The Battle of the Restigouche unfolded from 3 to 8 July 1760 near the head of Chaleur Bay, where the Restigouche River divides present-day Quebec and New Brunswick. It was the last major naval engagement of the Seven Years’ War in North America. After Quebec fell in 1759, France sent ships carrying troops and supplies in hopes of sustaining its remaining forces. British warships pursued the convoy into the river, where French sailors, colonial defenders, Acadian refugees, and Mi’kmaq allies prepared a layered defense.

The French squadron had already lost vessels to capture, grounding, or dispersal during its Atlantic passage. Its strongest surviving ship was the frigate Machault, commanded by François Chenard de la Giraudais. To slow the British advance, defenders placed batteries along the shore, obstructed channels, and sank vessels as barriers. Captain John Byron led the British squadron into unfamiliar, constricted waters. Soundings, tides, shoals, and the river’s narrow passages shaped the operation as much as gunfire, forcing both sides to maneuver cautiously.

British ships gradually worked upriver and exchanged fire with the French vessels and shore positions. The defenders shifted guns and used local knowledge, but they could not match the attackers’ naval strength. On 8 July, with capture imminent, the French scuttled and burned the Machault and other vessels. Stores intended for the colony were destroyed or abandoned. The battle did not itself end all French resistance, yet it eliminated a final organized attempt to resupply New France by sea and confirmed Britain’s control of the Gulf approaches.

The fighting occurred amid a humanitarian crisis. Acadians displaced by deportation and warfare had gathered in the Restigouche region, relying on scarce provisions and Indigenous support. The convoy’s cargo promised food as well as military supplies, so its loss deepened hardship. Montreal capitulated in September 1760, completing the main British conquest of Canada. The river battle thus belongs both to imperial naval history and to the experiences of communities caught between empires, whose survival strategies are only partly visible in official military accounts.

Parks Canada preserves the story at the Battle of the Restigouche National Historic Site in Pointe-à-la-Croix. Underwater archaeology recovered thousands of objects from the Machault and associated wreckage, including ship fittings, weapons, tools, ceramics, and personal items. Exhibits use these finds to reconstruct life aboard ship and the broader conflict. The river itself remains the central artifact: its bends and shallows explain the defensive plan, the British advance, and the wrecks that protected evidence of a decisive final supply mission for more than two centuries.