Chapters 9
-
1 1 - To the Rescue of New France 11:23
A Chronicle of Jean Talon in Canada, by Thomas Chapey. Chapter One. To the Rescue of New France. When the year, 1665, began, the French colony on the shores of the St. Lawrence, founded by the valor and devotion of Champlain, had been in existence for more than half a century. Yet it was still in a pitiable state of weakness and destitution. The care and maintenance of the settlement had devolved upon trading companies, and their narrow-minded mercantile selfishness had stifled its progress. From other causes, also, there had been but little growth. Cardinal Richelieu, The great French minister had tried at one time to infuse new life into the colony. For the earlier history of New France, the reader is referred to three other volumes in this series—the founder of New France, the Seigneurs of Old Canada, and the Jesuit Missions.
But his first attempts had been unlucky, and later on his powerful mind was diverted to other plans and achievements, and he became absorbed in the wider field of European politics. To the shackles of commercial greed, to forgetfulness on the part of the mother country, had been added the curse of Indian wars. During twenty-five years, the daring and ferocious Iroquois had been the constant scourge of the handful of settlers, traders, and missionaries. Champlain's successors in the office of governor, Montparnier, Aylboust, Lausanne, Argenson, Avingure, had no military force adequate to the task of meeting and crushing these formidable foes. Year after year, the wretched colony maintained his struggle for existence amidst deadly perils, receiving almost no help from France, and to all appearance doomed to destruction.
To make things worse, internal strife exercised its disintegrating influence. There was contention among the leaders in New France over the vexed question of the liquor traffic. In the face of so many adverse circumstances, complete lack of means, cessation of immigration from the mother country, The perpetual menace of the bloody Iroquois incursions, a dying trade, and a stillborn agriculture, how could the colony be kept alive at all? Spiritual and civil authorities, the governor and the bishop, the Jesuits and the traders, all united in petitioning for assistance. But the motherland was far away, and European wars and rivalries were engrossing all her attention. Fortunately, a change was at hand.
The prolonged struggle of the Thirty Years' War and of the war against Spain had been ended by the treaty of Munster and Ostenbrook in 1648, and by that of the Pyrenees in 1659. The civil dissensions of the Fronde were over, thanks to the skilful policy of Cardinal Mazelran, Richelieu's successor. After the death of Mazelran in 1661, Louis XIV had taken into his own hands the reins of administration. He was young, painstaking, and ambitious, and he wanted to be not only king, but the real ruler of his kingdom. In Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the man who had been Masselraune's right hand, he had the good fortune to find one of the best administrators in all French history. Colbert soon won the king's confidence.
He was instrumental in detecting the maladministration of Fouquet as superintendent of finance, and became a member of the council appointed to investigate and report on all financial questions. Of this body he was the leading spirit from the beginning. Although at first, without the title of minister, he was promptly invested with a wide authority over the finances, trade, agriculture, industry, and marine affairs. Within two years he had shown his worth and had justified the king's choice. Great and beneficial reforms had been accomplished in almost every branch of the administration. The exhausted treasury had been replenished, trade and industry were encouraged, Agriculture was protected, and a navy created.
Under a progressive government, France seemed to awake with new life. The hour was auspicious for the entreaties of new France. Petitions and statements were addressed to the king by Monseigneur de Laval, the head of ecclesiastical affairs in the colony, by the governor, Avongour, and by the Jesuit fathers, and Pierre Boucher, governor of the district of Three Rivers, was sent to France as a delegate to present them. Louis and his minister studied the conditions of the colony on the St. Lawrence, and decided in 1663 to give it a new constitution. The charter of the 100 Associates was canceled, and the Old Council of Quebec, formed in 1647, was reorganized under the name of the Sovereign Council.
This new governing body was to be composed of the governor, the bishop, the intendant, an attorney general, a secretary, and five counselors. It was invested with a general jurisdiction for the administration of justice in civil and criminal matters. It had also to deal with the questions of police, roads, finance, and trade. To establish a new and improved system of administration was a good thing, but this alone would hardly avail if powerful help were not forthcoming to rescue New France from ruin, despondency, and actual extermination. The colony was dying for lack of soldiers, settlers, and laborers. as well as stores of food and munitions of war for defense and maintenance. Louis XIV made up his mind that help should be given.
In 1664, 300 laborers were conveyed to Quebec at the king's expense, and in the following year the colonists received the welcome information that the king was also about to send them a regiment of trained soldiers, a viceroy, a new governor, a new intendant, settlers and laborers, and all kinds of supplies. This royal pledge was adequately fulfilled. On June 19th, 1665, the Marquis de Tracy, Lieutenant General of all the French dominions in America, arrived from the West Indies, where he had successfully discharged the first part of the mission entrusted to him by his royal master. With him came four companies of soldiers. During the whole summer, ships were disembarking their passengers and unloading their cargoes of ammunition and provisions at Quebec in quick succession.
It is easy to imagine the rapture of the colonists at such a sight, and the enthusiastic shouts that welcomed the first detachment of the splendid regiment of Carignan-Salliers. At length, on September Twelfth, the cup of public joy was filled to overflowing by the arrival of the ship St. Sebastian, with two high officials on board, David de Remy, Sir de Courcel, the governor appointed to succeed the governor, Maisie, who had died earlier in the year, and Jean Talon, the intendant of justice, police, and finance. The latter had been selected to replace Monsieur Robert, who had been made intendant in 1663, but, for some unknown reason, had never come to Canada to perform the duties of his office.
The triumvirate on whom was imposed the noble task of saving and reviving New France was thus complete. The Marquis de Tracy was an able and clear-sighted commander, The sieur de Courcel a fearless, straightforward official. But the part of Jean Talon in the common tasks, though apparently less brilliant, was to be in many respects the most important, and his influence the most far-reaching in the destinies of the colony. Talon was born at Chalons-sur-Marne, in the province of Champagne, about the year, 1625. His family were kinsfolk of the Parisian Talons, Elmer and Denis, the celebrated jurists and lawyers, who held in succession the high office of Attorney General of France. Several of Jean Talon's brothers were serving in the administration or the army, and after a course of study at the Jesuits College of Clermont, Jean was employed under one of them in the Commissariat.
The young man's abilities soon became apparent and attracted Mazarin's attention. In 1654, he was appointed military commissary at Le Cuisneuil, in connection with the operations of the army commanded by the great Touraine. A year later, at the age of thirty, he was promoted to be intendant for the province of Hainault. For ten years he filled that office, and won the reputation of an administrator of the first rank. Thus it came about that, when an intendant was needed to infuse new blood into the veins of the feeble colony on the St. Lawrence, Colbert, always a good judge of men, thought immediately of Jean and recommended to the king his appointment as intendant of New France. Talon's Commission is dated March 23rd, 1665.
The minister drafted for the intendance guidance a long letter of instructions. It dealt with the mutual relations of church and state, and set forth the Gallican principles of the day. It discussed the question of assistance to the recently created West India Company, the contemplated war against the Iroquois, and how it might successively be carried on, the sovereign council and the administration of justice, the settlement of the colony, and the advisability of concentrating the population, the importance of fostering trade and industry, the question of the Tice for the maintenance of the church, the establishment of shipbuilding yards, and the encouragement of agriculture. This document was signed by Louis XIV at Paris on March 27, 1665.
On receiving his commission and his instructions, Talon took leave of the king and the minister, and proceeded to make preparations for his arduous mission and for the long journey which it involved. By April 22nd, he was at La Rochelle to arrange for the embarkation of settlers, working men, and supplies. He attended the review of the troops that were bound for New France, and reported to Kilbert that the companies were at their full strength, well equipped, and in the best of spirits. During this time he spared no pains to acquire information about the new country where he was to work and live. Finally, by May 24th, everything was in readiness, and he wrote to Colbert. Since, apparently, I shall not have the honor of writing you another letter from this place, for our ship awaits only a favorable wind to sail.
Allow me to assure you that I am leaving full of gratitude for all the kindness and favors bestowed on me by the King and yourself. Knowing that the best way to show my gratitude is to do good service to His Majesty, and that the best title to future benevolence lies in strenuous effort for the successful execution of His wishes, I shall do my utmost to attain that end in the charge I am going to fill. I pray for your protection and help, which will surely be needed, and if my endeavours should not be crowned with success, at least it will not be for want of zeal and fidelity. A few hours after having written these farewell lines, Talon, in company with M. de Courcel, set sail on the St. Sebastian for Canada, where he was to make for himself an imperishable name.
-
2 2 - New France In 1665 22:39
New France, in 1665. Let us take a glance over the colony at the time when Courcel and Talon landed at Quebec after an ocean journey. There were no fast lines then, of one hundred and seventeen days. In 1665, Canada had only three settled districts, Quebec, Three Rivers, and Villemarie, or Montreal. Quebec, the chief town, bore the proud title of the capital of New France, yet it contained barely seventy houses, with about five hundred and fifty inhabitants. Then, as now, it consisted of a lower and an upper town. In the lower town were to be found the king's stores and the merchants' shops and residences. The public officials and the clergy and members of the religious orders lived in the upper town, Where stood the principal buildings of the capital, the Chateau Saint-Louis, the Bishop's Palace, the Cathedral, the Jesuits College and Chapel, and the monasteries of the Ursulines and the Hotel Dieu Sisters.
François de Laval de Montmorency, Bishop of Petraea and Vicar Apostolic for Canada, was the spiritual head of the colony. He had arrived from France six years earlier in 1659, and was destined to spend the remainder of his life, nearly half a century, in the service of the Church in Canada. Because of his noble character and many virtues, his strong intellect and his devotion to the public weal, he will ever rank as one of the greatest figures in Canadian history. His vicar-general was Henri de Bernier, who was also parish priest of Quebec and superior of the seminary founded by the bishop in 1663. The superior of the Jesuits was Father Le Mercier. The saintly Marie de l'Incarnation was mother superior of the Ursulines and mother Saint Bonaventure of the Hôtel-Dieu.
It may be interesting to recall the names of some of the notable citizens of Quebec at that time, other than the high officials. There were Michel Fillon and Pierre Duquet, notaries. Jean Madry, surgeon to the King's Majesty. Jean Lemire, the future syndic des habitants. Madame Diabouste, widow of a former governor. Madame Couillard, Widow of Guillaume Couillard and daughter of Louis Hébert, the first tiller of the soil. Madame de Repentigny, widow of Admiral de Repentigny, to use the grandiloquent expression of old chroniclers. Nicholas Marsolet, Louis Couillard de Lespinay, Charles Roger de Colombier, François Bussot, Charles Hermione, Le Gardeur de Repentigny. Dupont de Neuville, Pierre Denis de La Ronde, all men of high standing.
The chief merchants were Charles Bassier, Jacques Loyer de La Tour, Claude Charon, Jean Mahut, Eustache Lambert, Bertrand Chesney de La Garenne, Guillaume Feneu. Charles Robert de La Chesney, the stalwart Quebec trader of the day, was then in France.
In the neighborhood of Quebec, there were a few settlements. According to the census of the following year, there were 452 persons on the island of Orléans, 533 at the Cote-Pau-Pret, at Beauport, at Sillerie, and at Charlesburg and Notre-Dame-des-Anges on the St. Charles River.
Three Rivers was a small port, with a population of four hundred and fifty-five, including that of the adjoining settlements. The governor in charge of the local administration was Pierre Boucher, already mentioned as a delegate to France in 1661. The Jesuits had a residence there, and a chapel which was the only place of public worship, for the colonists had not as yet the means to erect a parish church. In the vicinity, there were the beginnings of settlement at Cap de la Magdalene, Patiscan, and Champlain. Among the important families of three rivers were those of Godefroy, Ertel, Le Neuf, Creveillet, Boucher, Poulin, Volant, Le Maître, Rivard, and Hameau. Michel Le Neuf to Harrison was juge royal, and Siverin Hameau, was notary and registrar of the court.
Montreal, or Ville-Marie, was scarcely more important than Three Rivers. The population of the whole district numbered only six hundred and twenty-five. A fort, built by Mezenuivre and Ayabouste at Pointe-à-Calire, the house of the Sulpicians at the foot of the present Saint-Sulpice Street, the Hotel Dieu on the other side of that street, A convent of the Congregation sisters facing the Hôtel-Dieu. A few houses scattered along the road called De la Commune, now St. Paul Street, and on the rising ground towards the Place d'Arm of later years, a few more dwellings. These constituted the Montreal of primitive days.
