A large
quantity of wheat was required for Government; he was charged with the
purchase. There was a fat job in store for the Town Major. How was his
master the Intendant to manage the matter for him? Bigot was a man of
resource, who never forgot his friends. First, he provided Pean with a
large sum out of the Treasury to buy the wheat as low as possible for
cash; and then his complaisant council passed an order or Ordonnance
fixing the price of grain much higher than that at which Pean had
purchased. The town Major charged it to the Government at the rate
fixed by the Ordonnance; the difference left him a handsome profit. He
thought he would next try his hand at building coasting craft, which
he could manage to keep constantly in commission for Government; this
also was lucrative. Other devices, however, were resorted to; a secret
partnership was entered into between Cadet and a person named Clavery,
who shortly after become store-keeper at Quebec. Cadet was to purchase
wheat in the parishes, have it ground at a mill he had leased, the
flour to be sent abroad, secretly. Pean, too, had large warehouses
built - at Beaumont some say. Cargoes of grain were thus secretly
shipped to foreign ports in defiance of the law. Breard, the
Comptroller-General, for a consideration winked at these mal-
practices, and from a poor man when he landed in Canada, he returned
to France in affluent circumstances.
The crowning piece of knavery was the erection of a vast shop and
warehouses near to the Intendant's Palace. Clavery had charge of this
establishment, where a small retail business was carried on as a
blind. The real object was to monopolize the trade in provisions and
concentrate it here. Clavery was clerk to Estebe, Royal store-keeper
at Quebec. In this warehouse were accumulated all such provisions and
supplies as were wanted annually, and ordered from France for the
King's stores at Quebec.
It was the practice of the Intendant to send each summer the
requisitions to Paris. Bigot took care to order from France less
supplies than were required, so as to have an excuse to order the
remainder in times of want, at Quebec. The orders were sent to
Clavery's warehouse, where the same goods were sold twice over, at
increased rates. Soon the people saw through the deceit, and this
repository of fraud was called in consequence La Friponne, "The
Knave."
Want of space prevents me from crowding in photos of the other
accomplished rogues, banded together for public robbery during the
expiring years of French domination in Canada.
It is singular to note how many low-born [122] parasites and
flatterers surrounded Bigot.
In 1755, the wheat harvest having failed, and the produce of former
years having been carried out of Canada or else stored in the magazine
of Bigot's ring, the people of Canada were reduced to starvation: in
many instances they had to subsist on horse flesh and decayed codfish.
Instead of having recourse to the wheat stored here, the Intendant's
minions led him to believe that wheat was not so scarce as the
peasantry pretended - that the peasants refused to sell it, merely in
anticipation of obtaining still higher rates; that the Intendant, they
argued, ought to issue orders, for domiciliary visits in the rural
districts; and levy a tax on each inhabitant of the country, for the
maintenance of the residents in the city, and of the troops.
Statements were made out, shewing the rations required to prevent the
people from dying of hunger. Cadet was charged with the raising of
this vexatious impost. In a very short time, he and his clerks had
overrun the country, appropriating more wheat than was necessary. Some
of the unfortunate peasants, who saw in the loss of their seed wheat
starvation and death, loudly complained. A few called at the
Intendant's Palace, but the heartless Deschenaux, the Intendant's
Secretary, was ever on the watch and had them questioned by his
employes, and when the object of their visit, was discovered,
they were ushered into the presence of Deschenaux, who insulted them
and threatened to have them imprisoned for thus presuming to complain
to the Intendant. Bigot was afterwards advised of their visit, and
when they appeared before him they were so maltreated and bullied that
they left, happy in the fact that they had not been thrown into
prison; soon, none dared to complain. Bread was getting scarcer every
day. The Intendant had named persons to distribute the bread at the
baker's shops, the flour being furnished by Government. The people
crowded the bakeries on the days fixed; the loaves were taken by
violence, mothers of families used to complain that they could not get
any; they used occasionally to besiege the Intendant at his Palace
with their lamentations and complaints, but it was of no avail, the
Intendant was surrounded by a crowd of flatterers, who on retiring,
gorged from his luxurious board, could not understand how the poor
could die of hunger.
Land of my fathers reclaimed from barbarism at the cost of so much
blood - so much treasure, bountifully provided with nobles - priests -
soldiers - fortifications by the great Louis; sedulously - paternally
watched over by Colbert and Talon: to what depth of despair, shall we
say, degradation are thou sunk!
Proud old city, have you then no more defenders to put forth, in your
supreme hour of woe and desertion! Has then that dauntless race of
Gentilshommes Canadiens, d'Iberville - Ste. Helene - de Bouville
- de Becancourt - de Repentigny, disappeared without leaving any
successors!
And you stern old de Frontenac, you who replied so effectually to the
invader through the mouth of your cannon, is your martial spirit
quenched forever, in that loved fortress in which rest your venerated
remains, you who at one time (1689) were ready, at the head of your
Regulars and fighting Canadians, [123] to carry out the rash scheme,
hatched by deCallieres:
