Character of the Company's traders.
It was observed that very few of the Canadian servants were to be entirely trusted with even a small assortment of goods, unless some substantial guarantee were first exacted. The chances were ten to one that the master would be defrauded of the whole stock of merchandise, often through the medium of the Indian women, who were quick to perceive what an easy prey was the one and how difficult the other. The French-Canadian traders were brave and hardy; apt in learning the habits and language of the Indians; dexterous canoemen and of a lively, not to say boisterous, disposition; but none of these qualities, nor all together, were often the means of earning the respect and trust of the natives. And it must not be imagined that these talents and accomplishments were limited to the Canadians, even in the earliest days of rivalry.
"Though such may be the sentiments of their employers," wrote one of the Company's factors, "let these gentlemen for a while look around them and survey without prejudice the inhabitants of our own hemisphere, and they will find people who are brought up from their infancy to hardships, and inured to the inclemency of the weather from their earliest days; they will also find people who might be trusted with thousands, and who are much too familiarized to labour and fatigue to repine under the pressure of calamity as long as their own and their master's benefit is in view. I will further be bold to say that the present servants of the Company may be led as far inland as navigation is practicable, with more ease and satisfaction to the owners, than the same number of Canadians."
The former, it was noted, would be always honest, tractable and obedient, as well from inclination as from fear of losing their pecuniary expectations; whereas the latter, being generally in debt, and having neither good name, integrity nor property to lose, were always neglectful of the property committed to their charge. Whenever difficulties arose there was never wanting some amongst them to impede the undertaking.
The council at the forts.
The Governor at each factory occasionally had a person to act with him, who was known as the second or under-factor. These, with the surgeon and the master of the sloop, constituted a council, who were supposed to deliberate in cases of emergency or upon affairs of importance. Amongst the latter were classed the reading of the Company's general letter, received annually and inditing a reply to it; the encroachments of their French, at a later period, Canadian rivals; or the misbehaviour of the servants. In these councils very little regard, it seems, was paid to the opinion of the subordinate members, who rather desired to obtain the Governor's favour by acquiescence rather than his resentment by opposition.
The Governors were appointed for either three or five years, and their nominal salary was from £50 to £150 per annum, which the premium on the trade often trebled and sometimes quadrupled. These officials commonly reigned as absolute in their petty commands as Eastern Nabobs; and as it was in a Governor's power to render the lives of those under them happy or unhappy as they chose, it was only natural that the inferior servants were most diligent in cultivating their good will. It was out of the power, of course, for any aggrieved or dissatisfied servant to return home until the ships came, and if he then persisted in his intention, the payment of his wages was withheld until the Company should decide upon his character, which was furnished in writing by the Governor. Although the voice of an inferior servant counted but little when opposed to the Governor, yet there are few instances when the Company, in parting with a servant, refused him his wages in full.
It is an old axiom that austerity is acquired by a term of absolute petty dominion, so that it is not remarkable that the Company's early Governors were distinguished by this trait in the fullest degree.
"I had an opportunity," wrote one former factor, "of being acquainted with many Governors in my time. I could single out several whose affability and capacity merited a better employment. Some I have known who despised servility and unworthy deeds; but this was only for a time, and while young in their stations."
Such criticism, while doubtless unjust, had yet, applied generally, a basis of truth.