On the top of the hill, called Coteau-Saint-Louis, was erected an entrenched mill, Moulin du Coteau, which could be used as a redoubt to protect the inhabitants. The Sulpician's House, the Hotel Dieu, the convent of the Congregation, and the Houses of the Place d'Armes and of La Commune were connected with the fort by foot paths. Before, sixteen, seventy two, there were no streets laid out. The only place of public worship was the Hotel Dieu Chapel, Fifty feet in length by thirty in width. The superior of the Sulpicians was Abbe Suart. Madame Mace was superioress of the Hotel-lieu, but the mainstay of the institution was the well-known Mademoiselle Mance, who, by the aid of Madame de Bouillon's manufactions, had founded it in 1643.
The illustrious Sister Marguerite Bourgeois was at the head of the congregation, which owed its existence to her pious zeal and devotion to the education of the young. Among the Montrealists of note, the following should be specially mentioned.
Zachary Dupree, Major of the Island, Charles Dybuth, Seniorial Judge, J. B. Mignon de Brunzac, Fiscal Attorney, Louis Arthus Sailly, who had been for some time just royal. Benignia Basset, at once registrar of the seigneurial court, notary and surveyor. Charles Leboigne, King's treasurer, interpreter, soldier, settler, who is later to be ennobled and received the title of Baron de Langueuil. Etienne Bouchard, surgeon. Pierre Picotte de Belestre, A valiant militia-officer, Claude de Roboteu, Sir de Saint-Andre, Jacques Lebe, a merchant who controlled almost the whole trade of Villemarie. Altogether, the white population of Canada, including the settlers and laborers arriving during the summer of 1665, numbered only three thousand, two hundred and fifteen.
Yet the colony had been in existence for fifty-seven years. It was certainly time for a new effort on the part of the mother country to infuse life into her feeble offspring. This was a task calling for the earnest care and the most energetic activity of Tracy, Cressel, and Toulon.
One of the first matters to receive their attention was the reorganization of the Canadian administration. We have seen that in 1663 the Sovereign Council had been created to consist of the high officials of the colony and five councillors. At this time, September 1665, the five councillors were Mathieu de Moller, Le Garder de Tilly, and three others who had been irregularly appointed by Mezy, the preceding governor, to take the places of three councillors whom he had arbitrarily dismissed, Rue de Villarey, Juchereau de Laferte, and Rue d'Autoye. The same governor had also dismissed Jean Bourdon, the attorney general, and had replaced him by Chartier de Lopinierre. These summary dismissals and appointments had risen out of a quarrel between the governor and the bishop, in which the former appears to have been influenced by petty motives.
At any rate, Mezzi had been recalled by the king, and Tracy, Corsel, and Talon had been instructed to try him for improper conduct in office. But before their arrival at Quebec, Mezzi had obeyed the summons of another king than the King of France. He had been taken ill in the spring of the year, and had died on May 6. Mezzi being dead, it was wisely thought unnecessary to recall unhappy memories of his errors and misdeeds. Sufficient would be done if the grievances due to his rashness were redressed. Accordingly, the dismissed officials were reinstated. And on September Twenty Three, sixteen sixty five, a solemn sitting of the sovereign council was held at which Tracy, Corsel, Laval, and Talon were present.
Together with the Sire de Barroa, General agent of the West India Company, and the Sire de Villare, de Laffert, de Thaille, de Thilly, de Mours, all the councillors in office before Mezies dismissals. Jean Bradent, the attorney general, and J. B. Pivret, secretary of the council. The letters patent of Cressel and Talon, as well as the commission and credentials of the Sieur Libero, were duly read and registered. The letters patent of the Marquis de Tracy had been registered previously. With these formalities, the new administration of Canada was inaugurated.
The next proceeding of the rulers of New France was to prepare for a decisive blow against the daring Iroquois. Tracy and the soldiers of Reobsene had arrived in June, and three forts were in course of building on the Richelieu River, or Riviere des Iroquois, so called because for a long period it had been the most direct highway leading from the villages of these bloody warriors to the heart of the colony. During the summer and autumn of 1665, the Carignan soldiers were kept busy with the construction of these necessary defensive works. The first fort was erected at the mouth of the river under the direction of Captain de Sorel, the second, fifty miles higher under Captain de Chambly, and the third, about nine miles farther up under Colonel de Salieres.
The first two retained the names of the officers in charge of their construction, and the third received the name of St. Therese, because it was finished on the day dedicated to that saint. During the following year, two other forts were built—St. John, a few miles distant from St. Therese, and St. Anne, on an island at the head of Lake Champlain. Both Tracy and Cressel went to inspect the work personally and encouraged the garrisons. In the meantime, Talon was in no way idle. He had organized the means of conveying provisions, ammunition, tools, and supplies of every description for the maintenance of the troops and the furtherance of the work. Under his supervision, a flotilla of over fifty boats plied between Quebec and the River Richelieu.
It was also his business to take care of the incoming soldiers and laborers and to see that those who had contracted disease during their journey across the ocean received proper nursing and medical attendance. From the moment of his arrival, he had lost no opportunity of acquiring information on the situation in the colony. There is a curious anecdote that illustrates the manner in which he sometimes contrived to gain knowledge by concealing his identity. On the very day of his landing, he went alone to the Hotel Dieu, and, asking for the superioress, introduced himself as the valet de chambre of the intendant, pretending to be sent by his master to assure the good ladies of the hospital of M.
Talon's kindly disposition and desire to bestow on them every favor in his gift. One of the sisters present at the interview, Mare de la Nativite, A very bright and clever woman was struck by the extreme distinction of manner and speech of the so-called valet, and with a meaning glance at the superioress told the visitor that unless she was mistaken, he was more than he pretended to be. On his asking what could convey to her that impression, she replied that by his bearing and language She could not but feel that the intendant himself was honoring the htel-lieu with a visit. Talon could do no less than confess that she was right, showing at the same time that he appreciated the delicate compliment thus paid to him.
From that day he was a devoted and most generous friend to the htel-lieu of Quebec. One of the first problems with which the intendant had to deal in discharging the duties of his office was a dualism of administrative authority. It has been mentioned that Colbert had founded a new trading company known as the West India Company. This corporation had been granted wide privileges over all the French possessions in America, including feudal ownership and authority to administer justice and levy a war. The company was thus invested with the right of appointing judicial officers, magistrates, and sovereign councils, and of naming, subject to the king's sanction, governors, and other functionaries.
It had full power to sell the land or to make grants in feudal tenure, to receive all seignorial dues, to build forts, raise troops, and equip warships. The company charter had been granted in 1664, and of course Canada, as well as the other French colonies in the New World, was included in its jurisdiction. The situation of this colony was therefore very peculiar. In 1663, the king had cancelled the charter of the 100 associates and taken back the fief of Canada, but a year later he had granted it again to a new company. At the same time, he showed clearly that he intended to keep the administration in his own hands. Thus, Canada seemed to have two masters.
In accordance with its charter, the company held the ownership and government of the country de jure. But in point of fact, the king wielded the government, thus taking back with one hand what he had given with the other. By right, the company controlled the administration of justice. It could, and actually did, establish courts. But in fact, the king appointed the intendant supreme judge in civil cases, and made the sovereign council a tribunal of superior jurisdiction. By right, to the company belonged the power of granting land and signories. In fact, the governor or the intendant, the king's officers, made the grants at their pleasure. This strange situation, which lasted ten years, until the West India Company's charter was revoked in 1674, is often confusing to the student of the period.
Talon saw at a glance the anomaly of the situation. But being a practical man, he was less displeased with the falsity of the principle than apprehensive of the evil that was likely to result. In a letter to Colbert, dated October 4, 1665, he discussed the subject at length, putting it in plain terms. If, when the grant was made, it was the king's intention to benefit only the company, to increase its profits and develop its trade, with no ulterior consideration for the development of the colony, then it would be well to leave to the company the sole ownership of the country.
But if his majesty had thought of making Canada one of the prosperous parts of his kingdom, it was very doubtful whether he could attain that end without keeping in his own hands the control of lands and trade. The real aim of the West India Company, as he had learned, was to enforce its commercial monopoly to the utmost, and become the only trading medium between a colony and the mother country. Such a policy could have but one result. It would put an end to private enterprise and discourage immigration.
In spite of the company's apparent overlordship, Talon thought that, as the king's agent, he was bound to exercise the powers appertaining to his office for the good of the colony. By the end of the year, He had planned a new settlement in the vicinity of Quebec on lands included in the limits of the Signory of Notre-Dame-des-Anges at Charlesburg, which he had withdrawn from the grant to the Jesuits under the king's authority. This was the occasion of some friction between the Jesuits and the intendant. Talon gave the necessary orders for the erection of about forty dwellings, which should be ready to receive new settlers during the following year. These were to be grouped in three adjacent villages named Bourg-royal, Bourg-la-Raine, and Bourg-Talon.
We shall learn more of them in a following chapter. Another enterprise of the intendant was numbering the people. Under his personal supervision, during the winter of 1666, 67, a general census of the colony was taken, the first Canadian census of which we have any record. The count showed, as we have already said, a total population of three thousand two hundred fifteen in Canada at that time, two thousand thirty-four males, and one thousand one hundred eighty-one females. The married people numbered one thousand one hundred and nine, and there were five hundred and twenty-eight families. Elderly people were but few in number. Ninety-five only being from fifty-one to sixty years old, Forty-three from sixty-one to seventy, ten from seventy-one to eighty, and four from eighty-one to ninety.
In regard to professions and occupations, there were then in New France three notaries, five surgeons, eighteen merchants, four bailiffs, three schoolmasters, Thirty-six carpenters, twenty-seven joiners, thirty tailors, eight coopers, five bakers, nine millers, three locksmiths. The census did not include the king's troops, which formed a body of one thousand two hundred men. The clergy consisted of the bishop, eighteen priests and aspirants to the priesthood, and thirty-five Jesuit fathers. There were also 19 Ursulines, 23 Hospitalliere, and four Sisters of the Congregation. The original record of this, the first Canadian census, has been preserved, and is without question a most important historical document.
It is likewise full of living interest, for in it are recorded the names of many families whose descendants are now to be found all over Canada.
-
3 3 - The Iroquois Subdued 17:44
THE IROQUIS SUBDUED. It was the special task of Tracy and Cursell to rid the colony of the Iroquois scourge. The Five Nations The Five Nations had heard with some disquietude of the body of trained soldiers sent by the French king to check their incursions and crush their confederacy. At the beginning of December, 1665, the Marquis de Tracy received an embassy from the Onondagas. They desired to enter into a peace negotiation, and one of the most noted chiefs, Garancanti, delivered on that occasion a long and eloquent address to the viceroy. A treaty was signed by them on behalf of their own and two of the other tribes, the Senecas and the Onidas. But meanwhile the Onidas did not cease from hostilities, and the Mohawks also continued their bloody raids against the French settlements.
Curcel therefore decided to march at once against their villages beyond Lake Champlain, in what is now New York State, and to teach them a lesson. But he did not know the nature of a winter expedition in this northern climate. Leaving Quebec on January 9, he reached Three Rivers on the 16th, and proceeded to Fort St. Louis on the Richelieu, where he had fixed the rendezvous of the troops. The cold was very severe, and many soldiers were frozen at the outset. On January 29, the little band, five or six hundred French and Canadian, left Fort St. Louis, unfortunately, without waiting for a party of Algonquins who should have acted as scouts. It was a distressing march. The soldiers had to walk through deep snow.
And the unfamiliar use of snow-shoes was a great trial to the Europeans. At night, no shelter. They had to sleep in the open air, under the canopy of the sky, and the cold light of the glimmering stars. Having no guides, Courcel and his men lost their way in that unknown territory. After seventeen days of extreme toil, they found that, instead of reaching the Mohawk district, they were near Collier in the New Netherlands, Sixty miles distant. The vanguard had a brush with two hundred Iroquois, who slipped away after killing six French soldiers, and leaving four of their own number dead. The governor could go no further with his exhausted troops, and was forced to retrace his steps. The retreat was worse than the forward march.
The supply of provisions failed, and to the suffering from cold was soon added hunger. Many soldiers died of exposure and starvation. In reading the account of the ill-fated expedition, one is reminded of the disastrous retreat of Napoleon's army in 1812 through the icy solitudes of Russia. By this sad experience, the military commanders of New France found that they had something to learn of the art of making war in North America, and must respect the peculiarities of the climate and country. Nevertheless, Courcel's winter expedition had made an impression on the minds of the Iroquois, and had even surprised the Dutch and English. The author of a narrative entitled, Relation of the March of the Governor of Canada into New York, wrote, Surely so bold and hardy an attempt hath not happened in any age.
