1753-1760
Bigot
At this stormy epoch of Canadian history the sinister figure of the
Intendant Bigot moves conspicuous on the scene. Not that he was
answerable for all the manifold corruption that infected the colony, for
much of it was rife before his time, and had a vitality of its own; but
his office and character made him the centre of it, and, more than any
other man, he marshalled and organized the forces of knavery.
In the dual government of Canada the Governor represented the King and
commanded the troops; while the Intendant was charged with trade,
finance, justice, and all other departments of civil administration. In
former times the two functionaries usually quarrelled; but between
Vaudreuil and Bigot there was perfect harmony.
François Bigot, in the words of his biographer, was "born in the bosom
of the magistracy," both his father and his grandfather having held
honorable positions in the parliament of Bordeaux.[544] In appearance he
was not prepossessing, though his ugly, pimpled face was joined with
easy and agreeable manners. In spite of indifferent health, he was
untiring both in pleasure and in work, a skilful man of business, of
great official experience, energetic, good-natured, free-handed, ready
to oblige his friends and aid them in their needs at the expense of the
King, his master; fond of social enjoyments, lavish in hospitality.
[Footnote 544: _Procès de Bigot, Cadet, et autres, Mémoire pour Messire
François Bigot, accusé, contre Monsieur le Procureur-Général du Roi,
accusateur._]
A year or two before the war began, the engineer Franquet was sent from
France to strengthen Louisbourg and inspect the defences of Canada. He
kept a copious journal, full of curious observation, and affording
bright glimpses not only of the social life of the Intendant, but of
Canadian society in the upper or official class. Thus, among various
matters of the kind, he gives us the following. Bigot, who was in
Quebec, had occasion to go to Montreal to meet the Governor; and this
official journey was turned into a pleasure excursion, of which the King
paid all the costs. Those favored with invitations, a privilege highly
prized, were Franquet, with seven or eight military officers and a
corresponding number of ladies, including the wife of Major Pean, of
whom Bigot was enamoured. A chief steward, cooks, servants, and other
attendants, followed the party. The guests had been requested to send
their portmanteaus to the Intendant's Palace six days before, that they
might be sent forward on sledges along with bedding, table, service,
cooking utensils, and numberless articles of comfort and luxury. Orders
were given to the inhabitants along the way, on pain of imprisonment, to
level the snowdrifts and beat the road smooth with ox-teams, as also to
provide relays of horses. It is true that they were well paid for this
last service; so well that the hire of a horse to Montreal and back
again would cost the King the entire value of the animal. On the eighth
of February the party met at the palace; and after a grand dinner set
out upon their journey in twenty or more sleighs, some with two guests
and a driver, and the rest with servants and attendants. The procession
passed at full trot along St. Vallier street amid the shouts of an
admiring crowd, stopped towards night at Pointe-aux-Trembles, where each
looked for lodging; and then they all met and supped with the Intendant.
The militia captain of the place was ordered to have fresh horses ready
at seven in the morning, when Bigot regaled his friends with tea,
coffee, and chocolate, after which they set out again, drove to
Cap-Santé, and stopped two hours at the house of the militia captain to
breakfast and warm themselves. In the afternoon they reached Ste.
Anne-de-la-Pérade, when Bigot gave them a supper at the house in which
he lodged, and they spent the evening at cards.
The next morning brought them to Three Rivers, where Madame Marin,
Franquet's travelling companion, wanted to stop to see her sister, the
wife of Rigaud, who was then governor of the place. Madame de Rigaud,
being ill, received her visitors in bed, and ordered an ample dinner to
be provided for them; after which they returned to her chamber for
coffee and conversation. Then they all set out again, saluted by the
cannon of the fort.
