The Governor at each factory occasionally had a person to act with him, who was known as the second or under-factor. These, with the surgeon and the master of the sloop, constituted a council, who were supposed to deliberate in cases of emergency or upon affairs of importance. Amongst the latter were classed the reading of the Company's general letter, received annually and inditing a reply to it; the encroachments of their French, at a later period, Canadian rivals; or the misbehaviour of the servants. In these councils very little regard, it seems, was paid to the opinion of the subordinate members, who rather desired to obtain the Governor's favour by acquiescence rather than his resentment by opposition. The Governors were appointed for either three or five years, and their nominal salary was from £50 to £150 per annum, which the premium on the trade often trebled and sometimes quadrupled. These officials commonly reigned as absolute in their petty commands as Eastern Nabobs; and as it was in a Governor's power to render the lives of those under them happy or unhappy as they chose, it was only natural that the inferior servants were most diligent in cultivating their good will. It was out of the power, of course, for any aggrieved or dissatisfied servant to return home until the ships came, and if he then persisted in his intention, the payment of his wages was withheld until the Company should decide upon his character, which was furnished in writing by the Governor. Although the voice of an inferior servant counted but little when opposed to the Governor, yet there are few instances when the Company, in parting with a servant, refused him his wages in full. It is an old axiom that austerity is acquired by a term of absolute petty dominion, so that it is not remarkable that the Company's early Governors were distinguished by this trait in the fullest degree. "I had an opportunity," wrote one former factor, "of being acquainted with many Governors in my time. I could single out several whose affability and capacity merited a better employment. Some I have known who despised servility and unworthy deeds; but this was only for a time, and while young in their stations." Such criticism, while doubtless unjust, had yet, applied generally, a basis of truth. [Sidenote: Character of the trading governors.]