Apparently, the Five Nations were somewhat uneasy. For in March, the Senecas sent ambassadors to the Marquis de Tracy to ratify the treaty signed in December. In July, delegates came from the Oneida tribe. They presented a letter written by the English authorities at Orange, which assured the viceroy that the Mohawks were well disposed and wished for peace. A new treaty of ratification was accordingly signed. But the lieutenant-general wanted something more complete and decisive. He demanded of the delegates a general treaty to include the whole of the five nations, and stated that he would allow forty days for all the Iroquois tribes to send their ambassadors to Quebec. Moreover, he instructed Father Brchefer to go to Orange with some of the Oneida delegates for the purpose of meeting the ambassadors and escorting them to Quebec.
Unfortunately, a few days after the priest's departure, news came that four Frenchmen on a hunting expedition had been killed near Fort St. Anne by a party of Mohawks, and that three others had been taken prisoners. One of the slain was a cousin of Tracy, and one of the captives his nephew. Father Beschefer was at once recalled, and Captain de Sorel was ordered to march with some two hundred Frenchmen and ninety Indians to strike a blow at the raiders. Sorel lost no time, and had nearly reached the enemy's villages when he met Trace's nephew and the other prisoners under escort of an Iroquois chief and three warriors, who were bound for Quebec to make amends for the treacherous murder recently perpetrated, and to sue for peace.
Under these circumstances, Captain de Sorel did not think it necessary to proceed further, and marched his men home again with the Iroquois and the rescued prisoners. On August 31st, a great meeting was held at Quebec in the Jesuits' garden. The delegates of the Five Nations were present, and speeches were made enlarging on the desirability of peace. But it soon became apparent that no peace could be lasting except after a successful expedition against the Mohawks. Tracey, Courcel, and Talon held a consolation, and the intendant submitted a well-prepared document in which he reviewed the reasons for and against a continuance of the war. In Talon's mind, the arguments in favor of it had undoubtedly the greater weight.
Tracey and Courcel, concurred in this opinion. Thirteen hundred men were drafted for an expedition, six hundred regular soldiers, six hundred Canadians, and a hundred Indians. All was soon ready, and on September 14th, the day of the exaltation of the cross, Tracy and Curacell left Quebec, at the head of their troops. It was a spectacle that did not fail to impress the Iroquois chiefs detained in Quebec. One of them Deeply moved, said to the viceroy, I see that we are lost, but you will pay dearly for your victory. My nation will be exterminated, but I tell you that many of your young men will not return, for our young warriors will fight desperately. I beg of you to save my wife and children."
Many who witnessed that martial exit of Tracy and Curacao from the Chateau St. Louis Surrounded by a staff of noble officers, must have realized that this was a memorable day in the history of New France. At last a crushing blow was to be struck at the ferocious foe who for twenty-five years had been the curse and terror of the wretched colony. What mighty cheers were shouted on that day by the eager and enthusiastic spectators who lined the streets of Quebec? On September 28th, The troops taking part in the expedition were assembled at Fort St. Anne.
On Isle-la-Moth, at the northern end of Lake Chaplain. Charles Lemoyne commanded the Montreal contingent, one hundred and ten strong. The Quebec contingent marched under Le Grandeur de Repentigny. Father Albanel and Father Raffiaud, Jesuit priests. The Abe d'Orlier de Casson, a Sulpician. And the Abbey-du-Bois, chaplain of the Carignol Regiment, accompanied the army. Three hundred light boats had been launched for the crossing of Lake Champlain and Saint-Sacrement. Curousel, always impetuous, was the first to leave the fort. He led a vanguard of four hundred men, which included those from Montreal. The main body of the army, under Tracy, set out on October 3rd. Captains Chambley and Berthier were to follow four days later with the rear guard.
The journey by water was uneventful, but the portage between the two lakes was hard and trying. Yet it was nothing compared with the difficulties of the march beyond Lake Saint-Sacrement. One hundred miles of forest, mountains, rivers, and swamps lay between the troops and the Iroquois villages. No roads existed, only narrow footpaths, interrupted by quagmires, bristling with stumps obstructed by the entanglement of fallen trees, or abruptly cut by the foaming waters of swollen streams. Heavily laden, with arms, provisions, and ammunition strapped on their backs, French and Canadians slowly proceeded through the great woods, whose autumnal glories were vanishing fast under the influence of the chill winds of October.
Slipping over moist logs, sinking into unsuspected swamps, climbing painfully over steep rocks, they went forward with undaunted determination. At night they had to sleep in the open on a bed of damp leaves. The crossing of the rivers was sometimes dangerous. Tracy, who unfortunately had been seized with an attack of gout, was nearly drowned in one rapid stream. A Swiss soldier had undertaken to carry him across on his shoulders, but his strength failed, and if a rock had not stood near, the viceroy's career may have ended there. A Huron came to the rescue, and carried the helpless viceroy to the other side. The sufferings of the army were increased by a scarcity of food. The troops were famishing.
Luckily they came upon some chestnut-trees, and stayed their hunger with the nuts. At last, on October 15th, the scouts reported that the Mohawk settlements were near at hand. It was late in the day. Darkness was setting in, and a storm of wind and rain was raging. But Tracy decided to push on. They marched all night, and in the morning, emerging from the woods, saw before them the first of the Mohawk towns or villages. Without allowing a moment's pause, the viceroy ordered an advance. The roll of the drums seemed to give the troops new strength and ardour. French, Canadians, and Indians ran forward to the assault. The Mohawks, apprised of the coming attack, had determined beforehand to make a stand, and had sent their women and children to another village.
But at the sight of the advancing army, whose number appeared to them three times as great as they really were, and at the sound of the drums, like the voice of demons, They fled, panic-stricken. The first village was taken without striking a blow. The viceroy immediately ordered a march against the second, which was also found abandoned. Evidently the Iroquois were terrified, for a third village was taken in the same way, without a show of defence. It was thought that the invaders' task was finished, when an Algonquin squad, once a captive of the Iroquois, informed Curacell that there were two other villages. The soldiers pushed forward, and the fourth settlement of the ever-vanishing enemy fell undefended into the hands of the French.
The sun was setting. The exertions of the day and of the night before had been arduous, and it seemed impossible to go further. But the squaw, seizing a pistol and grasping Curacell's hand, said, "'Come on, I will show you the straight path.' And she led the way to the town and fort of Andrake, the most important stronghold of the Mohawks. It was surrounded with a triple palisade, twenty feet high, and flanked by four bastions. Vessels of bark, full of water, were distributed on the platforms behind the palisade, ready for use against fire. The Iroquois might have made a desperate stand there, and such had been their intention. But their courage failed them. at the fearful beating of the drums and the appearance of that mighty army, and they sought safety in flight.
The victory was now complete, and the army could go to rest after nearly twenty-four hours of continuous exertion. Next morning the French were astonished at the sight of Andrac in the light of the rising sun. Instead of a collection of miserable wigwams, they saw a fine Indian town, with wooden houses, Some of them a hundred and twenty feet long, and with lodging for eight or nine families. These houses were well supplied with provisions, tools, and utensils. An immense quantity of Indian corn and other necessaries was stored in Andrake, food enough to feed Canada for ten years. And in the surrounding fields a plentiful crop was ready for harvest. All this was to be destroyed. But first an impressive ceremony had to be performed.
The army was drawn up in battle array. A French officer, Jean-Baptiste Dubois, commander of the artillery, advanced, sword in hand, to the front, and in the presence of Tracy and Curacell, declared that he was directed, by M. Jean Talon, King's Counselor and Intendant of Justice, Police and Finance for New France, to take possession of Andraque and of all the country of the Mohawks, in the name of the King. A cross was solemnly planted alongside a post, bearing the king's coat of arms. Mass was celebrated, and the te deum sung. Then the work of destruction began. The palisades, the dwellings, the bastions, the stores of grain and provisions, except what was needed by the invaders. The standing crops, all were set on fire.
And when night fell, the glaring illumination of that tremendous blaze told the savages that at last New France had asserted her power, and that the soldiers of the great king had come far enough, through forests and over mountain, and streamed to chastise, in their own country, the bloodthirsty tribes, who, for a quarter of a century, had been the terror of the growing settlements on the St. Lawrence.
On their return march the troops suffered great hardships. A storm on Lake Champlain, upset two boats and eight men, were drowned. Tracy reached Quebec on November 5th. The expedition had lasted seven weeks, during which time he had covered nine hundred miles. The news of his success had been received with joy. Since the first days of October, the whole colony had been praying for victory. As soon as the destruction of the Irkka towns was known, prayers were changed to thanksgiving. The Te Deum was solemnly chanted, and on November 14th, A mass was said in the church of Notre-Dame de Quebec, followed by a procession in Graterium Actionum. New France might well rejoice. A great result had been attained.
True it was that the Mohawks, panic-stricken, had not been met and crushed in a set encounter. Nonetheless, they had had their lesson. They had learned that distance and natural impediments were no protection against the French. Their towns were a heap of ashes, their fields were despoiled, their country was ruined. The fruit of that expedition was to be eighteen years of peace for New France—eighteen years of peace after twenty-five years of murderous incursions. Was that not worth a te diem? After his return, Tracy ordered one of the Iroquois detained at Quebec to be hanged as a penalty for his share in the murder of the French hunters. He then directed three other prisoners—the Flemish batard—and two Unita chiefs—to go and inform their respective tribes that he would give them, for months, to send hostages and make peace.
Otherwise he would lead against them another expedition, more calamitous for their country than the first one. At length, in the month of July of the following year, Ambassadors of the Iroquois nations arrived at Quebec with a number of Iroquois families who were to remain as hostages in the colony. The chiefs asked that missionaries be sent to reside among their tribes. This petition was granted. New France could now breathe freely. The hatchet was buried.
-
4 4 - A Colonial Colbert 31:41
A Colonial Colbert. Tracy had led a successful expedition against the Iroquois, and coerced them into a lasting peace. He had seen order and harmony restored in the government of the colony. His mission was over, and he left Canada on August 28, 1667, courcelles remaining as governor, and Talon as intendant. From that moment, the latter, though second in rank, became really the first official of New France, If we consider his work in its relation to the future welfare of the colony. We have already seen something of his views for the administration of New France. He would have it emancipated from the jurisdiction of the West India Company. He tried also to impress on the king and his minister the advisability of augmenting the population in order to develop the resources of the colony.
In a word, he sought to lay the foundations of the flourishing state. Undoubtedly, Colbert wished to help and strengthen New France, but he seemed to think that Talon's aim was too ambitious. In one of his letters, the intendant had gone the lens of submitting a plan for the acquisition of New Netherlands, which had been conquered by the English in 1664. He suggested that, in the negotiations for peace between France, England, and Holland, Louis XIV might stipulate for the restoration to Holland of its colony. and in the meantime come to an understanding with the states-general for its cession to France. Annexation to Canada would follow. But Colbert thought that talent was too bold. The intendant had spoken of new France as likely to become a great kingdom.
In answer, the minister said that the king saw many obstacles to the fulfillment of these expectations. To create on the shores of the St. Lawrence an important state would require much emigration from France, and it would not be wise to draw so many people from the kingdom to unpeopled France for the purpose of peopling Canada. Moreover, if too many colonists came to Canada in one season, the area already under cultivation would not produce enough to feed the increased population, and great hardship would follow. Evidently, Colbert did not here display his usual insights. Talon never had in mind the unpeopling of France. He meant simply that if the home government would undertake to send out a few hundred settlers every year, the result would be the creation of a strong and prosperous nation on the shores of the St.
Lawrence. The addition of five hundred immigrants annually during the whole period of Louis Fourteen's reign would have given Canada in seventeen hundred a population of five hundred thousand. It was thought that the mother country could not spare so many, and yet the cost in men to France of a single battle, the bloody victory of Seneffe, in 1674, was eight thousand French soldiers. The wars of Louis Fourteen, Killed ten times more men than the systematic colonization of Canada would have taken from the mother country. The second objection raised by Colbert was no better founded than the first. Talon did not ask for the immigration of more colonists than the country could feed, but he rightly thought that with peace assured the colony could produce food enough for a very numerous population, and that increase in production would speedily follow increase in numbers.
