François Bigot

François Bigot (born Bordeaux, January 1703; died Neuchâtel, Switzerland, 12 January 1778) was a French government official. He served as the Financial Commissary on Île Royale (nowadays Cape Breton Island) and as "Intendant" of New France. He was the last official ever to hold the latter position, losing it on the occasion of the British Conquest of Québec in 1759.

Bigot was born into a family that had attained nobility. His parents were Louis-Amable Bigot and Marguerite Lombard.

In 1723, Bigot entered the Navy administration. He served as a scrivener until 1728, when he was made a commissary. He became chief scrivener in 1729, and resident commissary of the Navy at Rochefort in 1732. This would be the last post that he would hold in France for some time.

François Bigot arrived at Louisbourg on 9 September 1739, and his time as the financial commissary there was marked by rather free use of patronage, especially to the Du Pont family, who were the beneficiaries of much of it. Payouts, sometimes amounting to tens of thousands of "livres", were made to this one family for things such as providing Bigot with boats. All of this came at public expense.

Maintaining supply links was a problem that Bigot had to deal with. Sometimes supplies were threatened by various events in Europe and North America, and Bigot had no compunction about sending an agent, François Du Pont Duvivier, to New England to secure foodstuffs and other goods from suppliers there when supplies from France or other French possessions seemed unreliable. Bigot was known for keeping the food supply at Louisbourg well stocked, even if he was dealing with France's foes. Indeed, the supply was threatened at one point with the outbreak of hostilities. New England was, of course, still ruled by the British in those days.

In 1744, Bigot found himself dealing with a mutiny at the Louisbourg garrison. The mutiny was quelled, apparently peacefully, with an amnesty. Bigot was not in charge of dealing with the uprising, and indeed it is unclear how he was involved, but as the official who controlled the finances, it seems likely that his rôle in ending the crisis was a key one.

After Louisbourg surrendered to the British on 26 June 1745, François Bigot returned to France only to find his hopes for a posting there dashed. It had been decided that Louisbourg along with the rest of Île Royale was to be recaptured, and to that end, Bigot was sent to Rochefort to look after the garrison, and to outfit the invasion force destined, it was hoped, to win back some lost glory. This would be no easy task, as the British had established their own "Louisbourg" at what is now Halifax, Nova Scotia. Further problems developed on the actual mission in 1746. The weather did not favour the fleet, and there was illness on board, meaning that no fighting could be done. Bigot watched as the whole undertaking unravelled. He, unlike many others, escaped from it with his life back to France, but not before the ship that he was sailing on was wrecked on a shoal.

This latest débâcle had its attendant consequences in France, and although Bigot was never actually prosecuted for any perceived failing on his part, he did spend the better part of the next two years endlessly writing reports about the failures. He came through the ordeal with his reputation intact, however.

Bigot was eventually sent to New France in 1748 to become the Intendant, much as it displeased him, for he had no wish to take up such an office. Amid accusations of fraud and favouritism, he was recalled to France in 1754 to answer the charges. The next year, however, he was sent back to New France.

During the Seven Years' War, government expenditures for Canada rose fivefold in four years, from 1755-1759. François Bigot and some of his associates, notably David Gradis, were accused of having stolen a great deal of it.

François Bigot is often seen as a man of marked mercenary tendencies. It was noted in his youth that he was rather fonder of gambling than most men, and superiors in the Navy even upbraided him for it. He was even later blamed for New France's loss to the British Empire during the Seven Years' War, although it seems unlikely that his, by some accounts fraudulent, schemes had anything to do with it. History records that France freely agreed at the peace negotiations to allow the British to keep New France in exchange for Guadeloupe. Nevertheless, France, seeking a scapegoat for its defeat in North America, obliged Bigot and his friends in a trial that became known as the "Canada Affair" to make good the sum of money that they had supposedly stolen.

No portrait of François Bigot is known to exist.

External links

* [http://www.biographi.ca/EN/ShowBio.asp?BioId=35879&query=François%20AND%20Bigot Biography at the "Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online"]
* [http://www.blupete.com/Hist/BiosNS/1700-63/Bigot.htm François Bigot at BiosNS]
* [http://1759.ccbn-nbc.gc.ca From the Warpath to the Plains of Abraham (Virtual Exhibition)]