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.