It must not be supposed that Colbert was indifferent to the development of new France. No other minister of the French king did more for Canada. It was under his administration that the strength which enabled the colony so long to survive its subsequent trials was acquired. But Colbert was entangled in the intricacies of European politics, obliged to cooperate in ventures which in his heart he condemned, and which disturbed him in his work of financial and administrative reform. He yielded sometimes to the fear of weakening the trunk of the old tree by encouraging the growth of the young shoots. Talon had to give in, but he did so in such a way as to gain his point in part. He wrote that he would speak no more of the great establishment he had thought possible, since the minister was of opinion that France had no excess of population which could be used for the peopling of Canada.
At the same time, he insisted on the necessity of helping the colony, and assured Colbert that could he himself see Canada, he would be disposed to do his utmost for it, knowing that a new country cannot make its own way without being helped effectively at the outset. Talon's tact and firmness of purpose had their reward, for the next year Colbert gave ample proof that he understood Canada's situation and requirements. On the question of the West India Company also, there was some divergence of view between the minister and the intendant. As we have seen in the preceding chapter, Talon had expressed his apprehension of the evils likely to spring from the wide privileges exercised by the company.
But his trading association was Colbert's creation. He had contended that the failure of the one hundred associates was due to inherent weakness. The new one was stronger and could do better. Perhaps difficulties might arise in the beginning on account of the inexperience and greed of some of the company's agents, but with time the situation would improve. It was not surprising that Colbert should defend the company he had organized. Nevertheless, On that point as on the other, Colbert contrived to meet Talon halfway. The Indian trade, he said, would be open to the colonists, and for one year the company would grant freedom of trade generally to all the people of New France. In connection with the rights of this company, another question, affecting the finances, was soon to arise.
By its charter, the company was entitled to collect the revenues of the colony. That is to say, The taxes levied on the sale of beaver and moose skins. The tax on beaver skins was twenty-five per cent, called le droit du quart. The tax on moose skins was two sous per pound, le droit du dixième. There was also the revenue obtained from the sale or farming out of the trading privileges at Tadousac, la traite de Tadousac. All these formed what was called le fond du pays, the public fund, Out of which were paid the emoluments of the governor and the public officers, the costs of the garrisons at Quebec, Montreal, and Tree Rivers, the grants to religious communities, and other permanent yearly disbursements.
The company had the right to collect the taxes, but was obliged to pay the public charges. Writing to Colbert, Talon said he would have been greatly pleased if, in addition to these rights, the king had retained the fiscal powers of the Crown. He declared that the taxes were productive, yet the company's agent seemed very reluctant to pay the public charges. Colbert, of course, decided that the company, in accordance with its charter, was entitled to enjoy the fiscal rights upon condition of defraying annually the ordinary public expenditure of the country, as the company which preceded it had done. Immediately another point was raised. What should be the amount of the public expenditure Or, rather, to what figure should the company be allowed to reduce it?
Talon maintained that the public charges defrayed by the former company amounted to Forty-eight thousand nine hundred and fifty livres.
The livre was equivalent to the latter francs, about twenty cents of modern Canadian currency. The company's agent contended that they amounted to only twenty-nine thousand two hundred livres, and that the sum of forty-eight thousand nine hundred and fifty livres was exorbitant, as it exceeded by four thousand livres the highest sum ever received from farming out the revenue. Footnote. It was the custom in New France to sell or farm out the revenues. Instead of collecting direct defer taxes and the proceeds of the Tadoussac trade, the government granted the rights to a corporation or a private individual In return for a fixed sum annually. To this, the intendant replied by submitting evidence that the rights were farmed out for 50,000 livres in 1660 and in 1663.
Moreover, the rights were more valuable now, for with the conclusion of peace, trade would prosper. In the end, Colbert decided that the sum payable by the company should be 36,000 livres annually. The ordinary revenue of New France was thus fixed, and remained at that sum for many years. It must not be supposed that this revenue was sufficient to meet all the expenses connected with the defense and development of the colony. There was an extraordinary fund provided by the king's treasury and devoted to the movement and maintenance of the troops, the payment of certain special emoluments, the transport of new settlers, horses, and sheep, and The construction of forts, the purchase and shipment of supplies.
In 1665, this extraordinary budget amounted to three hundred fifty-eight thousand livres. Talon's energetic action on the question of the revenue was inspired by his knowledge of the public needs. He knew that many things requiring money had to be done. A new country like Canada could not be opened up for settlement without expense, and he thought that the traders who reaped the benefit of their monopoly should pay their due share of the outlay. We have already seen that Talon had begun the establishment of three villages in the vicinity of Quebec. Let us briefly enumerate the principles which guided him in erecting these settlements. First of all, in defense of the king's instructions relative to concentration, He contrived to plan the new villages as near as possible to the capital, and evolved a plan which would group the settlers about a central point and thus provide for their mutual help in defense.
In pursuance of this plan, he made all his Charlebourg land grants triangular, narrow at the head, wide at the base, so that the houses erected at the head were near each other and formed a square in the center of the settlement. In this arrangement, There was originality in good sense. After more than two centuries, Talon's idea remained stamped on the soil, and the plans of the Charlebourg villages, as surveyed in our own days, show distinctly the form of settlements adopted by the intendant. Proper dwellings were made ready to receive the new-comers. Then Talon proceeded with the establishment of settlers. To his great joy, some soldiers applied for grants. He made point of having skilled workmen, some if possible, in each village, carpenters, shoemakers, masons, or other artisans, whose services would be useful to all.
He tried also to induce habitants of earlier date to join the new settlements, where their experience would be a guide, and their methods an object lesson to beginners. The grants were made on very generous terms. The soldiers and inhabitants, on taking possession of their land, received a substantial supply of food and the tools necessary for their work. They were to be paid for clearing and tilling the first two acres. In return, each was bound by his deed to clear and prepare for culturation during the three or four following years another two acres, which could afterwards be allotted to an incoming settler. Talon proposed also that they should be bound to military service. For each new-comer, the king assumed the total expense of clearing two acres, erecting a house, preparing and sowing the ground, and providing flour until a crop was reaped, all on condition that the occupant should clear and cultivate two additional acres within three or four years, presumably for allotment to the next new-comer.
Such were the broad lines of Talon's colonization policy. But to his mind it was not enough that he should make regulations and issue orders. He would set up a model farm himself, and thus be an example in his own person. He bought land in the neighborhood of the Saint-Chalil River, and had the ground cleared at his own expense. He erected thereon a large house, a barn, and other buildings, and in course of time his fine property, comprising cultivated fields, meadows, and gardens, and well-stocked with domestic animals became a source of pride to him. Under Talon's wise direction and encouragement, the settlement of the country progressed rapidly. Now that they could work in safety, the colonists set themselves to the task of clearing new farms.
In his Relation of 1660, Father Le Mercier wrote, It is fine to see new settlements on each side of the St. Lawrence, for a distance of eight leagues. The fear of aggression no longer prevents our farmers from encroaching on the forest and harvesting all kinds of grain, which the soil here grows as well as in France. In the district of Montreal, there was great activity. It was during this period that the lands of Long Point, of Pointe-aux-Trembles and of Lachine were first cultivated. At the same time, along the river Richelieu, in the vicinity of Forchambly and Sorel, Officers and soldiers of the Carignan-Salire Regiment were beginning to settle. "'These worthy gentlemen,' wrote Mother Marie de l'Incarnation, "'are at work, with the king's permission, establishing new French colonies.
They live on their farm produce, for they have oxen, cows, and poultry. A census taken in 1668 gave very satisfactory figures. A year before, there had been 11,000, four hundred and forty-eight acres under cultivation. That year there were fifteen thousand, six hundred and forty-nine, and wheat production amounted to a hundred and thirty thousand, nine hundred and seventy-nine bushels. Such results were encouraging. What a change in three years! One of the commodities most needed in the colony was hemp, for making coarse cloth. Talon accordingly cost several acres to be sown with hemp. The seeds were gathered and distributed among a number of farmers, On the understanding that they would bring back an equal quantity of seed next year.
Then he took a very energetic step. He seized all the thread in the shops and gave notice that nobody could produce thread except in exchange for hemp. In a word, he created a monopoly of thread to promote the production of hemp, and the policy was successful. In many other ways, the intended activity and zeal for the public good manifested themselves. He favored the development of the St. Lawrence Fisheries, and encouraged some of the colonists to devote their labor to them. Cod-fishing was attempted with good results. Ship-building was another industry of his introduction. In 1666, always desirous of setting an example, he built a small craft of one hundred and twenty tons. Later, he had the gratification of informing Colbert that a Canadian merchant was building a vessel for the purpose of fishing in the Lower St.
Lawrence. During the following year, six or seven ships were built at Quebec. The relation of 1667 states that Talon took pains to find wood fit for shipbuilding, which had been begun by the construction of a barge found very useful, and of a big ship ready to float. In building and causing ships to be built, The Intendant had in view the extension of the colonies' trade. One of his schemes was to establish regular commercial intercourse between Canada, the West Indies, and France. The ships of La Rochelle, Dieppe, and Havre, after unloading at Quebec, would carry Canadian products to the French West Indies, where they would load cargoes of sugar for France. The Intendant, always ready to show the way, entered into partnership with a merchant, and shipped to the West Indies salmon, eels, salt and dried cod, peas, staves, fish oil, planks, and small masts, such needed in the islands.
The establishment of commercial relations between Canada and the West Indies was an event of no small moment. During the following years, this trade proved important. In 1670, three ships built at Quebec were sent to the islands with cargoes of fish, oil, peas, planks, barley, and flour. In 1672, two ships made the same voyage, and in 1681, Tadon's successor, the Intendant Duchesneau, wrote to the minister that every year since his arrival, two vessels at least, in one year for, had left Quebec for the West Indies with Canadian products. The Intendant was a busy man. The scope of his activity included the discovery and development of mines. There had been reports of finding lead at Gaspé, And the West India Company had made an unsuccessful search there.
At Besaint-Paul, below Quebec, iron ore was discovered, and it was thought that copper and silver also would be found at the same place. In 1667, Father Alouet returned from the Upper Ottawa, bringing fragments of copper which he had detached from stones on the shores of Lake Huron. Engineers sent by the Intendant reported favorably of the coal-mines in Cape Breton, The specimens tested were deemed to be of very good quality. In this connection may be mentioned a mysterious allusion in Talon's correspondence to the existence of coal, where none is now to be found. In 1667, he wrote to Colbert that a coal-mine had been discovered at the foot of the Quebec Rock. This coal, he said, is good enough for the forge.
If the test is satisfactory, I shall see that our vessels take loads of it to serve as ballast. It would be a great help in our naval construction. We could then do without the English coal. Next year, the intendant wrote again. The coal-mine opened at Quebec, which originated in the cellar of a lower-town resident, and it continued through the Cape, under the Chateau Saint-Louis, could not be worked, I fear, without imperiling the stability of the Chateau. However, I shall try to follow another direction. For, notwithstanding the excellent mine at Cape Breton, it would be a capital thing for the ships landing at Quebec to find coal here. Is there actually a coal mine at Quebec hidden in the depth of the rock which bears now on its summit Dufresne Terrace and the Chateau Frontenac?
We have before us Talon's official report. He asserts positively that coal was found there, coal which was tested, which burned well in the forge. What has become of the mine And where is that coal? Nobody at the present day has ever heard of a coal mine at Quebec, and the story seems incredible. But Talon's letter is explicit. No satisfactory explanation has yet been suggested, and we confess inability to offer one here. While reviewing the great intendant's activities, we must not fail to mention the brewing industry in which he took the lead. In 1668, he erected a brewery near the river Saint-Charles, On the spot at the foot of the hill were stood in later years the intendant's palace. He meant in this way to help the grain growers by taking part of their surplus product, and also to do something to check the increasing importation of spirits which caused so much trouble and disorder.
However questionable the efficacy of beer in promoting temperance, Talon's object is worthy of applause. Three years later, the intendant wrote that his brewery was capable of churning out two thousand hogsheads of beer for exportation to the West Indies, and two thousand more for home consumption. To do this, it would require over twelve thousand bushels of grain annually, and would be a great support to the farmers. In the meantime, he had planted hops on his farm and was raising good crops. Talon's buoyant reports, and his incessant entreaties for a strong and active colonial policy could not fail to enlist the sympathy of two such statesmen as Louis Fourteen and Colbert. This is perhaps the only period in earlier Canadian history during which the home government steadily followed a wise and energetic policy of developing and strengthening the colony.
We have seen that Colbert hesitated at first to encourage emigration, but he had yielded someone before Talon's urgent representations, And, from 1665 to 1671, there was an uninterrupted influx of Canadian settlers. It is recorded in a document written by Talon himself, that in 1665, the West India Company brought to Canada for the King's account 429 men and 100 young women, and 184 men and 92 women in 1667. During these seven years, there were in all a thousand eight hundred and twenty-eight state-aided immigrants to Canada. The young women were carefully selected, and it was the king's wish that they should marry promptly, in order that the greatest possible number of new families should be founded.
