Get rich and go home. The English-speaking peoples, whose ancestors once went to England as oversea emigrants, and two-thirds of whom are now themselves the scions of successive migrations across the Seven Seas, cannot understand how intensely the general run of French officials detested colonial service, especially in a place like Louisbourg, which was everything the average Frenchman hated most. This British failure to understand a national trait, which is still as strongly marked as ever, accounts for a good deal of the exaggerated belief in the strength of the French position in America. The British Americans who tried to think out plans of conquest were wont to under-estimate their own unorganized resources and to over-estimate the organized resources of the French, especially when they set their minds on Louisbourg. The British also entertained the erroneous idea that 'the whole country was under one command.' This was the very thing it was not. The French system was the autocratic one without the local autocrat; for the functions of the governor and the intendant overlapped each other, and all disputes had to be referred to Quebec, where the functions of another governor and another intendant also overlapped each other. If no decision could be reached at Quebec, and the question at issue was one of sufficient importance, the now double imbroglio would be referred to the Supreme Council in France, which would write back to Quebec, whence the decision would be forwarded to Louisbourg, where it would arrive months after many other troubles had grown out of the original dispute.