I know
that our (French) government, is indeed fully sensible of the capital
importance to it of its interest in these parts, and has proceeded in
consequence. But it is not so, I find by your letters, and the reports
of others, with numbers in Europe, who do not conceive, that the present
object of the war is so considerable as it really is.
To say nothing of the vast extent of country that falls under the claim
of the English to Acadia (Nova-Scotia) which alone would form an immence
mass of dominion, greatly improveable in a number of points, its
situation is yet of greater weight. By the English possessing it, Canada
itself would be so streightened, so liable to harrassment, and
especially to the comptrol of its navigation, that it would scarce be
tenable, and surely not worth the expence of keeping. The country
pretended to have been ceded is far preferable to it; and the masters of
it would be equally masters of the sea all over North-America. Hallifax,
for example, according to which of the nation's hand it should be in,
may be equally an effectual check on Quebec, or Boston.
You will then allow, that was there even nothing more in dispute than
the limits of the cession of Acadia, or Nova-Scotia, together with its
necessary dependence, that alone would form such a considerable object,
as not easily to be given up on either side.
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