As a matter of fact, the event was in accordance with the king's wish. In 1665, Mother Marie de l'Incarnation wrote that the hundred girls arrived that year were nearly all provided with husbands. In 1667, she wrote again, This year, ninety-two girls came from France, and they are already married to soldiers and laborers. In 1670, one hundred and fifty girls arrived, and Talon wrote on November 10, All the girls who came this year are married, except fifteen whom I had placed in well-known families. To await the time when the soldiers who sought them for their wives are established and able to maintain them. It was indeed a matrimonial period, and it is not surprising that marriage was the order of the day.
Every incentive to that end was brought to bear. The intendant gave fifty livres in household supplies and some provisions to each young woman who contracted marriage. According to the king's decree, Each youth who married at or before the age of twenty was entitled to a gift of twenty livres, called the King's Gift. The same decree imposed a penalty upon all fathers who had not married their sons at twenty, and their daughters at sixteen. In the same spirit, it enacted also that all Canadians having ten children living should be entitled to a pension of three hundred livres annually, for a hundred livres was the reward for twelve. Marry early was the royal mandate. Colbert, writing to Talon, in 1668, says, I pray you to command it, to the consideration of the whole people, that their prosperity, their subsistence, and all that is there to them depend on a general resolution, never to be departed from, to marry youths at 18 or 19 years, and girls at 14 or 15, since abundance can never come to them except through the abundance of men.
And this was not enough. Colbert went on. Those who may seem to have absolutely renounced marriage should be made to bear additional burdens, and be excluded from all honors. It would be well even to add some mark of infamy. The unfortunate bachelor seems to have been treated somewhat as a public malefactor. Talon issued an order forbidding unmarried volontaires to hunt with the Indians or go into the woods, if they did not marry fifteen years after the arrival of the ships from France. And a case is recorded of one Francois Lenoir of Montreal, who was brought before the judge because, being unmarried, he had gone to trade with the Indians. He pleaded guilty, and pledged himself to marry next year after the arrival of the ships, or, failing that, to give one hundred and fifty livres to the Church of Montreal, and alike some to the hospital.
He kept his money, and married within the term. The matrimonial zeal of Colbert and Talon did not slight the noblemen on officers. Captain Delamotte, marrying and taking up a boat in the country, received 16 hundred livres. During the years, 1665, 68, 6,000 livres were expended to aid the marriage of young gentlewomen without means, and 6,000 to enable 4 captains, 3 lieutenants, 5 ensigns, and a few minor officers to settle and marry in the colony. A word must be said as to the character of the young women. Some writers have cast unfair aspersions upon the girls sent out from France to marry in Canada. After a serious study of the question, we are in a position to state that these girls were most carefully selected.
Some of them were orphans weared in charitable institutions under the king's protection. They were called les Filles du Roi. The rest belonged to honest families, and their parents, overburdened with children, were willing to send them to a new country where they would be well provided for. In 1670, Colbert wrote to the Archbishop of Rouen. As in the parishes about Rouen, fifty or sixty girls might be found who would be very glad to go to Canada to be married. I beg you to employ your credit and authority with the cur of the thirty or forty of these parishes, to try to find in each of them one or two girls disposed to go voluntarily for the sake of settlement in life. Such was the quality of the female emigration to Canada.
The girls were drawn from reputable institutions, or from good peasant families, under the auspices of the cur. During their journey to Canada, they were under the care and direction of persons highly respected for their virtues and purity, such as Madame Bourdon, widow of the late Attorney General of New France, or Mademoiselle Etienne, who was appointed governess of the girls leaving for Canada by the directors of the General Hospital of Paris. When young women arrived in Canada, They were either immediately married or placed for a time in good families. The paternal policy of the minister and the intendant was favored by the disbanding of the Carignan companies. In 1668, the regiment was recalled to France.
Four companies only were left in Canada to garrison their forts. The officers and soldiers of the companies withdrawn were entreated to remain as settlers, and about four hundred decided to make their home in Canada. They were generously subsidized. Each soldier electing to settle in the colony received one hundred livres, or fifty livres with provisions for one year, at his choice. Each sergeant received one hundred and fifty livres, or one hundred livres with one year's provisions. The officers also were given liberal endowments. Among them were captains de Contrecœur, de Saint-Ours, de Sorel, Duguay, de Boisbriand, lieutenants Gaultier, de Varennes, and Margane, de Lavaltry. Ensigns, Paul Dupuis, Bécard de Grandeville, Pierre Monnet de Maurras, François-Jarré de Verchers.
The strenuous efforts of Colbert and Talon could not but give a great impulse to the population. The increase was noticeable. In November, Sixteen Seventy One, Talon wrote, His Majesty will see by the extracts of the registers of baptism that the number of children this year is six or seven hundred, and in the coming year we may hope for a substantial increase. There is some reason to believe that, without any further female immigration, the country will see more than one hundred marriages next year. I consider it unnecessary to send girls next year. The better to give the habitants a chance to marry their own girls to soldiers this year's of settling. Neither will it be necessary to send young ladies, as we received last year, fifteen instead of the four who were needed for wives of officers and notables.
In a former chapter, the population of Canada in 1665 was given as 3,200, and 15, and the number of families 533. In 1668, the number of families was 11,339, and the population 62,182. In three years, the population had nearly doubled, and the number of families had more than doubled. Other statistics may fittingly be given here. During the period under consideration, the West India Company sent to Canada for the king's account many horses and sheep. These were badly needed in the colony. Since its first settlement, there had been seen in New France only a single horse, one which had been presented by the company of one hundred associates to M. de Montmagny, the governor who succeeded Champlain.
But from 1665 to 1668, 41 mares and stallions, and 80 sheep were brought from France. Domestic animals continued to be introduced until 1672. Fourteen horses and 50 sheep were sent in 1669, 13 horses in 1670, the same number of horses and a few asses in 1671, so that during these seven years Canada received from France about 80 horses, Twenty years afterwards, in 1692, there were 400 horses in the colony. In 1698, there were 684, and in 1709, the number had so increased that the Intendant Rodeau issued an ordinance to restrain the multiplication of these animals. From what has been said, it will be seen that this period of Canadian history was one of great progress. What Colbert was to France, Talon was to New France.
While the great minister, in the full light of European publicity, was gaining fame as a financial reformer and a reviewer of trade and industry, the sagacious and painstaking intendant, in his remote corner of the globe, was laying the foundation of an economic and political system, and opening to the young country the road for commercial, industrial, and maritime progress. Talon was a colonial colbert. What the latter did in a wide sphere, and with ample means, The former was trying to do on a small scale and with limited resources. Both have deserved a place of honor in Canadian annals.
-
5 5 - The Intendant and the Sovereign Council 32:14
A Chronicle of Jean Tellon in Canada.
Reading by Robin Cotter. July, 2000, 7th. A Chronicle of Jean Talon in Canada. By Thomas Chapey. Chapter Five. The Intendant and the Sovereign Council. In the preceding chapter, a sketch has been given of Talon's endeavors to promote colonization, agriculture, shipbuilding, and commerce, to increase the population, and to foster generally the prosperity of New France. Let us now see how he provided for the good administration and internal order of the colony. In 1666, he had prepared and submitted to Tracy and Coursell a series of rules and enactments relating to various important matters, one of which was the administration of justice. Tellon wished to simplify the procedure, to make justice speedy, accessible to all, and inexpensive.
In each parish he proposed to establish judges, having the power to hear and decide in the first instance all civil cases involving not more than ten livres. In addition, there would be four judges at Quebec, and appeals might be taken before three of them from all decisions given by the local judges, unless, Tenlon added, It be thought more advisable to maintain the Sieur Chartier in his charge of Lieutenant-General, to which he has been appointed by the West India Company.
It was decided that Monsieur Chartier de Lotte-Bernierre should be so maintained, and he was duly confirmed as Lieutenant Civil et Criminel on January 10th, 1667. He had jurisdiction in the first instance over all cases, civil and criminal, in the Quebec district, and in appeal from the judgments of the local or seigneurial judges. The sovereign council acted as a court of appeal in the last resort, except in cases where the parties made a supreme appeal to the King's Council of State in France. In 1669, Tellon wrote a memorandum in which we find these words, Justice is administered in the first instance by judges in the signories, then by a lieutenant civil and criminal appointed by the company in each of the jurisdictions of Quebec and Three Rivers, and above all by the sovereign council, which in the last instance decides all cases where an appeal lies.
At Montréal, there was a lieutenant civil and criminal appointed by the Sulpicians, seigneurs of the island. In 1667, there were seigneurial judges in the seigneuries of Beaupre, Beauport, Notre-Dame-des-Angues, Cap de la Magdalene. It is interesting to find that Talon attempted to establish a method of settlement out of court, the principle of which was accepted by the legislature of the province of Quebec more than two centuries later. What was called the amiable composition of the French intendant may be regarded as a first edition of the law passed at Quebec in 1899, which provides for conciliation or arbitration proceedings before a lawsuit is begun. Talon also introduced an equitable system of land registration.
In the proceedings of the Sovereign Council, of which Talon at this time was the inspiring mind, we may see reflected the condition and internal life of the colony. Decrees for the regulation of trade were frequent. Commercial freedom was unknown. Under the administration of the governor of Agour, To 1663, a tariff of prices had been published, which the merchants were compelled to observe. Again, in 1664, the Council had decided that the merchants might charge fifty-five per cent above cost price on dry goods, one hundred per cent on the more expensive wines and spirits, and one hundred and twenty per cent on the cheaper, the cost price in France being determined by the invoice bills. In 1666, a new tariff was enacted by the Council, in which the price of one hogshead of Bordeaux wine was fixed at 80 livres, and that of Brazil tobacco at 40 sous a pound.
In 1667, again changes took place. On dry goods, the merchants were allowed 70% above cost. On spirits and wines, 100% or 100% and 20% as in 1664. The merchants did not accept these rulings without protest. In 1664, the most important Quebec trader, Charles Aubert de La Chagnie, was prosecuted for contravention, and made this bold declaration in favor of commercial freedom. I have always deemed that I had a right to the free disposal of my own, especially when I consider that I spend in the colony what I earn therein.
Prosecutions for violating the law were frequent. During the month of June, 1667, at a sitting of the Sovereign Council, Tracy, Courcel, Tellon, and Laval being present, the Attorney General Bourdain made out a case against Jacques de Les Mauds, A merchant, for having sold wines and tobacco at higher prices than those of the tariff. The defendant acknowledged that he had sold his wine at 100 livres, and his tobacco at 60 sous, but alleged that his wine was the best Bordeaux, that his hogsheads had a capacity of fully one hundred and twenty pots, that care, Risk and leakage should be taken into consideration, that two hogsheads had been spoiled, and that the price of those remaining should be higher to compensate him for their loss.
As to the tobacco, it was of the Marignan quality, and he had always deemed it impossible to sell it for less than 60 sous. After hearing the case, the council decided that two of its members, M. Damore, and de la Tesserie should make an inspection at Lamothe's store, in order to taste his wine and tobacco, and gauge his hogsheads. Away they went, and afterwards they made the report. Finally, Lamothe was condemned to a fine of 22 livres, payable to the Hotel Dieu. It may be remarked here that very often the fines had a similar destination. In that way, justice helped charity. The magistrates were vigilant, but the merchants were cunning, and often succeeded in evading the tariff. In July 1667, the habitants' syndic appeared before the council to complain of the various devices resorted to by merchants to extort higher prices from the settlers than were allowed by law.
So the council made a ruling that all merchandise should be stamped in the presence of the syndic according to the prices of each kind and quality, and ordered samples duly stamped in this way to be delivered to commissioners specially appointed for the purpose. It will be seen that these regulations were minute and severe. Trade was thus submitted to stern restrictions which would seem strange and unbearable in these days of freedom. What an outcry there would be if Parliament should attempt now to dictate to our merchants the selling price of their merchandise. But in the seventeenth century such a thing was common enough. It was a time of extreme official interference in private affairs and transactions.