Their next stopping-place was Isle-au-Castor, where, being seated at
cards before supper, they were agreeably surprised by the appearance of
the Governor, who had come down from Montreal to meet them with four
officers, Duchesnaye, Marin, Le Mercier, and Péan. Many were the
embraces and compliments; and in the morning they all journeyed on
together, stopping towards night at the largest house they could find,
where their servants took away the partitions to make room, and they sat
down to a supper, followed by the inevitable game of cards. On the next
night they reached Montreal and were lodged at the intendency, the
official residence of the hospitable Bigot. The succeeding day was spent
in visiting persons of eminence and consideration, among whom are to be
noted the names, soon to become notorious, of Varin, naval commissary,
Martel, King's storekeeper, Antoine Penisseault, and François Maurin. A
succession of festivities followed, including the benediction of three
flags for a band of militia on their way to the Ohio. All persons of
quality in Montreal were invited on this occasion, and the Governor gave
them a dinner and a supper. Bigot, however, outdid him in the plenitude
of his hospitality, since, in the week before Lent, forty guests supped
every evening at his table, and dances, masquerades, and cards consumed
the night.[545]
[Footnote 545: Franquet, _Journal_.]
His chief abode was at Quebec, in the capacious but somewhat ugly
building known as the Intendant's Palace. Here it was his custom during
the war to entertain twenty persons at dinner every day; and there was
also a hall for dancing, with a gallery to which the citizens were
admitted as spectators.[546] The bounteous Intendant provided a separate
dancing-hall for the populace; and, though at the same time he plundered
and ruined them, his gracious demeanor long kept him a place in their
hearts. Gambling was the chief feature of his entertainments, and the
stakes grew deeper as the war went on. He played desperately himself,
and early in 1758 lost two hundred and four thousand francs,--a loss
which he will knew how to repair. Besides his official residence on the
banks of the St. Charles, he had a country house about five miles
distant, a massive old stone building in the woods at the foot of the
mountain of Charlebourg; its ruins are now known as Chateau Bigot. In
its day it was called the Hermitage; though the uses to which it was
applied savored nothing of asceticism. Tradition connects it and its
owner with a romantic, but more than doubtful, story of love, jealousy,
and murder.
[Footnote 546: De Gaspé, _Mémoires_, 119.]
The chief Canadian families were so social in their habits and so
connected by intermarriage that, along with the French civil and
military officers of the colonial establishment, they formed a society
whose members all knew each other, like the corresponding class in
Virginia. There was among them a social facility and ease rare in
democratic communities; and in the ladies of Quebec and Montreal were
often seen graces which visitors from France were astonished to find at
the edge of a wilderness. Yet this small though lively society had
anomalies which grew more obtrusive towards the close of the war.
Knavery makes strange companions; and at the tables of high civil
officials and colony officers of rank sat guests as boorish in manners
as they were worthless in character.
Foremost among these was Joseph Cadet, son of a butcher at Quebec, who
at thirteen went to sea as a pilot's boy, then kept the cows of an
inhabitant of Charlebourg, and at last took up his father's trade and
prospered in it.[547] In 1756 Bigot got him appointed commissary-general,
and made a contract with him which flung wide open the doors of peculation.
In the next two years Cadet and his associates,Péan, Maurin, Corpron, and
Penisseault, sold to the King, for about twenty-three million francs,
provisions which cost them eleven millions, leaving a net profit of about
twelve millions. It was not legally proved that the Intendant shared
Cadet's gains; but there is no reasonable doubt that he did so.
Bigot's chief profits rose, however, from other sources. It was his
business to see that the King's storehouses for the supply of troops,
militia, and Indians were kept well stocked. To this end he and Bréard,
naval comptroller at Quebec, made a partnership with the commercial house
of Gradis and Son at Bordeaux. He next told the Colonial Minister that
there were stores enough already in Canada to last three years, and that it
would be more to the advantage of the King to buy them in the colony than
to take the risk of sending them from France.[548] Gradis and Son then
shipped them to Canada in large quantities, while Bréard or his agent
declared at the custom-house that they belonged to the King, and so
escaped the payment of duties. Theywere then, as occasion rose, sold to
the King at a huge profit, always under fictitious names. Often they were
sold to some favored merchant or speculator, who sold them in turn to
Bigot's confederate, the King's storekeeper; and sometimes they passed
through several successive hands, till the price rose to double or triple
the first cost, the Intendant and his partners sharing the gains with
friends and allies. They would let nobody else sell to the King; and
thus a grinding monopoly was established, to the great profit of those
who held it.[549]
[Footnote 547: _Procès de Bigot, Cadet, et autres, Mémoire pour Messire
François Bigot_. Compare _Mémoires sur le Canada_, 1749-1760.]
