Roma at Three Rivers 91 
     
    
   
   
    
     devastating march, to the destruction of the crops 
     
     and finally of themselves. 
     
    

    
     In 1741 he lost a vessel with all its cargo and was 
     
     driven to ask assistance from the Minister, not as 
     
     charity but as an advance of credit upon Le Royale, 
     
     which advance he hoped to meet out of his crop and 
     
     fishing in the following year.** 
     
    

    
     During the next four years Roma managed to 
     
     exist through strict economy; but just when he had 
     
     reason to congratulate himself upon a happier future 
     
     a detachment of New Englanders, sent from Louis- 
     
     burg, arrived in Three Rivers on June 20, 1745, 
     
     plundered his establishment and burned his buildings 
     
     to the ground. All the buildings set out with such 
     
     detail in his statement of 1734 were given to the 
     
     flames, a quantity of wheat, oats, and peas were 
     
     taken, together with four horses, five sheep, 10 cows, 
     
     10 calves, 20 pigs, and 100 fowl. Faced with starva- 
     
     tion he went to St. Peters and thence to Canada. 
     
    

    
     In Quebec, Hocquart employed him in the Royal 
     
     magazines but he introduced original methods of 
     
     work and so complicated the bookkeeping that the 
     
     Keeper of the Stores had to make a new set of books. 
     
    

    
     Recognizing his abilities and desiring to recom- 
     
     pense him in some measure for his losses, the Minister 
     
     thought of appointing him Sub-delegate of the In- 
     
     tendant in Isle Saint Jean in 1752, as successor to 
     
     M. des Goutins, but was advised against this by 
     
     Prevost, Commissaire Ordonnateur in Ile Royale, 
     
    
   
   
    
     16 F, Vol, 155, p. 165.