He Is Free To Undo What He Pleases, But He Cannot Make Me Subscribe To His Resolutions, Because I See That They Are Directly Opposed To Those Of The Company, To My Instructions, And To My Experience.

On the contrary, I will protest before God and before men against all that he does, because, after what

He has said to you, he is incapable of doing what is advantageous for his masters. It is in vain that one should give him good councels, for he has not the spirit to understand them, that he may again deal a blow to which he would wish I opposed nothing."

This declaration had without doubt made some impression upon a spirit not anticipated in an imaginary capacity of governor; but this one here, on the contrary, fortified himself in his resolution, & begged me to tell the French to embark themselves, without considering that my nephew had not time enough to go seek his clothes, nor several bonds that were due to him in Canada, which remained in the house of the French, and that I had abandoned to him, to yield whatever I was in a condition of giving satisfaction to him, & that in the hope that the Company would set up for him the way exclusively.

The Council after that broke up; but the Governor, apprehending that the Frenchmen would not obey, wished to give an order to the Captains to seize upon them and put them on board. He had even the insolence of putting me first on the lists, as if I was suspected or guilty of something, for which Captain Bond having perceived, said to him that he should not make a charge of that kind, as I must be excepted from it, because he remembered nothing in me but much of attachment for the service of his masters, & that they should take care of the establishment that we had made, & of the advantages that would accrue to the Company. They obliged the Governor to make another list, and thus finished a council of war held against the interests of those who had given power to assemble them. The persons who had any knowledge of these savages of the north would be able to judge of the prejudice which the conduct of this imprudent Governor would without contradiction have caused the Company. Many would attribute his proceeding to his little experience, or to some particular hatred that he had conceived against the French. Be it as it may, I was not of his way of thinking; and I believed that his timidity & want of courage had prompted him to do all that he had done, by the apprehension that he had of the French undertaking something against him; & what confirmed me in that thought was the precaution that he had taken for preventing the French from speaking to any person since the day of council, for he put them away from the moment that we went away from them.

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