We have mentioned the syndic of the inhabitants, syndic des habitants. A word about this officer will be in place here. He was the spokesman of the community when complaints had to be made, or petitions presented to the governor, or the sovereign council. At that time in Canada, there was no municipal government. True, an unlucky experiment had been made in 1663 under the governor of Meze, when a mayor and two aldermen were elected at Quebec. But their enjoyment of office was of brief duration. In a few weeks the election was declared void. It was then determined to nominate a syndic to represent the inhabitants, and on August 3rd, Claude Charnon, a merchant, was elected to the office. But as the inhabitants often had difficulties to settle with members of the commercial class, objection was taken to him on the ground that he was a tradesman, and he retired.
On September 17th, a new election took place, and Jean Lemire, A carpenter was elected. Later on, during the troubles of the Meze-Rgime, the office seems to have been practically abolished, but when the government was reorganized, it was thought advisable to revive it. The council decreed another election, and on March 20th, 1667, Jean Lemire was again chosen as syndic. Lemire continued to hold the office for many years. To the colony of that day, The sovereign council was, broadly speaking, what the legislatures, the executives, the courts of justice, and the various commissions, all combined, are to modern Canada. But, as we have seen, it had arbitrary powers that these modern bodies are not permitted to exercise.
Its long arm reached into every concern of the inhabitants. In 1667, for example, The habitants asked for a regulation to fix the miller's fee, the amount of the toll to which they would be entitled for grinding the grain. The owners of the flour-mills represented that the construction, repair, and maintenance of their mills were two or three times more costly in Canada than in France, and that they should have a proportionate fee. Still, they would be willing to accept the bare remuneration usually allowed in the kingdom. The toll was fixed at one-fourteenth of the grain. Highways were also under the care of the council. When the residents of a locality presented a petition for opening a road, the council named two of its members to make an inspection and report.
On receipt of the report, an order would be issued for opening a road along certain lines and of a specified width. It was often eighteen feet, and for pulling stumps and filling up hollows. There was an official called the Grand Voyeur, or General Overseer of Rhodes. The office had been established in 1657, when René Robineau de Becancourt was appointed Grand Voyeur by the company of one hundred associates. But in the wretched state of the colony, at that time, Monsieur de Becancourt had not much work to do. In later years, however, the usefulness of a Grand Voyeur had become more apparent. and Becancourt asked for a confirmation of his appointment. On the suggestion of Talon, the council reinstated him, and ordered that his commission be registered.
During the whole French regime, there were but five general overseers of Rhodes, or Grand Voyeuse. René Robineau de Becancourt, Pierre Robineau de Becancourt, 1699 to 1729. E.
L'enolier de Boisclos, 1731 to 1751. M. de la Gorgendier, 1751. One, to 1759, Monsieur Delino, 1759, to 1760. Guardianship of public morality and the maintenance of public order were the chief cares of the council. It was ever intent on the suppression of vice. On August 20th, 1667, in the presence of Tracy, Courcel, Tellon, and Laval, the Attorney General submitted information of scandalous conduct on the part of some women and girls, and represented that a severe punishment would be a wholesome warning to all evil-doers. He also suggested that the wife of Sebastien Langlier, being one of the most disorderly, should be singled out for an exemplary penalty. A counsellor was immediately appointed to investigate the case.
What was done in this particular instance is not recorded, but there is evidence to show that licentious conduct was often severely dealt with. Crimes and misdemeanors were ruthlessly pursued. For a theft committed at night in the Hotel Gieux Garden, the intendant condemned a man to be marked with the fleur-de-lis, to be exposed for four hours in the pillory, and to serve three years in the galleys. Another culprit, convicted of larceny, was sentenced to be publicly whipped and to serve three years in the galleys. Both these prisoners escaped and returned to their former practices. They were recaptured and sentenced, The first to be hanged, the second to be whipped, marked with the fleur-de-lis, and kept in irons until further order.
Rape in the colony was unhappily frequent. A man convicted of this crime was condemned to death, and executed two days later. Another was whipped till the blood flowed, and condemned to serve nine years in the galleys. Let us now turn to activities of another order. One of the most important ordinances enacted by the sovereign council under Talon's direction was that which concerned the importation of spirits and the establishment in the colony of the brewing industry. It was stated in this decree that the great quantity of brandies and wines imported from France was a cause of debauchery. Many were diverted from productive work, their health was ruined, they were induced to squander their money, and prevented from buying necessaries and supplies useful for the development of the colony.
Tellon, as we have read in another chapter, thought that one of the best means of combating the immoderate use of spirits was the setting up of breweries. At the same time, he intended that this industry should help agriculture. The sovereign council entered into these views, and enacted that as soon as breweries should be in operation in Canada, all importation of wines and spirits should be prohibited, except by special permission and subject to a tax of five hundred livres, payable one-third to the seigneurs of the country, one-third to the htel-dieu, and one-third to the person who had set up the first brewery after the date of the enactment. Under no circumstances should the yearly importation exceed eight hundred hogsheads of wine and four hundred of brandy.
When this amount had been reached, no further licenses to import would be issued. The council begged Talon to take the necessary steps for the construction and equipment of one or more breweries. The owners of these were to have, during ten years, the exclusive privilege of brewing for trading purposes. The price of beer was fixed beforehand at 20 livres per hogshead, and six sous per pot, so long as barley was priced at 3 livres per bushel or less. If the price of barley went higher, the price of beer should be raised proportionately. In 1667, the Sovereign Council, inspired by Talon, had to discuss a very important question. This was the formation of a company of Canadians to secure the exclusive privilege of trading.
By its charter, the West India Company had been granted the commercial monopoly. Under pressure from Talon, it had somewhat abated its pretensions, and had allowed freedom of trade for a time. But again it was urging its rights. The council asked the intendant to support, with his influence at court, the plan for a Canadian company, which he did. Colbert did not say no, neither did he seem in a hurry to grant the request. In 1668, the council sent the minister a letter praying for freedom of trade. This year the company had enforced its monopoly, and the people had suffered from the lack of necessaries which could not be found in the company's stores. Moreover, prices were exceedingly high. Such a state of things was detrimental to the colony, The council begged that, if Colbert were not disposed to grant freedom of trade, he would favorably consider the scheme for a trading company composed of Canadians, which had been submitted to him the year before.
We shall see, later on, what came of this agitation against the West India Company. The good understanding between the attendant and the sovereign council was absolute. The council had shown unequivocal confidence in Thelan's ability and respect for his person and authority. A few days before the Marquis de Trecy had left the colony, the council had ordered that all petitions to enter lawsuits should be presented to the intendant, who should assign them to the council or to the lieutenant civil and criminal, or try them himself at his discretion. This was treating Talon as the supreme magistrate and acknowledging him as the dispenser of justice. M. de Courcel, who was beginning to feel some uneasiness at Talon's great authority and prestige, refused to sign the proceedings of that day, inscribing these lines in the council's register.
This decree being against the governor's authority and the public good, I did not wish to sign it. At the beginning of the following year, Talon, whose attention perhaps had not been called to Courcel's written protest, requested the adoption of a similar decree, and the council did not hesitate to confirm its previous decision, notwithstanding the governor's former opposition, which he reiterated in the same terms. Courcel was certainly mistaken in supposing that the council's decision was an encroachment on his authority. The superior jurisdiction in judicial matters belonged to the intendant. Under his commission, he had the right to judge alone and with full jurisdiction in civil matters, to hear all cases of crimes and misdemeanors, abuse and malversation by whomsoever committed, to proceed against all persons guilty of any crime, whatever might be their quality or condition, to pursue the proceedings until final completion, judgment, and execution thereof.
Nevertheless, in practice and with due regard to the good administration of justice, the Council's decree went perhaps too far. The question remained in abeyance, and was not settled until four years afterwards, at the end of Talon's second term in Canada. He had written to Colbert on the subject stating that he would be glad to be discharged of the judicial responsibility, and to see the question of initiating lawsuits referred to the Sovereign Council. As a matter of fact, he said, receiving the petitions for entering lawsuits does not mean retaining them before myself. I have not judged twenty cases, civil or criminal, since I came here, having always tried as much as I could to conciliate the opposing parties.
The reason why I speak now of this matter is that very often, for twenty or thirty livres of principle, a plaintiff goes before the judge of first instance, which diverts the parties from the proper cultivation of their farms, and later on... By way of an appeal, before the sovereign counsel, which likes to hear and judge cases. Colbert did not deem the decision of the counsel advisable. It is contrary, he wrote, to the order of justice, in virtue of which, leaving in their own sphere the superior judges, the judges of first instance are empowered to hear all cases within their jurisdiction, and their judgments can be appealed from to the sovereign counsel. Moreover, it would be a burden for the king's subjects living far from Quebec to go there unnecessarily in order to ascertain before what tribunal they should be heard.
We must now speak of a most important matter, the brandy traffic. The sale of intoxicating liquor to the Indians had always been prohibited in the colony. In 1657, a decree of the King's State Council had ratified and renewed this prohibition under pain of corporal punishment. Yet, notwithstanding the decree, greedy traders broke the law, and for the purpose of getting furs at a low price, supplied the Indians with eau de feu, or fire-water, which made them like wild beasts. The most frightful disorders were prevalent. The most heinous crimes committed, and scandalous demoralization followed. In 1660, the evil was so great that Monseigneur de Laval, exercising his pastoral functions, decreed excommunication against all those pursuing the brandy traffic in defiance of ordinances.
This might have stopped the progress of the evil had not the governor, Avagour, opened the door to renewed disorder. Two years later, by a most unfortunate policy. Thereupon Laval crossed the ocean to France, obtained the governor's recall, and succeeded, though with some difficulty, in maintaining the former prohibition. In 1663, the Sovereign Council enacted an ordinance strictly forbidding the selling or giving of brandy to Indians, directly or indirectly, for any reason or pretence whatsoever. The penalty for the offence was a fine of three hundred livres, payable one-third to the informers, one-third to the hotel Dieu, and one-third to the public treasury. And for a second offence, the punishment was whipping or banishment.
In 1667, after the sovereign council had been finally reorganized, the prohibition was renewed on a motion of Attorney General Bordogne, Under the same penalties as before, and it devolved many times upon the council to condemn transgressors of this ordinance to fines, imprisonment, or corporal punishment. Tellon was present and concurred in these condemnations. But gradually his mind changed. He was becoming daily more impressed with the material benefits of the brandy traffic, and less convinced of its moral danger. He was besides displeased with the bishop's excommunication. In his view, it was an encroachment of the spiritual upon the civil power. Under the influence of these feelings, he came to consider prohibition of the liquor traffic as a mistake, damaging to the trade and progress of the colony, and to French influence over the Indian tribes.
These were the arguments put forward by the supporters of the traffic. According to them, To refuse brandy to the Indians was to let the English monopolize the profitable fur trade, and therefore to check the development of New France. The fur trade provided an abundance of beaver-skins, which formed a most convenient medium of exchange. The possession of these gave an impetus to trade, and brought to Canada a number of merchants and others who were consumers of natural products and money-spenders. Moreover, in Canada, furs were the main article of exportation. Their abundance swelled the public revenue, and increased the number of ships employed in the Canadian trade. And last, to use an argument of a higher order, the brandy traffic, in fostering trade with the Indian tribes, kept them in the bonds of an alliance, and strengthened the political situation of France in North America.
The above fairly, we think, represents the substance of the plea made by the supporters of the liquor traffic. Such, indeed, were the arguments used by the traders, finally accepted by Talon, developed in after years by Frontenac, approved by Colbert on many occasions. Such was the political and commercial wisdom of those who thought mainly of the material progress of New France. To those arguments, Laval, the clergy, and many enlightened persons interested in the public welfare had a double answer. First, there was at stake a question of principle, important enough to be the sole ground of a decision. Was it right, for the sake of a material benefit, to outrage natural and Christian morality?
Was it morally lawful, for the purpose of loading with furs the Quebec stores and the Rochelle ships, to instill into the Indian veins the accursed poison which inflamed them to theft, rape, incest, murder, suicide, all the frightful frenzy of bestial passion? As it was practiced, the liquor traffic could have no other result. A powerful consensus of evidence established this truth above all discussion. For the Indians, brandy was then, as it is now, a murderous poison. It is for this reason that at the present day the government of Canada prohibits absolutely the sale of intoxicating liquor in the territories where the wretched remnants of the aborigines are gathered. The strictness of the modern laws is a striking vindication of Laval and those who stood by him.
Moreover, the prohibition of the brandy traffic was not as detrimental to the material development of the colony as was contended. It was possible to trade with the Otoeus, the Algonquins, the Iroquois, without the allurement of brandy. The Indians themselves acknowledged that strong liquor ruined them. The Abbe d'Hollier de Casson, superior of the Montreal Sulpetians, was perfectly right when he made the following statement. We should have had all the Iroquois if they had not seen that there is as much disorder here as in their country, and that we are even worse than the heretics. The Indian drunkard does not resist the drinking craze when brandy is at hand, but afterwards, when he sees himself naked and disarmed, his nose gnawed, his body maimed and bruised, he becomes mad with rage against those who caused him to fall into such a state.
