Had He Not Without Any Trouble Netted A Gain Of 50,000 Half Crowns?

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.

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