[Footnote 548: _Bigot au Ministre, 8 Oct. 1749._]
[Footnote 549: _Procés de Bigot, Cadet, et autres. Mémoire sur les
Fraudes commises dans la Colonie._ Compare _Mémoires sur le Canada,
1749-1760_.]
Under the name of a trader named Claverie, Bigot, some time before the
war, set up a warehouse on land belonging to the King and not far from
his own palace. Here the goods shipped from Bordeaux were collected, to
be sold in retail to the citizens, and in wholesale to favored merchants
and the King. This establishment was popularly known as La Friponne, at
Montreal, which was leagued with that of Quebec, and received goods from
it.
Bigot and his accomplices invented many other profitable frauds. Thus he
was charged with the disposal of the large quantity of furs belonging to
his master, which it was his duty to sell at public auction, after due
notice, to the highest bidder. Instead of this, he sold them privately
at a low price to his own confederates. It was also his duty to provide
transportation for troops, artillery, provisions, and stores, in which
he made good profit by letting to the King, at high prices, boats or
vessels which he had himself bought or hired for the purpose.[550]
[Footnote 550: _Jugement rendu souverainement dans l'Affaire du
Canada._]
Yet these and other illicit gains still left him but the second place as
public plunderer. Cadet, the commissary-general, reaped an ampler
harvest, and became the richest man in the colony. One of the operations
of this scoundrel, accomplished with the help of Bigot, consisted in
buying for six hundred thousand francs a quantity of stores belonging to
the King, and then selling them back to him for one million four hundred
thousand.[551] It was further shown on his trial that in 1759 he
received 1,614,354 francs for stores furnished at the post of
Miramichi, while the value of those actually furnished was but 889,544
francs; thus giving him a fraudulent profit of more than seven hundred
and twenty-four thousand.[552] Cadet's chief resource was the
falsification of accounts. The service of the King in Canada was fenced
about by rigid formalities. When supplies were wanted at any of the
military posts, the commandant made a requisition specifying their
nature and quantity, while, before pay could be drawn for them, the
King's storekeeper, the local commissary, and the inspector must set
their names as vouchers to the list, and finally Bigot must sign
it.[553] But precautions were useless where all were leagued to rob the
King. It appeared on Cadet's trial that by gifts of wine, brandy, or
money he had bribed the officers, both civil and military, at all the
principal forts to attest the truth of accounts in which the supplies
furnished by him were set at more than twice their true amount. Of the
many frauds charged against him there was one peculiarly odious. Large
numbers of refugee Acadians were to be supplied with rations to keep
them alive. Instead of wholesome food, mouldered and unsalable salt cod
was sent them, and paid for by the King at inordinate prices.[554] It
was but one of many heartless outrages practised by Canadian officials
on this unhappy people.
[Footnote 551: _Procès de Bigot, Cadet, et autres, Requête du
Procureur-Général, 19 Dec_. 1761.]
[Footnote 552: _Procès de Bigot, Cadet, et autres, Mémoire pour Messire
François Bigot_.]
[Footnote 553: _Mémoire sur le Canada_ (Archives Nationales).]
[Footnote 554: _Mémoires sur le Canada_, 1749-1760.]
Cadet told the Intendant that the inhabitants were hoarding their grain,
and got an order from him requiring them to sell it at a low fixed
price, on pain of having it seized. Thus nearly the whole fell into his
hands. Famine ensued; and he then sold it at a great profit, partly to
the King, and partly to its first owners. Another of his devices was to
sell provisions to the King which, being sent to the outlying forts,
were falsely reported as consumed; on which he sold them to the King a
second time. Not without reason does a writer of the time exclaim: "This
is the land of abuses, ignorance, prejudice, and all that is monstrous
in government. Peculation, monopoly, and plunder have become a
bottomless abyss."[555]
[Footnote 555: _Considérations sur l'État présent du Canada_.]
