Thus ended an administration that cannot be regarded as a happy or a creditable one. In no respect was M. de la Barre on a level with the office he held. He had no clear policy of his own, and was, therefore, more or less, at the mercy of incompetent or interested advisers. As is not uncommonly the case with such men, he was sometimes foolishly impulsive. In a letter, dated 10th April 1684, the king expresses the greatest surprise that the governor should have actually proposed to hang, of his own authority, a colonist who was preparing to remove to the English settlements. He reminds him that, except in military matters, he possesses no judicial power whatever, and adds the sage observation that the exercise of such constraint would certainly increase the desire of the French inhabitants to go where they would enjoy more liberty. In the matter of ecclesiastical policy, La Barre failed to carry out the views of the king. His instructions were to afford all the help in his power to the clergy in their efforts for the good of the country, but to see that they did not extend their authority beyond its proper bounds. In his first despatch he indulges in a little criticism of the bishop for his delay in establishing permanent _cures_, as desired by the king; but this is his sole exhibition of anything like independence of the ecclesiastical power. There was a question pending at the time as to the emoluments to be secured to the country _cures_; and La Barre and Meulles are both blamed by the court for having allowed the bishop to appropriate a larger amount out of the royal grant for church purposes than the king had authorized or intended.