacre the British
subjects with impunity, and were countenanced by the French government
in that country, who now strengthened their lodgement on the neck of
the peninsula with an additional fort, distinguished by the name of
Bayeverte; and built a third at the mouth of St. John's river, on the
north side of the bay of Fundy.

BRITISH AMBASSADOR AT PARIS AMUSED WITH GENERAL PROMISES.

All these previous steps to a rupture with England were taken with great
deliberation, while the commissaries of both nations were disputing
about the limits of the very country which they thus arrogantly usurped;
and they proceeded to perfect their chain of forts to the southward,
without paying the least regard to the expostulations of the English
governors, or to a memorial presented at Versailles by the earl of
Albemarle, the British minister. He demanded that express orders should
be sent to M. de la Jonquire, the commander for the French in America,
to desist from violence against the British subjects in that country;
that the fort of Niagara should be immediately razed; that the subjects
of Great Britain, who had been made prisoners, should be set at liberty,
and indemnified for the losses they had sustained; and that the persons
who had committed these excesses should be punished in an exemplary
manner. True it is, six Englishmen, whom they had unjustly taken, were
immediately dismissed; and the ambassador amu