Canada was now a British colony, and those members of the old French Canadian families who were unwilling to become British subjects followed Vaudreuil and Lévis back to France. With them also went the rascally Bigot and the traitors and pilferers who had fattened on the distresses of their country. Nemesis awaited them! No sooner had {231} they touched French soil than they were seized and flung into the Bastille. At first the brazen Cadet swore, when he faced his judges, he was innocent, but afterwards he confessed all. Bigot too denied his knavery, until the papers signed by himself put him to silence. His punishment was great, but far less than he deserved; he was banished from France for life, his property confiscated to the King, and he was made to pay a fine of 1,500,000 francs. Cadet was banished for nine years and fined 6,000,000 francs, while the rest were ordered to be imprisoned until their fines were paid, so that many who had betrayed New France languished in the gaols of Old France and died within those bare stone walls. Canada, as you have seen, had now changed masters. But the red-man, so long the friend and ally of the French, standing at the door of his wigwam or stealing noiselessly in his war-paint through the forest, was puzzled and angered. He could not understand how it had happened; he could not understand why the flag of the lilies should be hauled down from every fort and trading-station, and the flag of the English or the "Boston men," as he called them, unfurled. His mind could not grasp the meek submission of the Canadian pale-faces--the farmers and traders--to the chiefs sent out by King George. "Why do you not," said one of their braves, "leave your towns and villages and set up your lodges in the forest? Then, when the English are lulled into security, return and fall upon and slay them? You can win battles by craft and cunning as well as by numbers and cannon." But although the French Canadians smiled and shook {232} their heads at this plan, yet at the western settlements, such as Michilimackinac, Detroit, and Presqu'Isle, they did not scruple to tell the Indians that the English would soon drive them from their forest homes and hunting-grounds, and thereby to kindle hate in their hearts for the new conquerors. The French certainly understood the Indian character far better than the English, who treated them with contemptuous neglect. The vanity of the redskin chiefs was no longer fostered, and the tribes were told plainly that they were regarded as vassals and savages. For the English--the Boston men--could not forget the bloodthirsty cruelty which had been practised upon them and their wives and children for so long, and now that they felt that all power on the continent was in the hollow of their hands, they would not stoop to truckle to its aboriginal masters.