There were other governors only slightly
better. Canada had none as bad. Her viceroys as a rule kept up
the dignity of their office and respected the decencies of life.
In English colonies, governors eked out their incomes by charging
heavy fees for official acts and any one who refused to pay such
fees was not likely to secure attention to his business. In
Canada the population was too scanty and the opportunity too
limited to furnish happy hunting-grounds of this kind. The
governors, however, badly paid as they were, must live, and, in
the case of a man like Frontenac, repair fortunes shattered at
court. To do so they were likely to have some concealed interest
in the fur trade. This was forbidden by the court but was almost
a universal practice. Some of the governors carried trading to
great lengths and aroused the bitter hostility of rival trading
interests. The fur trade was easily controlled as a government
monopoly and it was unfair that a needy governor should share its
profits. But, after all, such a quarrel was only between rival
monopolists.
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