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What a strangely-mated pair! March 30th. A letter from Van Diemen's Land. "There is a row in the pantry," said Frere, with his accustomed slang. It seems that the Comptroller-General of Convicts has appointed a Mr. Pounce to go down and make a report on the state of Norfolk Island. I am to go down with him, and shall receive instructions to that effect from the Comptroller-General.
Each ticket-holder must pay to the comptroller-general the sum of L.15, for the expenses of his passage out to the colony. No ticket-holder, unless under very special circumstances, gets a 'conditional pardon' till one-half of his sentence, from date of conviction, is expired; nor will he receive a conditional pardon till the whole of the L.15 is paid.
Henry IV. might have said to the notables assembled by his successor, as he had said regarding his predecessors: "You were summoned hither not long ago to approve of the king's wishes." The state was prosperous, at any rate in appearance; the comptroller-general assumed the credit for it.
However, I was careful not to express my dissatisfaction, for it was but too important for me to avoid any dispute at a time when the support of my friends had become so essentially necessary to me. In proportion as the king became worse, my credit also declined. Two orders, addressed to the comptroller-general and M. de la Borde, for money, met with no attention.
His place of Conseiller d'Etat, that he had retained, he also gave to his eldest son, and made the other lieutenant of police. The murmur was great upon seeing a foreigner comptroller-general, and all abandoned to a finance system which already had begun to be mistrusted.
On my arrival at Paris my first visit was to my patron, whom I found in grand company amongst whom I recognized the Venetian ambassador, who pretended not to know me. "How long have you been in Paris?" said the minister, taking me by the hand. "I have only just stepped out of my chaise." "Then go to Versailles. You will find the Duc de Choiseul and the comptroller-general there.
Abler and bolder than all his colleagues, Joseph Dupleix, member of a Gascon family and son of the comptroller-general of Hainault, had dreamed of other destinies than the management of a counting-house; he aspired to endow France with the empire of India.
"Money abounds in the kingdom," the comptroller-general would remark to the king; "the people never had more openings for work; lavishness rejoices their eyes, because it sets their hands going. Continue these splendid undertakings, which are an ornament to Paris, Bordeaux, Lyons, Nantes, Marseilles, and Nimes, and which are almost entirely paid for by those flourishing cities.
Behind him moved two lesser ecclesiastics, and with these Don Alonzo de Quintanella, Comptroller-General of Castile. Others followed, nobles and cavaliers, two soberly clad men who looked like secretaries, a Franciscan friar, three or four pages. The room was large and had a table covered with a rich cloth, two great chairs and a few lesser ones.
"In the condition in which things are, Sir, it is the best that can be done," replied M. de Calonne. He had explained his reasons to the king in an intelligent and able note. "Such a plan," said the comptroller-general, after having unfolded his projects, "demands undoubtedly the most solemn examination and the most authentic sanction.
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