The command of a fort brought such opportunities of making money that,
according to Bougainville, the mere prospect of appointment to it for
the usual term of three years was thought enough for a young man to
marry upon. It was a favor in the gift of the Governor, who was accused
of sharing the profits. These came partly from the fur-trade, and still
more from frauds of various kinds. For example, a requisition was made
for supplies as gifts to the Indians in order to keep them friendly or
send them on the war-path; and their number was put many times above the
truth in order to get more goods, which the commandant and his
confederates then bartered for furs on their own account, instead of
giving them as presents. "And," says a contemporary, addressing the
Colonial Minister, "those who treat the savages so basely are officers
of the King, depositaries of his authority, ministers of that Great
Onontio whom they call their father."[556] At the post of Green Bay, the
partisan officer Marin, and Rigaud, the Governor's brother, made in a
short time a profit of three hundred and twelve thousand francs.[557]
"Why is it," asks Bougainville, "that of all which the King sends to the
Indians two thirds are stolen, and the rest sold to them instead of
being given?"[558]
[Footnote 556: _Considérations sur l'État présent du Canada_.]
[Footnote 557: _Mémoire sur les Fraudes commises dans la Colonie_.
Bougainville, _Mémoire sur l'État de la Nouvelle France_.]
[Footnote 558: Bougainville, _Journal_.]
The transportation of military stores gave another opportunity of
plunder. The contractor would procure from the Governor or the local
commandant an order requiring the inhabitants to serve him as boatmen,
drivers, or porters, under a promise of exemption that year from duty as
soldiers. This saved him his chief item of expense, and the profits of
his contract rose in proportion.
A contagion of knavery ran through the official life of the colony; and
to resist it demanded no common share of moral robustness. The officers
of the troops of the line were not much within its influence; but those
of the militia and colony regulars, whether of French or Canadian birth,
shared the corruption of the civil service. Seventeen of them, including
six chevaliers of St. Louis and eight commandants of forts, were
afterwards arraigned for fraud and malversation, though some of the
number were acquitted. Bougainville gives the names of four other
Canadian officers as honorable exceptions to the general
demoralization,--Benoît, Repentigny, Lainé, and Le Borgne; "not enough,"
he observes, "to save Sodom."
Conspicuous among these military thieves was Major Péan, whose qualities
as a soldier have been questioned, but who nevertheless had shown almost
as much vigor in serving the King during the Ohio campaign of 1753 as
he afterwards displayed effrontery in cheating him. "Le petit Péan" had
married a young wife, Mademoiselle Desméloizes, Canadian like himself,
well born, and famed for beauty, vivacity, and wit. Bigot, who was near
sixty, became her accepted lover; and the fortune of Péan was made. His
first success seems to have taken him by surprise. He had bought as a
speculation a large quantity of grain, with money of the King lent him
by the Intendant. Bigot, officially omnipotent, then issued an order
raising the commodity to a price far above that paid by Péan, who thus
made a profit of fifty thousand crowns.[559] A few years later his
wealth was estimated at from two to four million francs. Madame Péan
became a power in Canada, the dispenser of favors and offices; and all
who sought opportunity to rob the King hastened to pay her their court.
Péan, jilted by his own wife, made prosperous love to the wife of his
partner, Penisseault; who, though the daughter of a Montreal tradesman,
had the air of a woman of rank, and presided with dignity and grace at a
hospitable board where were gathered the clerks of Cadet and other
lesser lights of the administrative hierarchy. It was often honored by
the presence of the Chevalier de Lévis, who, captivated by the charms of
the hostess, condescended to a society which his friends condemned as
unworthy of his station. He succeeded Péan in the graces of Madame
Penisseault, and after the war took her with him to France; while the
aggrieved husband found consolation in the wives of the small
functionaries under his orders.[560]
[Footnote 559: _Mémoires sur le Canada, 1749-1760. Mémoire sur les
Fraudes_, etc. Compare Pouchot, I. 8.]
[Footnote 560: _Mémoires sur le Canada_, 1749-1760.]
