Of the
many frauds charged against him there was one peculiarly odious. Large
numbers of refugee Acadians were to be supplied with rations to keep
them alive. Instead of wholesome food, mouldered and unsalable salt cod
was sent them, and paid for by the King at inordinate prices.[554] It
was but one of many heartless outrages practised by Canadian officials
on this unhappy people.
[Footnote 551: _Proces de Bigot, Cadet, et autres, Requete du
Procureur-General, 19 Dec_. 1761.]
[Footnote 552: _Proces de Bigot, Cadet, et autres, Memoire pour Messire
Francois Bigot_.]
[Footnote 553: _Memoire sur le Canada_ (Archives Nationales).]
[Footnote 554: _Memoires sur le Canada_, 1749-1760.]
Cadet told the Intendant that the inhabitants were hoarding their grain,
and got an order from him requiring them to sell it at a low fixed
price, on pain of having it seized. Thus nearly the whole fell into his
hands. Famine ensued; and he then sold it at a great profit, partly to
the King, and partly to its first owners. Another of his devices was to
sell provisions to the King which, being sent to the outlying forts,
were falsely reported as consumed; on which he sold them to the King a
second time. Not without reason does a writer of the time exclaim: "This
is the land of abuses, ignorance, prejudice, and all that is monstrous
in government. Peculation, monopoly, and plunder have become a
bottomless abyss.
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