The French authorities took up the matter and sent a spirited remonstrance to the British ambassador, claiming that the transaction was opposed to every kind of law and demanding the restoration of the captured vessel with exemplary punishment of Captain Rous and the admiralty officers at Halifax, as well as orders on the part of his Britannic Majesty to all officers in his ships and colonies to observe the peace and to undertake nothing contrary thereto. A demand was also made that the English should in no way hinder the migration of the Acadians from the peninsula of Nova Scotia to the mainland or elsewhere. It is needless to say that the British government did not comply with these demands and here was one of the many grievances that led to a renewal of the war a little later. The Sieur de Vergor and the crew of the St. Francis were sent to Louisbourg, and the brigantine retained at Halifax as a prize on the ground that she was engaged in furnishing warlike munitions to the Indian enemy and interfering with British rights on the River St. John. Cornwallis evidently felt the difficulties of his position very keenly. Halifax was yet in its infancy and in a comparatively defenceless state; Louisbourg and Quebec were supporting the French on the St. John and he had neither the men nor the money to oppose their proceedings. It seems, too, that he had been called to account for the large expenditure he had made in Nova Scotia. In his letters to the Lords of Trade he expresses himself as distracted between his desire to lessen expenses and his fears of losing the province. He was doubtful if, with the forces at his disposal, he could prevent the French from fortifying St. John and Beausejour, and he observes, with some irritation, that it has been said, "What has he to contend with? Three or four hundred Indians: it is a time of peace and no other enemy to fear." So far from this being an adequate representation of the situation, he claimed the facts were that the French had taken possession of all Nova Scotia north of the Bay of Fundy, and had obliged many of the Acadians of the peninsula to remove thither and swear allegiance to the king of France; that the governor of Canada, through his emissary le Loutre, had offered a premium for every prisoner, head, or scalp of an Englishman; that the French had sent a ship of thirty-six guns and 300 men to the Bay of Fundy and had not only incited the Indians to hostilities but had behaved as if there were open war.