Another prominent name on the roll of knavery was that of Varin,
commissary of marine, and Bigot's deputy at Montreal, a Frenchman of low
degree, small in stature, sharp witted, indefatigable, conceited,
arrogant, headstrong, capricious, and dissolute. Worthless as he was, he
found a place in the Court circle of the Governor, and aspired to
supplant Bigot in the intendancy. To this end, as well as to save
himself from justice, he had the fatuity to turn informer and lay bare
the sins of his confederates, though forced at the same time to betray
his own. Among his comrades and allies may be mentioned Deschenaux, son
of a shoemaker at Quebec, and secretary to the Intendant; Martel, King's
storekeeper at Montreal; the humpback Maurin, who is not to be
confounded with the partisan officer Marin; and Corpron, a clerk whom
several tradesmen had dismissed for rascality, but who was now in the
confidence of Cadet, to whom he made himself useful, and in whose
service he grew rich.
Canada was the prey of official jackals,--true lion's providers, since
they helped to prepare a way for the imperial beast, who, roused at last
from his lethargy, was gathering his strength to seize her for his own.
Honesty could not be expected from a body of men clothed with arbitrary
and ill-defined powers, ruling with absolute sway an unfortunate people
who had no voice in their own destinies, and answerable only to an
apathetic master three thousand miles away. Nor did the Canadian Church,
though supreme, check the corruptions that sprang up and flourished
under its eye. The Governor himself was charged with sharing the
plunder; and though he was acquitted on his trial, it is certain that
Bigot had him well in hand, that he was intimate with the chief robbers,
and that they found help in his weak compliances and wilful blindness.
He put his stepson, Le Verrier, in command at Michillimackinac, where,
by fraud and the connivance of his stepfather, the young man made a
fortune.[561] When the Colonial Minister berated the Intendant for
maladministration, Vaudreuil became his advocate, and wrote thus in his
defence: "I cannot conceal from you, Monseigneur, how deeply M. Bigot
feels the suspicions expressed in your letters to him. He does not
deserve them, I am sure. He is full of zeal for the service of the King;
but as he is rich, or passes as such, and as he has merit, the
ill-disposed are jealous, and insinuate that he has prospered at the
expense of His Majesty. I am certain that it is not true, and that
nobody is a better citizen than he, or has the King's interest more at
heart."[562] For Cadet, the butcher's son, the Governor asked a patent
of nobility as a reward for his services.[563] When Péan went to France
in 1758, Vaudreuil wrote to the Colonial Minister: "I have great
confidence in him. He knows the colony and its needs. You can trust all
he says. He will explain everything in the best manner. I shall be
extremely sensible to any kindness you may show him, and hope that when
you know him you will like him as much as I do."[564]
[Footnote 561: _Mémoires sur le Canada_, 1749-1760.]
[Footnote 562: _Vaudreuil au Ministre, 15 Oct. 1759._]
[Footnote 563: _Ibid., 7 Nov. 1759._]
[Footnote 564: _Ibid., 6 Août, 1758._]
Administrative corruption was not the only bane of Canada. Her financial
condition was desperate. The ordinary circulating medium consisted of
what was known as card money, and amounted to only a million of francs.
This being insufficient, Bigot, like his predecessor Hocquart, issued
promissory notes on his own authority, and made them legal tender. They
were for sums from one franc to a hundred, and were called
_ordonnances_. Their issue was blamed at Versailles as an encroachment
on the royal prerogative, though they were recognized by the Ministry in
view of the necessity of the case. Every autumn those who held them to
any considerable amount might bring them to the colonial treasurer, who
gave in return bills of exchange on the royal treasury in France. At
first these bills were promptly paid; then delays took place, and the
notes depreciated; till in 1759 the Ministry, aghast at the amount,
refused payment, and the utmost dismay and confusion followed.[565]
[Footnote 565: _Réflections sommaires sur le Commerce qui s'est fait en
Canada. État présent du Canada_. Compare Stevenson, _Card Money of
Canada_, in _Transactions of the Historical Society of Quebec_,
1873-1875.]