Some years later, the governor d'Anovy answered those who enlarged on the danger of throwing the Indians on the friendship of the Dutch and English if they were refused brandy. Those who maintain, he said, that if we refuse liquor to the Indians, they will go to the English, are not trustworthy. For the Indians are not anxious to drink when they do not see the liquor, and the most sensible of them wish that brandy had never existed, because they ruin themselves in giving away their furs, and even their clothes, for drink. D'enonville's opinion was the more justified in that at one time the New England authorities proposed to the French a joint prohibition of the sale of brandy to Indians, and actually passed an ordinance to that effect.
There were many other articles besides brandy that were needed by the Indians, and for which they were obliged to exchange their furs. But even had the prohibition caused a decrease in the fur trade, would the evil have been so great? Fewer colonists would have been diverted from agriculture. As it was, the exodus from the settlements of bushrangers in search of furs was a source of weakness, and the flower of Canadian youth disappeared every year in the wilderness. Had this drain of national vitality been avoided, the settlement of Canada would have been more rapid. Even from the material point of view, it can be maintained that the opponents of the Brandy Traffic understood better than its supporters the true interests of New France.
For a long while, this important question divided and agitated the Canadian people. The religious authorities, knowing the evil and crimes that resulted from the sale of intoxicating liquor to the Indians, made strenuous efforts to secure the most severe restriction, if not the prohibition, of the deadly traffic. They spoke in the name of public morality and national honor, of humanity and divine love. The civil authorities, More interested in the financial and political advantages than in the question of principle, favored, toleration, and even authorization of the trade. Hence the conflicts and misunderstandings which have enlivened, or rather saddened, the pages of Canadian history. It is to be regretted that the Intendant Talon sided with the supporters of free traffic and brandy.
We have said that at first he wavered. The rulings of the sovereign council in 1667 seemed to show it. But his earnest desire for the prosperity of the colony, the development of her trade, the increase of her population, the improvement of her finances, his ambition for the economic progress of New France misled him and perverted his judgment. This is the only excuse that can be offered for the greatest error of his life. For he must be held responsible for the ordinance passed by the sovereign council on November 10, 1668. This ordinance, after setting forth that in order to protect the Indians against the curse of drunkenness, it was better to have recourse to freedom than to leave them a prey to the wily devices of unscrupulous men, enacted that thereafter, with the king's permission, All the residents of New France might sell and deliver intoxicating liquor to the Indians willing to trade with them.
The gate was opened. It was in vain that the ordinance went on to forbid the Indians to get drunk under a penalty of two beavers and exposure in the pillory. A fearful punishment, indeed. Tellon's good faith was undeniable. On this occasion he doubtless thought that he was still serving the cause of public welfare. But, without questioning his intentions, we cannot but admit that his life's record contains pages more admirable than this one.
-
6 6 - Talon and the Clergy 17:06
A Chronicle of Jean Talon in Canada. By Thomas Chapey. Chapter Six Talon and the Clergy. In the instructions which Talon had received from Louis, the Fourteenth, on his departure from France in 1665, it was stated that Monseigneur de Laval and the Jesuits exercised too strong an authority, and that the superiority of the civil power should be cautiously asserted. The intendant was quite ready to follow these directions. He had been reared in the principles of the old parliamentarian school, and was thoroughly imbued with Gallican ideas. But at the same time he was a sincere believer and faithful in the performance of his religious duties. It is not surprising, therefore, that he should be found ever earnest in his endeavors to promote the extension of Christianity, and ready to protect the missionaries, as well as the charitable and educational institutions in their work.
Neither is it surprising that he should sometimes seem jealous of ecclesiastical influence in matters where church and state were both concerned.
The following incident will show to what lengths he was prepared to go when he thought that there was an encroachment of the spiritual on the civil power. The winter of 1667 was very gay at Quebec. Peace had been secured, confidence in the future of the colony was restored, and there manifested itself a general disposition to indulge in social festivities. Indeed, the first ball ever given in Canada took place in February of this year at M. Chartier de L'Autebegnais' house, as is recorded in the journal The Jesuits. Now there was at this time in Quebec a religious association for women called the Association of the Holy Family, Laval himself had framed their rules, one of which directed the members to abstain from frivolous entertainments and to lead a pious and edifying life amidst the distractions and dissipations of the world.
Seeing that many members of the association had departed from the rules by taking part in these pleasures, Laval threatened to suspend their meetings. Naturally, a strong impression was made on the public mind. Tellon resented what he deemed an undue interference. He laid a complaint against the bishop's action before the sovereign council, and asked that two of their number be directed to report on the social entertainments held during the last carnival, in order to show that nothing improper had taken place. When the report was made, it declared that nothing deserving of condemnation had occurred in these festivities, and that there was no occasion to censure them. Evidently, if there was encroachment upon this occasion, it was encroachment of the civil on the spiritual power.
The special rules of a pious association in no way affected the safety of the state or public order. If a number of ladies wished to join its ranks and accept its discipline in order to follow the path of Christian perfection and lead a more exemplary life in the world, they should be free to do so. And their directors should be free to remonstrate with them if they were not faithful to their pledge. In this incident, the intendant was not at his best. He seems to have sought an occasion of checking the bishop's authority, and the occasion was not well chosen. It is likely that M. de Tracy, still in the colony at the time, intervened in the interests of peace, for the entry in regard to Talon's complaint was erased from the register of the Sovereign Council.
In a state paper by Talon, for Colbert's information, in 1669, the intendant's Gallican views reveal themselves fully. He complains of the excessive zeal of the bishop and clergy, which led them to interfere in matters of police, thus trespassing upon the province of the civil magistrate. He went on to say that too strict a moral discipline of confessors and spiritual directors put a constraint on consciences, and that, in order to counterbalance the excessive claims to obedience of the clergy then in charge, other priests should be sent to Canada with full powers for administration of the sacraments. It is more than probable that in writing these lines, Talon was thinking of the vexed question of the liquor traffic, always a source of strife, Between the civil and the spiritual authorities.
Tellon and his colleagues, Tracy and Courcel, had to deal with the question of tithes. In 1663, tithes had been fixed by royal edict at one-thirteenth of all that is produced from the soil, either naturally or by man's labor. This edict was prompted by the erection of the Quebec Seminary by Laval, and established in Canada the tithe system for the benefit of the new clerical institution, to which was entrusted the spiritual care of the colonists. The latter, who previously had paid nothing for the maintenance of the clergy, protested against the charge, notwithstanding that it was in conformity with the common practice of Christian nations. Laval, taking into consideration the poverty of the colony at the time, freely granted delays and exemptions, so that in 1667 the question was still practically in abeyance.
In that year the bishop presented to Tracy a petition for the publication of a decree in respect to the tithes. The lieutenant-general, the governor, and the intendant gave the matter their attention. And after discussion, an ordinance was passed for payment of tithes, consisting of the twenty-sixth part of all that the soil grows, naturally or by man's labor, for the benefit of the priests who ministered to the spiritual wants of the people. There was a proviso stating that the words, by man's labor, did not include manufactures or fisheries, but only the products of the soil when cultivated and fertilized by human industry. The assessment of one twenty-sixth was to be levied for a term of twenty years only, after which the tithes were to be fixed according to the needs of the time and the state of the country.
Later on, in 1679, a royal edict made perpetual the rate of one twenty-sixth. For years the practice prevailed of levying tithes only on grain. But in 1705, two parish priests maintained that they should be levied also on hemp, flax, tobacco, pumpkins, hay, on all that is grown on cultivated land. A heated discussion in the sovereign council took place, led by the attorney general, Othieu. The two priests contended that the ordinance of Tracy, Courcel, and Tenlon did not limit the tithes to grain. It stated that they should be levied on all that the soil grows naturally, or by man's labor. Unfortunately, they had only a copy of the Ordinance of 1667 to file in support of their contention. The Attorney General maintained that the original Ordinance of 1663 limited the tithes to grain, and that the constant practice was a confirmation and an evidence of the rule.
But, strange to say, he could not put the original Ordinance on record. It had been lost. However, the practice was held to decide the case, and the priest's contention was not sustained. From that time the question was settled, definitely and forever. The tithes were levied only on grain, as they are still levied in the province of Quebec, on all lands owned by Catholics. But it is interesting to know, as a matter of history, that the two litigand priests were right, Had the original ordinance been before the council, it would have been found to enact the levying of tithes, not on grain alone, but on, quote, all that the soil grows naturally, or by man's labor, unquote. An authentic copy of this ordinance was discovered in our day, nearly two centuries after the lawsuit of 1705, and it bears out the plea of the two priests.
Another feature of Talon's relations with the clergy and religious communities, and a pleasant one this time, was his strong interest in the francisation, Frenchification, of the Indians. It was Colbert's wish that efforts be made to bring the Algonquins, Hurons, and other Indians more closely within the fold of European civilization, to make them alter their manners, learn the French tongue, and become less Indian and more European in their way of life. Talon was of the same mind, and lost no opportunity of impressing the idea on those who could best do the work. Laval had already been active in the same direction, and had founded the Quebec seminary, partly with this end in view. The great bishop thought that one of the best means of civilizing the Indians would be to bring up Indian and French children together.
So he withdrew from the Jesuits' college a number of pupils whom he had previously placed there, and established them with a few young Indians, and a house bought for the purpose. Such were the beginnings of the Quebec Seminary, opened on October 9, 1663. The first class consisted of eight French and six Indian children. The seminary trained them in the practice of piety and morality. For ordinary instruction, They went to the Jesuits. The Jesuits College had been founded in 1635, and was of great service to the colony. It was pronounced by Laval in 1661 almost equal in educational advantages and standing to the Jesuits' establishments in France. And according to a trustworthy author, it was a reproduction on a small scale of the French colleges.
Classes in letters and arts, literary and theatrical entertainments, were found there.
Some of the public performances given at the Jesuits' college were memorable, such as the reception to the vicomte d'Argensen, when he entered upon the government of New France, and the philosophical debate of July 2nd, 1666, which was graced with the presence of Tracy. Courcel and Talon. Two promising youths, Louis Joliet and Pierre de Francheville, won universal praise on that occasion, and Talon himself, who had been accustomed in France to such scholastic exercises, took part in it very pertinently, to the great delight of all present. To return to the Francization of Indians, the Ursulines were also enlisted in the cause. Since their arrival in Canada in 1639, it had been for them a labor of love.
In the convent and school, founded by Mother Marie de l'Incarnation and Madame de la Peltrie, both French and Indian girls received instruction in various subjects. Seven nuns attended daily to the classes. The Indian girls had special classes and teachers, but they were lodged and boarded, along with the French children. Some of these Indian pupils of the Ursulines afterwards married Frenchmen, and became excellent wives and mothers. Special mention is made of one of the girls as being able to read and write both French and Huron remarkably well. From her speech, it was hard to believe that she was born an Indian. Talon was so delighted with this instance of successful francesation that he asked her to write something in Huron and French that he might send it to France.
This, however, was but an exceptional case. Mother Mary declared in one of her letters that it was very difficult, if not impossible, to civilize the Indian girls. During this period, the Ursulines had, on an average, from twenty to thirty resident pupils. The French girls were supposed to pay one hundred and twenty livres. Indian girls paid nothing. The Ursuline sisters and mother Mary, Their head did a noble work for Canada. The same must be said of the venerable Mother Marguerite Bourgeois and the ladies of the Congregation of Notre-Dame, founded in 1659 at Montreal. At first, this school was open to both boys and girls, but in 1668, Monsieur Souat, a Sulpician, took the boys under his care.
And thenceforth the education of the male portion of the youth of Ville-Marie was in the hands of the priests of St. Sulpice. At this time the Sulpitians of Montreal were receiving welcome accessions to their number. The Abbes Treuvay and de Fenelon arrived in 1667, and the Abbes Cullay, Dallay, de Galenay, and Deufay in 1668. In the latter year, Fenelon and Treuvay, were authorized by Laval to establish a new missionary station for a tribe of Cayugas as far west as the Bay of Quinty on the north shore of Lake Ontario. The progress of mission work was now most encouraging. Peace prevailed, and the Iroquois county was open to the heralds of the gospel. Fathers Fremen and Perron were living among the Mohawks, Father Brouillasse with the Onidas, In 1668, Father Fr.
