England as oversea emigrants, and two-thirds of whom
are now themselves the scions of successive migrations across the
Seven Seas, cannot understand how intensely the general run of French
officials detested colonial service, especially in a place like Louisbourg,
which was everything the average Frenchman hated most. This British
failure to understand a national trait, which is still as strongly marked
as ever, accounts for a good deal of the exaggerated belief in the
strength of the French position in America. The British Americans who
tried to think out plans of conquest were wont to under-estimate their
own unorganized resources and to over-estimate the organized
resources of the French, especially when they set their minds on
Louisbourg.
The British also entertained the erroneous idea that 'the whole country
was under one command.' This was the very thing it was not. The
French system was the autocratic one without the local autocrat; for the
functions of the governor and the intendant overlapped each other, and
all disputes had to be referred to Quebec, where the functions of
another governor and another intendant also overlapped each other. If
no decision could be reached at Quebec, and the question at issue was
one of sufficient importance, the now double imbroglio would be
referred to the Supreme Council in France, which would write back to
Quebec, whence the decision would be forwarded to Louisbourg, where
it would arrive months after many other troubles had grown out of the
original dispute.
The system was false from the start, because the overlapping was
intentional. The idea was to prevent any one man from becoming too
strong and too independent. The result was to keep governors and
intendants at perpetual loggerheads and to divide every station into
opposing parties. Did the governor want money and material for the
fortifications? Then the intendant was sure the military chest, which
was in his own charge, could not afford it. The governor might
sometimes gain his ends by giving a definite emergency order under his
hand and seal. But, if the emergency could not be proved, this laid him
open to great risks from the intendant's subsequent recriminations
before the Superior Council in Quebec or the Supreme Council in
France. The only way such a system could be worked at all was either
by corrupt collusion or by superhuman co-operation between the two
conflicting parties, or by appointing a man of genius who could make
every other official discharge his proper duties and no more. Corrupt
collusion was not very common, because the governors were mostly
naval or military men, and the naval and military men were generally
honest. Co-operation was impossible between two merely average men;
and no genius was ever sent to such a place as Louisbourg. The ablest
man in either of the principal posts was the notorious intendant Bigot,
who began here on a small scale the consummate schemes that proved
so disastrously successful at Quebec. Get rich and go home.
The minor governmental life of Louisbourg was of a piece with the
major. There were four or five lesser members of the Superior Council,
which also had jurisdiction over Ile St Jean, as Prince Edward Island
was then called. The lucrative chances of the custom-house were at the
mercy of four under-paid officials grandiloquently called a Court of
Admiralty. An inferior court known as the bailiwick tried ordinary civil
suits and breaches of the peace. This bailiwick also offered what might
be euphemistically called 'business opportunities' to enterprising
members. True, there was no police to execute its decrees; and at one
time a punctilious resident complained that 'there was not even a
common hangman, nor a jail, nor even a tormentor to rack the criminals
or inflict other appropriate tortures.' But appeals took a long time and
cost much money; so even the officials of the bailiwick could pick up a
living by threats of the law's delay, on the one hand, and promises of
perverted local justice, on the other. That there was money to be made,
in spite of the meagre salaries, is proved by the fact that the best
journeyman wig-maker in Louisbourg 'grew extremely rich in different
branches of commerce, especially in the contraband,' after filling the
dual position of judge of the admiralty and judge of the bailiwick, both
to the apparent satisfaction of his friend the intendant.
The next factor was the garrison of regulars. This was under the direct
command of the king's lieutenant, who took his orders from the
governor. The troops liked Louisbourg no better than the officials did.
True, there were taverns in plenty: even before Louisbourg was
officially founded they had become such a thriving nuisance that orders
for their better control had been sent out from France. But there was no
other place for the
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