The vast jarring, discordant mechanism of corruption grew
incontrollable; it seized upon Bigot, and dragged him, despite himself,
into perils which his prudence would have shunned. He was becoming a
victim to the rapacity of his own confederates, whom he dared not offend
by refusing his connivance and his signature of frauds which became more
and more recklessly audacious. He asked leave to retire from office, in
the hope that his successor would bear the brunt of the ministerial
displeasure. Péan had withdrawn already, and with the fruits of his
plunder bought land in France, where he thought himself safe. But though
the Intendant had long been an object of distrust, and had often been
warned to mend his ways,[566] yet such was his energy, his executive
power, and his fertility of resource, that in the crisis of the war it
was hard to dispense with him. Neither his abilities, however, nor his
strong connections in France, nor an ally whom he had secured in the
bureau of the Colonial Minister himself, could avail him much longer;
and the letters from Versailles became appalling in rebuke and menace.
[Footnote 566: _Ordres du Roy et Dépêches des Ministres, 1751-1758._]
"The ship 'Britannia,'" wrote the Minister, Berryer, "laden with goods
such as are wanted in the colony, was captured by a privateer from St.
Malo, and brought into Quebec. You sold the whole cargo for eight
hundred thousand francs. The purchasers made a profit of two millions.
You bought back a part for the King at one million, or two hundred
thousand more than the price which you sold the whole. With conduct like
this it is no wonder that the expenses of the colony become
insupportable. The amount of your drafts on the treasury is frightful.
The fortunes of your subordinates throw suspicion on your
administration." And in another letter on the same day: "How could it
happen that the small-pox among the Indians cost the King a million
francs? What does this expense mean? Who is answerable for it? Is it the
officers who command the posts, or is it the storekeepers? You give me
no particulars. What has become of the immense quantity of provisions
sent to Canada last year? I am forced to conclude that the King's stores
are set down as consumed from the moment they arrive, and then sold to
His Majesty at exorbitant prices. Thus the King buys stores in France,
and then buys them again in Canada. I no longer wonder at the immense
fortunes made in the colony."[567] Some months later the Minister
writes: "You pay bills without examination, and then find an error in
your accounts of three million six hundred thousand francs. In the
letters from Canada I see nothing but incessant speculation in
provisions and goods, which are sold to the King for ten times more than
they cost in France. For the last time, I exhort you to give these
things your serious attention, for they will not escape from mine."[568]
[Footnote 567: _Le Ministre à Bigot, 19 Jan. 1759._]
[Footnote 568: _Ibid., 29 Août, 1759._]
"I write, Monsieur, to answer your last two letters, in which you tell
me that instead of sixteen millions, your drafts on the treasury for
1758 will reach twenty-four millions, and that this year they will rise
to from thirty-one to thirty-three millions. It seems, then, that there
are no bounds to the expenses of Canada. They double almost every year,
while you seem to give yourself no concern except to get them paid. Do
you suppose that I can advise the King to approve such an
administration? or do you think that you can take the immense sum of
thirty-three millions out of the royal treasury by merely assuring me
that you have signed drafts for it? This, too, for expenses incurred
irregularly, often needlessly, always wastefully; which make the fortune
of everybody who has the least hand in them, and about which you know
so little that after reporting them at sixteen millions, you find two
months after that they will reach twenty-four. You are accused of having
given the furnishing of provisions to one man, who under the name of
commissary-general, has set what prices he pleased; of buying for the
King at second or third hand what you might have got from the producer
at half the price; of having in this and other ways made the fortunes of
persons connected with you; and of living in splendor in the midst of a
public misery, which all the letters from the colony agree in ascribing
to bad administration, and in charging M. de Vaudreuil with weakness in
not preventing."[569]
[Footnote 569: _Le Ministre à Bigotû, 29 Août, 1759_ (second letter of
this date).]
