George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 5, 13th edition.

[213] was not better qualified. The offices of Secretary

chap. X.} 1764. Sept.

of the Province, Registrar, Clerk of the Council, Commissary of Stores and Provisions, Provost Marshal, and others, were given by patent to men of interest in England, who let them out to the best bidders, and so little considered the capacity of their representatives, that none of them understood the language of the natives, but all, in their turn, hired such servants as would work at the cheapest rate, without much inquiry how the work was done.¹ As no salary was annexed to these patent places, the value of them depended upon the fees, which the governor was ordered to establish equal to those in the richest ancient colonies. Nor could he restrain those officers who lived by fees from running them up to extortion. When he checked them in their views of profit, he was regarded as their enemy, nor was there any chance for harmony in the government, unless all should become equally corrupt.²

The Supreme Court of Judicature took to itself all causes, civil and criminal. The chicanery and expensiveness of Westminster Hall were introduced into the impoverished province; and English justice and English offices seemed to the poor Canadians an ingenious device to drain them of the little substance which was still left to them.³ In the one hundred and ten rural parishes there were but nineteen Protestant families. The rest of the Protestants were a few half-pay officers, disbanded soldiers, traders, mechanics, and publicans, who resided