The situation on the St. John at this time was not viewed with complacency by the authorities of Nova Scotia and New England. On the 18th October, 1753, Governor Hopson, of Nova Scotia, wrote the Lords of Trade and Plantations that he had been informed by Governor Shirley, of Massachusetts, that since the arrival of a French missionary at the River St. John the conduct of the inhabitants had altered for the worse; the French had now 100 families settled on the river, had greatly strengthened the old fort at its mouth with guns and men, and had built a new one. Fort Boishebert, some miles up the river armed with twenty-four guns and garrisoned by 200 regulars. He also says a French frigate of thirty guns lay behind Partridge Island waiting for a cargo of furs, and that the French seemed to be entirely masters of the river. It is not unlikely this statement is exaggerated, for the following summer Lieut.-Governor Lawrence says the French had at St. John only a small fort with three bad old guns, one officer and sixteen men; while of Indians there were 160 fighting men. CHAPTER XII. THE ACADIANS BECOME THE FOOTBALL OF FORTUNE. As time went on the Acadians became impatient at the delay in settling the limits of Acadia. In vain they were annually told the boundaries would soon be determined, all negotiation proved fruitless. Those who had crossed the isthmus into what is now the County of Westmorland found themselves undecided as to their future course. Their inclination--a very natural one--seems to have been to return to the fields they had abandoned, but the Abbe Le Loutre urged them to remain under French rule as the only way of enjoying unmolested the privileges of their religion. For their encouragement and protection Fort Beausejour was erected. In the month of January, 1754, Lieut.-Governor Lawrence informed the Lords of Trade that the French were hard at work making settlements on the St. John and were offering great inducements to the Acadians of the peninsula to join them. He could not prevent some families from going, but the greater part were too much attached to their lands to leave them. In the opinion of Lawrence it was absolutely necessary, for the development and control of Acadia as an English colony, that the forts of Beausejour and the mouth of the River St. John should be destroyed, and the French driven from the settlements they were establishing north of the Bay of Fundy. Although the Indians had committed no hostilities for two years, he believed no dependence could be placed on their quietude so long as the French were allowed to exercise their disturbing influence among them.