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:  Proces de Bigot, Cadet, et autres, Memoire pour Messire Francois Bigot.  Compare Memoires sur le Canada, 1749-1760.]

[Footnote 548:  Bigot au Ministre, 8 Oct. 1749.]

[Footnote 549:  Proces de Bigot, Cadet, et autres.  Memoire sur les Fraudes commises dans la Colonie. Compare Memoires 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