The trials of Bigot and the others in Paris elicited a large amount of details respecting the enormities which had characterized the commissary affairs of Canada during the war. Cf. “Observations on certain peculations in New France,” in N. Y. Col. Docs., x. 1129. There is in Harvard College library a series of the printed reports and judgments in the matter.[1543]
Mr. Parkman has published in The Nation (Apr. 15, 1886) an account of a MS. lately acquired by the national library at Paris, Voyage au Canada dans le Nord de l’Amérique Septentrionale fait depuis l’an 1751 à 1761 par T. C. B., who participated in some of the battles of the war; but the account seems to add little of consequence to existing knowledge, having been written (as he says, from notes) thirty or forty years after his return. It shows, however, how the army store-keepers of the French made large fortunes and lost them in the depreciation of the Canadian paper money.
A. Intercolonial Congresses and Plans of Union.—The confederacy which had been formed among the New England colonies in 1643 had lasted, with more or less effect, during the continuance of the colonial charter of Massachusetts.[1544] As early as 1682 Culpepper, of Virginia, had proposed that no colony should make war without the concurrence of Virginia, and Nicholson, eight or ten years later, had advocated a federation. In 1684 there had been a convention at Albany, at which representatives of Massachusetts, New York, Maryland, and Virginia had met the sachems of the Five Nations.[1545] In 1693 Governor Fletcher, by order of the king, had called at New York a meeting of commissioners of the colonies, which proved abortive. Those who came would not act, because others did not come. In 1694 commissioners met at Albany to frame a treaty with the Five Nations, and Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey were represented. A journal of Benjamin Wadsworth, who accompanied the Massachusetts delegates, is printed in the Mass. Hist. Collections, xxii. 102. This journal was used by Holmes in his Amer. Annals, 2d ed., i. p. 451.
Such were the practical efforts at consolidating power for the common defence, which the colonies had taken part in up to the end of the seventeenth century. We now begin to encounter various theoretical plans for more permanent unions.[1546] In 1698 William Penn devised a scheme which is printed in the New York Colonial Documents, iv. 296. In the same year Charles Davenant prepared a plan which is found in Davenant’s Political and Commercial Works, vol. ii. p. 11.[1547] In 1701 we find a plan, by a Virginian, set forth in an Essay upon the government of the English plantations;[1548] and one of the same year (May 13, 1701) by Robert Livingston, suggesting three different unions, is noted in the N. Y. Col. Docs., iv. 874.
In 1709 another temporary emergency revived the subject. Colonel Vetch convened the governors of New England at New London (Oct. 14) for a concert of action in a proposed expedition against Canada, but the failure of the fleet to arrive from England cut short all effort.[1549] Again in 1711 (June 21) the governors of New England assembled at the same place, to determine the quotas of their respective colonies for the Canada expedition, planned by Nicholson; and later in the year, the same New England governments invited New York to another conference, but it came to naught.
In 1721 there was a plan to place a captain-general over the colonies. (Cf. a Representation of the Lords of Trade to the King, in N. Y. Col. Docs., v. p. 591.)
On Sept. 10, 1722, Albany was the scene of another congress, at which Pennsylvania and New York joined to renew a league with the Five Nations; and a few days later (Sept. 14), Virginia having joined them, they renewed the conference. (Cf. N. Y. Col. Docs., v. 567.)