on the good
people of this country," but that as it is base to accuse a dead man, he
will not say that the public could not help showing their joy at the
late governor's departure; and he adds that the deceased was charged
with a scandalous connection with the Widow de Freneuse. Nor will he
reply, he says, to the governor's complaint to the court about a
pretended cabal, of which he, De Goutin, was the head, and which was in
reality only three or four honest men, incapable of any kind of
deviation, who used to meet in a friendly way, and had given offence by
not bowing down before the beast.[99]

Then he changes the subject, and goes on to say that on a certain festal
occasion he was invited by Bonaventure, who acted as governor after the
death of Brouillan, to share with him the honor of touching off a
bonfire before the fort gate; and that this excited such envy, jealousy,
and discord that he begs the minister, once for all, to settle the
question whether a first magistrate has not the right to the honor of
touching off a bonfire jointly with a governor.

De Goutin sometimes discourses of more serious matters. He tells the
minister that the inhabitants have plenty of cattle, and more hemp than
they can use, but neither pots, scythes, sickles, knives, hatchets,
kettles for the Indians, nor salt for themselves. "We should be
fortunate if our enemies would continue to supply our necessities and
take the beaver-skins with which the colony is gorged;" adding, however,
that the Acadians hate the English, and will not trade with them if they
can help it.[100]

In the next year the "Bastonnais" were again bringing supplies, and the
Acadians again receiving them. The new governor, Subercase, far from
being pleased at this, was much annoyed, or professed to be so, and
wrote to Ponchartrain, "Nobody could suffer more than I do at seeing the
English so coolly carry on their trade under our very noses." Then he
proceeds to the inevitable personalities. "You wish me to write without
reserve of the officers here; I have little good to tell you;" and he
names two who to the best of his belief have lost their wits, a third
who is incorrigibly lazy, and a fourth who is eccentric; adding that he
is tolerably well satisfied with the rest, except M. de la Ronde. "You
see, Monseigneur, that I am as much in need of a madhouse as of
barracks; and what is worse, I am afraid that the _mauvais esprit_ of
this country will drive me crazy too