[Footnote 569:  Le Ministre a Bigotu, 29 Aout, 1759 (second letter of this date).]

These drastic utterances seem to have been partly due to a letter written by Montcalm in cipher to the Marechal de Belleisle, then minister of war.  It painted the deplorable condition of Canada, and exposed without reserve the peculations and robberies of those intrusted with its interests.  “It seems,” said the General, “as if they were all hastening to make their fortunes before the loss of the colony; which many of them perhaps desire as a veil to their conduct.”  He gives among other cases that of Le Mercier, chief of Canadian artillery, who had come to Canada as a private soldier twenty years before, and had so prospered on fraudulent contracts that he would soon be worth nearly a million.  “I have often,” continues Montcalm, “spoken of these expenditures to M. de Vaudreuil and M. Bigot; and each throws the blame on the other."[570] And yet at the same time Vaudreuil was assuring the Minister that Bigot was without blame.

[Footnote 570:  Montcalm au Ministre de la Guerre, Lettre confidentielle, 12 Avril, 1759.]

Some two months before Montcalm wrote this letter, the Minister, Berryer, sent a despatch to the Governor and Intendant which filled them with ire and mortification.  It ordered them to do nothing without consulting the general of the French regulars, not only in matters of war, but in all matters of administration touching the defence and preservation of the colony.  A plainer proof of confidence on one hand and distrust on the other could not have been given.[571]

[Footnote 571:  Le Ministre a Vaudreuil et Bigot, 20 Fev. 1759.]

One Querdisien-Tremais was sent from Bordeaux as an agent of Government to make investigation.  He played the part of detective, wormed himself into the secrets of the confederates, and after six months of patient inquisition traced out four distinct combinations for public plunder.  Explicit orders were now given to Bigot, who, seeing no other escape, broke with Cadet, and made him disgorge two millions of stolen money.  The Commissary-General and his partners became so terrified that they afterwards gave up nearly seven millions more.[572] Stormy events followed, and the culprits found shelter for a time amid the tumults of war.  Peculation did not cease, but a day of reckoning was at hand.

[Footnote 572:  Proces de Bigot, Cadet, et autres, Memoirs pour Francois Bigot, 3’me partie.]

NOTE:  The printed documents of the trial of Bigot and the other peculators include the defence of Bigot, of which the first part occupies 303 quarto pages, and the second part 764.  Among the other papers are the arguments for Pean, Varin, Saint-Blin, Boishebert, Martel, Joncaire-Chabert and several more, along with the elaborate Jugement rendue, the Requetes du Procureur-General, the Reponse aux Memoires de M. Bigot et du Sieur Pean, etc., forming