A half-century of conflict. France and England in North America. Part ...

1720.] FRENCH DEMANDS. 47Missions, drew up a paper in which he setsforth theclaims of France with much distinctness, beginningwith the declaration that "England has usurpedfrom France nearly everything that she possesses inAmerica," and adding that the plenipotentiaries atUtrecht did not know what they were about whenthey made such concessions to the enemy; that,among other blunders, they gave Port Royal to Englandwhen it belonged to France, who should " insistvigorously " on its being given back to her.He maintains that the voyages of Verrazzano andRibaut made France owner of the whole continent,from Florida northward ;that England was an interloperin planting colonies along the Atlantic coast,and will admit as much if she is honest, since all thatcountry is certainly a part of New France. In thismodest assumption of the point at issue, he ignoresJohn Cabot and his son Sebastian, who discoveredNorth America more than twenty-five years beforethe voyage ofVerrazzano, and more than sixty yearsbefore that of Ribaut.When the English, proceeds Father Bobd, haverestored Port Royal to us, which they are bound todo, though we ceded itby the treaty, a French governorshould be at once set over it, with a commissionto command as far as Cape Cod, which would includeBoston. We should also fortify ourselves, " in a wayto stop the English, who have long tried to seize onFrench America, of which they know the importance,and of which," he observes with much candor, "they