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; anl each throws the blame on the other." 1 And yet at the same time Vaudreuil was assuring the Minister that Bigot was without blame. 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.2 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 Coinmissary-General and his partners became so terrified that they afterwards gave up nearly seven 1 Montcalm au Ministre de la Guerre, Lettre confidentielle, 12 Avril, 2 Le Ministre à Vaudreuil et Bigot, 20 Fév. 1759. millions more.1 Stormy events followed, and the culprits found shelter for a time amid the tumults. Peculation did not cease, but a day of reckoning was at hand. of war. 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 Péan, Varin, Saint-Blin, Boishébert, Martel, JoncaireChabert, and several more, along with the elaborate Jugement rendu, the Requêtes du Procureur-Général, the Réponse aux Mémoires de M. Bigot et du Sicur Péan, etc., forming together five quarto volumes, all of which I have carefully examined. These are in the Library of Harvard University. There is another set, also of five volumes, in the Library of the Historical Society of Quebec, containing most of the papers just mentioned, and, bound with them, various others in manuscript, among which are documents in defence of Vaudreuil (printed in part), Estèbe, Corpron, Penisseault, Maurin, and Bréard. I have examined this collection also. The manuscript Ordres du Roy et Dépêches des Ministres, 1751-1760, as well as the letters of Vaudreuil, Bougainville, Daine, Doreil, and Montcalm throw much light on the maladininistration of the time; as do many contemporary documents, notably those entitled Mémoire sur les Fraudes commises dans la Colonie, État présent du Canada, and Mémoire sur le Canada (Archives Nationales). The remarkable anonymous work printed by the Historical Society of Quebec under the title Mémoires sur le Canada depuis 1749 jusqu'à 1760, is full of curious matter concerning Bigot and his associates which squares well with other evidence. This is the source from which Smith, in his History of Canada (Quebec, 1815), drew most of his information on the subject. A manuscript which seems to be the original draft of this valuable document was preserved at the Bastile, and, with other papers, was thrown into the street when that castle was destroyed. They were gathered up, and afterwards bought by a Russian named Dubrowski, who carried them to St. Petersburg. Lord Dufferin, when minister there, procured a copy of the manuscript in question, which is now in the keeping of Abbé H. Verreau at Montreal, to whose kindness I owe the opportunity of examining it. In substance it differs little from the printed work, though the language and the arrangement often vary from it. The author, whoever he may have been, was deeply versed in Canadian affairs of the time, and though often caustic, is generally trustworthy. 1 Procès de Bigot, Cadet, et autres, Mémoire pour François Bigot, 3me partie. LAND. WEAKNESS OF THE MINISTRY. A CHANGE. — PITT AND NEWCASTLE.· - CHARACTER OF PITT. - SOURCES OF HIS POWER. — HIS AIMS. LOUIS XV. - POMPADOUR. AND DIRECTS THE - SHE CONTROLS THE COURT WAR.GLOOMY PROSPECTS OF ENGLAND. NEW MINISTRY. INSPIRING INFLUENCE OF PITT. THE TIDE TURNS.- - BRITISH VICTORIES. PITT'S PLANS FOR AMERICA. - LOUISBOURG, TICONDEROGA, DUQUESNE. - NEW COMMANDERS.-NAVAL BATTLES. THE war kindled in the American forest was now raging in full conflagration among the kingdoms of Europe; and in the midst stood Frederic of Prussia, a veritable fire-king. He had learned through secret agents that he was to be attacked, and that the wrath of Maria Theresa with her two allies, Pompadour and the Empress of Russia, was soon to wreak itself upon him. With his usual prompt audacity he anticipated his enemies, marched into Saxony, and began the Continental war. His position seemed desperate. England, sundered from Austria, her old ally, had made common cause with him; but he had no other friend worth the counting. France, Russia, Austria, Sweden, Saxony, the collective Germanic Empire, and most of the smaller German States had joined hands for his ruin, eager to crush him and divide the spoil, parcelling out his dominions among themselves in advance by solemn mutual compact. Against the five millions of Prussia were arrayed populations of more than a hundred millions. The little kingdom was open on all sides to attack, and her enemies were spurred on by the bitterest animosity. It was thought that one campaign would end the war. The war lasted seven years, and Prussia came out of it triumphant. Such a warrior as her indomitable king Europe has rarely seen. If the Seven Years War made the maritime and colonial greatness of England, it also raised Prussia to the rank of a first-class Power. Frederic began with a victory, routing the Austrians in one of the fiercest of recorded conflicts, the battle of Prague. Then in his turn he was beaten at Kolin. All seemed lost. The hosts of the coalition were rolling in upon him like a deluge. Surrounded by enemies, in the jaws of destruction, hoping for little but to die in battle, this strange hero solaced himself with an exhaustless effusion of bad verses, sometimes mournful, sometimes cynical, sometimes indignant, and sometimes breathing a dauntless resolution; till, when his hour came, he threw down his pen to achieve those feats of arms which stamp him one of the foremost soldiers of the world. The French and Imperialists, in overwhelming force, thought to crush him at Rossbach. He put them to shameful rout; and then, instead of bonfires and Te Deums, mocked at them in doggerel rhymes of amazing indecency. While he was beating the French, the Austrians took Silesia from him. He marched to recover it, found them strongly posted at Leuthen, eighty thousand men against thirty thousand, and without hesitation resolved to attack them. Never was he more heroic than on the eve of this, his crowning triumph. "The hour is at hand," he said to his generals. "I mean, in spite of the rules of military art, to attack Prince Karl's army, which is nearly thrice our own. This risk I must run, or all is lost. We must beat him or die, all of us, before his batteries." He burst unawares upon the Austrian right, and rolled their whole host together, corps upon corps, in a tumult of irretrievable ruin. While her great ally was reaping a full harvest of laurels, England, dragged into the Continental war because that apple of discord, Hanover, belonged to her King, found little but humiliation. Minorca was wrested from her, and the Ministry had an innocent man shot to avert from themselves the popular indignation; while the same Ministry, scared by a phantom of invasion, brought over German troops to defend British soil. But now an event took place pregnant with glorious consequence. The reins of power fell into the hands of William Pitt. He had already held them for a brief space, forced into office at the end of 1756 by popular clamor, in spite of the Whig leaders and against the wishes of the King. But the place was untenable. Newcastle's Parliament would not support him; the Duke of Cumberland |