These drastic utterances seem to have been partly due to a letter
written by Montcalm in cipher to the Maréchal de Belleisle, then
minister of war. It painted the deplorable condition of Canada, and
exposed without reserve the peculations and robberies of those intrusted
with its interests. "It seems," said the General, "as if they were all
hastening to make their fortunes before the loss of the colony; which
many of them perhaps desire as a veil to their conduct." He gives among
other cases that of Le Mercier, chief of Canadian artillery, who had
come to Canada as a private soldier twenty years before, and had so
prospered on fraudulent contracts that he would soon be worth nearly a
million. "I have often," continues Montcalm, "spoken of these
expenditures to M. de Vaudreuil and M. Bigot; and each throws the blame
on the other."[570] And yet at the same time Vaudreuil was assuring the
Minister that Bigot was without blame.
[Footnote 570: _Montcalm au Ministre de la Guerre, Lettre
confidentielle, 12 Avril,_ 1759.]
Some two months before Montcalm wrote this letter, the Minister,
Berryer, sent a despatch to the Governor and Intendant which filled them
with ire and mortification. It ordered them to do nothing without
consulting the general of the French regulars, not only in matters of
war, but in all matters of administration touching the defence and
preservation of the colony. A plainer proof of confidence on one hand
and distrust on the other could not have been given.[571]
[Footnote 571: _Le Ministre à Vaudreuil et Bigot, 20 Fév. 1759._]
One Querdisien-Tremais was sent from Bordeaux as an agent of Government
to make investigation. He played the part of detective, wormed himself
into the secrets of the confederates, and after six months of patient
inquisition traced out four distinct combinations for public plunder.
Explicit orders were now given to Bigot, who, seeing no other escape,
broke with Cadet, and made him disgorge two millions of stolen money.
The Commissary-General and his partners became so terrified that they
afterwards gave up nearly seven millions more.[572] Stormy events
followed, and the culprits found shelter for a time amid the tumults of
war. Peculation did not cease, but a day of reckoning was at hand.
[Footnote 572: _Procès de Bigot, Cadet, et autres, Mémoirs pour François
Bigot, 3'me partie_.]
NOTE: The printed documents of the trial of Bigot and the other
peculators include the defence of Bigot, of which the first part
occupies 303 quarto pages, and the second part 764. Among the other
papers are the arguments for Péan, Varin, Saint-Blin, Boishébert,
Martel, Joncaire-Chabert and several more, along with the elaborate
_Jugement rendue_, the _Requêtes du Procureur-Général,_ the _Réponse aux
Mémoires de M. Bigot et du Sieur Péan,_ etc., forming together five
quarto volumes, all of which I have carefully examined. These are in the
Library of Harvard University. There is another set, also of five
volumes, in the Library of the Historical Society of Quebec, containing
most of the papers just mentioned, and, bound with them, various others
in manuscript, among which are documents in defence of Vaudreuil
(printed in part); Estèbe, Corpron, Penisseault, Maurin, and Bréard. I
have examined this collection also. The manuscript _Ordres du Roy et
Dépêches des Ministres_, 1757-1760, as well as the letters of Vaudreuil,
Bougainville, Daine, Doreil, and Montcalm throw much light on the
maladministration of the time; as do many contemporary documents,
notably those entitled _Mémoire sur les Fraudes commises dans la
Colonie, État présent du Canada,_ and _Mémoire sur le Canada_ (Archives
Nationales). The remarkable anonymous work printed by the Historical
Society of Quebec under the title _Mémoires sur le Canada depuis 1749
jusqu'àé 1760, is full of curious matter concerning Bigot and his
associates which squares well with other evidence. This is the source
from which Smith, in his _History of Canada_ (Quebec, 1815), drew most
of his information on the subject. A manuscript which seems to be the
original draft of this valuable document was preserved at the Bastile,
and, with other papers, was thrown into the street when that castle was
destroyed. They were gathered up, and afterwards bought by a Russian
named Dubrowski, who carried them to St. Petersburg. Lord Dufferin, when
minister there, procured a copy of the manuscript in question, which is
now in the keeping of Abbé H. Verreau at Montreal, to whose kindness I
owe the opportunity of examining it. In substance it differs little from
the printed work, though the language and the arrangement often vary
from it. The author, whoever he may have been, was deeply versed in
Canadian affairs of the time, and though often caustic, is generally
trustworthy.