Fremen was sent to the Senecas, Father Millay to the Onondagas, and Father de Carhill to the Cayugas. The bloody Iroquois, who had tortured and slain so many missionaries, were now asking for preachers of the Christian faith, and receiving them with due honor. It is true that the hard task of conversion remained, and that Indian vices and superstitions were not easily overcome. But at least the savages were ready to listen to Christian teaching. Some of them had courage enough to reform their lives. Children and women were baptized. Many received when dying the sacraments of the church. Moreover, the sublime courage and self-devotion of the missionaries inspired the Indian mind with a profound respect for Christianity, and added very greatly to the influence and prestige of the French name among the tribes.
On the whole, the situation in Canada at the end of 1668, three years after Talon's arrival, was most satisfactory. Peace and security were restored. Hope had replaced despondency. Colonization, agriculture, and trade were making progress. Population was increasing yearly. In this short space of time, New France had been saved from destruction, and was now full of new vigor. Every one in the colony knew that the great intendant had been the soul of the revival, the leader in all this progress. It may therefore be easily imagined what was the state of popular feeling when the news came that Talon was to leave Canada. He had twice asked for his recall. The climate was severe, his health was not good, and family matters called for his presence in France.
Moreover, he was worried by his difficulties with the governor and the spiritual authorities. Louis, the fourteenth, gave him leave to return to France, and appointed Claude de Bottereau in his stead. Talon left Quebec in November 1668. Expressions of deep regret were heard on all sides. Mother Marie de l'Incarnation wrote, Monsieur Talon is leaving us and goes back to France. It is a great loss to Canada, and a great sorrow for all. For, during his term here as Intendant, this country has developed more and progressed more than it had done before from the time of the first settlement by the French.
The analyst of the Hotel Dieu was not less sympathetic, but there was hope in her utterance. Monsieur Talon, she said, left for France this year. He comforted us in our grief by leading us to expect his return. Perhaps these last words show that Talon even then intended to come back to Canada, if such should be the wish of the king and his minister.
-
7 7 - Talon's Eventful Journey 12:50
A Chronicle of Jean Talon in Canada by Thomas Chapey. Chapter Seven Talon's Eventful Journey Talon returned to France in an auspicious hour. It was, perhaps, the happiest and brightest period of the reign of Louis XIV. France had emerged victorious from two campaigns, and the king had just signed a treaty which added to his realm a part of the province of Flanders. The kingdom enjoyed peace, and its prosperity had never been so great. Thanks to Colbert, the exchequer was full. In all departments, the French government was displaying intelligent activity. Trade and commerce, Agriculture and manufacture were encouraged and protected. With ample means at their disposal and perfect freedom of action, Louis XIV and Colbert could not but be in a favorable mood to receive Talon's reports and proposals.
Talon acted as if he were still the Intendant of New France, and though for the time being he was not, he was surely the most powerful agent or advocate that the colony could have. The king and his minister readily acquiesced in his schemes for strengthening the Canadian colony. It was decided to dispatch six companies of soldiers to reinforce the four already there, and ultimately, upon being disbanded, to aid in settling the country. Many hundred laborers and unmarried women and a new stock of domestic animals were also to be sent. Colbert had never been so much in earnest concerning New France. He attended personally to details, gave orders for the levy of troops and for the shipping of the men and supplies, and urged on the officials in charge, so that everything should be ready early in the spring.
To M. de Courceles, he wrote these welcome tidings. His Majesty has appropriated over 200,000 livres to do what he deems necessary for the colony. One hundred and fifty girls are going thither to be married. Six companies complete with fifty good men in each, and thirty officers or noblemen who wish to settle there, and more than two hundred other persons are also going. Such an effort shows how greatly interested in Canada His Majesty feels, and to what extent he will appreciate all that may be done to help its progress. That the minister was not actuated merely by a passing mood, but by a set purpose, may be seen from a passage of a letter to Theron, the intendant at Rochefort. I am very glad, Colbert wrote, that you have not gone beyond the funds appropriated for the passage of the men and girls to Canada.
You know how important it is to keep within the limits, especially in an outlay which will have to be repeated every year. In the meantime, Talon was pleading the cause of Canada in another direction. Always intent on freeing New France from the commercial monopoly of the West India Company, he renewed his assault against that corporation, and at last he was successful. This single victory showed plainly his great influence with the minister. Colbert conveyed the gratifying information to Courcel. His Majesty has granted freedom of trade to Canada, so that the colony may hereafter receive more easily the provisions and supplies needed. It will now be necessary to inform the colonists that they must provide cargoes agreeable to the French, who will supply them with necessities, and so make a profitable exchange of goods.
For there is now a great supply of furs in this kingdom, and if there were no other goods available as a return cargo, perhaps the French ships would not go there.
The spring of 1669 was memorable for Canada. Nearly all that Toulon asked for New France was granted. But one thing which he did not ask was desired by Louis and Colbert. It is probable that Toulon intended to go back to Canada, but he did not expect or wish to return immediately. Yet this was what the king and the minister deemed advisable, and even essential. It was very well to send troops, laborers, women, settlers, and supplies, but, in order that all should yield their maximum of efficiency, it was necessary that the business affairs of the colony should again be placed in the hands of the intendant, who had already worked wonders by his sagacity and skillful management. There was no man who knew so well the weak and strong points, the requirements and possibilities of Canada.
True, only a few months had elapsed since the king had given him permission to leave Canada, and had appointed in his stead another intendant, who, naturally enough, would expect to be in charge for at least two years. But, on the other hand, the king's service and the public good demanded his reappointment. Talon had to acquiesce. He had reached Paris at the end of December. Three months later, he was again intendant of New France, and on April, Louis XIV wrote to the intendant, Boutourou, at Quebec, informing him of Talon's reinstatement. To leave France so soon must have been for Talon a great sacrifice, but it was a high compliment that Louis and Colbert were paying to his talents and administrative abilities.
On May 10, 1669, the King signed his new commission, and on the 17th he received his instructions, a document much shorter than the one framed for his direction in 1665. No minute advice was needed this time, for Talon was himself the best authority on all matters relating to Canada. Talon sailed from La Rochelle on July 15. He was accompanied by Captain Francois-Marie Perrault, one of the six commanders of the company sent to Canada. By fathers Romain Papillon, Hilarion Gassner, Césaire Hervaux, and Brother Cosme Gervain, Perrault was married to the niece of the intendant. The friars belonged to the Franciscan order, and to the particular branch of it known under the name of Recolet. It had been thought good to reintroduce into Canada the religious society whose priests had been the first to preach the gospel there.
The intendant's former voyage from France to Canada had lasted one hundred and seventeen days, so that, allowing for all probable delays, he might expect to reach Quebec by the end of October at the latest. But it was decreed that he was not to see New France this year. His ship was assailed by a series of storms and hurricanes, and driven far from her right course. After three months of exertion and suffering, the captain was obliged to make for the port of Lisbon. There the ship was revictualled, but, having sailed again, she struck upon a rocky shoal at a distance of three leagues from Lisbon, and was totally wrecked. Talon and his companions were fortunately saved, and found themselves back in France at the beginning of the year, 1670.
In the meantime, what was going on in Canada? Talon's successor, M. de Butorou, was upright and intelligent, but without Talon's masterly gifts and activity. He attended principally to the administration of justice. At the judicial sittings of the sovereign council, he was almost always present. He himself heard many cases, and often acted as judge-advocate. On his advice, the council gave out an ordinance fixing the price of wheat. There had been complaints that sometimes creditors refused to accept wheat in payment, or accepted it only at a price unreasonably low. So it was enacted that for three months after the promulgation of the decree, debtors should be at liberty to pay their creditors in wheat of good quality at the price of four livres per bushel.
The evil consequences of the previous action of the council in freeing the brandy traffics were already manifest. The scourge of the Courrois-de-Bois, later to prove so damaging to the colony, was beginning to be felt. A new ordinance now prohibited the practice of going into the woods with liquor to meet the Indians and trade with them. This ordinance also enjoined sobriety upon the Indians, and held them responsible for the drunkenness of their squaws, while the French were forbidden to drink with them. Hunting in the forest was only allowed by leave of the commandant of the district, or the nearest judge, to whose inspection all luggage and goods for trade must be submitted. Brandy might be taken on these expeditions, but no more than one pot per man for eight days.
The penalty for violating any of these provisions of the law was confiscation, with a fine of 50 livres for a first offense, and corporal punishment for a second. Thus, but in vain, did the leaders of New France attempt to stay the progress of Indian debauchery. During the summer of 1669, a renewal of the war between the French and the Iroquois was threatened. Three French soldiers had killed six Odinais, after making them drink for the purpose of stealing their furs. Three other soldiers had treacherously murdered a Seneca chief for the same purpose. The Ootoy, also, who were in alliance with the French, attacked a party of Iroquois, killing and capturing many. Incensed at these acts of hostility, the Iroquois threatened to unbury the Tomahawk.
Courcel at once set himself to the task of averting the danger. He went to Montreal, where many hundred Indians had gathered for the annual fair, to which they always came in great numbers for the purpose of exchanging their furs for goods. He convened a large meeting, and made an address of great vigor and cleverness, his speech being accompanied by appropriate gifts. He then proceeded to carry out the sentence of the law upon the murderers of the Seneca chief, who were shot on the spot in the presence of the assembly. The Iroquois were placated. Three men killed for the death of one convinced them that the French justice was neither slow nor faltering. In the meantime, the Outrois had brought back three of their prisoners and pledged themselves for the surrender of twelve others.
In this way, war was averted and peace maintained. The first ships coming from France that summer brought letters from Colbert to Grusel and Buteroux, intimating that Toulon was returning to resume his charge. Buteroux was probably surprised to learn that he was to be superseded so soon, and the governor may have been disappointed to hear of the early arrival of a man whose authority and prestige made him somewhat uneasy. But in the colony, the rejoicing was general. Mother Marie de L'Ecarnation wrote, We expect daily M. Talon, whom the king sends back to settle everything according to His Majesty's views. He brings with him five hundred men. If God favors his journey and brings him happily to port, he will find new means of increasing the country's wealth.
Several weeks elapsed, and Talon's ship did not appear. Some anxiety was felt. Mother Marie wrote again, Monsieur Talon has not arrived. There were five hundred men. We are greatly concerned at the delay. They may have landed again in France, or have been lost in the storms which have proved to be so dreadful. The autumn of 1669 had been a stormy season. Fearful hurricanes swept over Quebec. The lower town was flooded to an incredible height, many buildings were destroyed, and the havoc amounted to 100,000 livres. All this was painfully disquieting. To quote Mother Marie again, If M. Talon has been wrecked, it will be an irretrievable loss to the colony, for, the king having given him a free hand, he could undertake great things without minding the outlay.
In the meantime, M. Patoulet, Talon's secretary, who had left France on another ship and had reached Quebec safely, wrote to Colbert, "'If he is dead, his majesty will have lost a good subject, yourself, monseigneur, a faithful servant, Canada, an affectionate father, and myself, a good master.' Fortunately, as we have already seen, Talon was not lost. At the very time when these letters were written, he was on his way back to France, where he spent the winter hard at work with Colbert, preparing for the dispatch of settlers and soldiers in the spring. The minister displayed the same zeal as the year before. He appropriated ample funds, gave urgent orders, and seemed to make the Canadian reinforcements his personal affair.
Talon sailed from La Rochelle about the middle of May, 1670. He was accompanied by Perrault again, and also by six Recolets, Four fathers and two brothers. After three months at sea, he was nearly shipwrecked once more, this time near Tadesac, almost at the end of his journey. On August Eighteenth, after an absence from Canada of one year and nine months, he landed once more at Quebec.
-
8 8 - Renewed Efforts And Progress 17:53
A Chronicle of Jean Talon in Canada by Thomas Chapter Eight renewed efforts and progress. When Talon arrived at Quebec, New France had again just escaped an Indian war. A party of Iroquois, hunting near the country of the Aoteuilus, met two men of their nation who had been prisoners of the Aoteuilus, and had succeeded in escaping. These informed their fellow-tribesmen that the Aoteuilus village was undefended, Almost every warrior being absent. The Iroquois then attacked the village, destroyed it, and brought with them as prisoners about one hundred women and children. The Otauas warriors, when apprised of the raid, started in pursuit, but did not succeed in overtaking the raiders. However, receiving a reinforcement of another party of allied Indians, they invaded the Seneca's territory.
These hostilities aroused the temper of the Iroquois, and a general Indian war threatened, into which the French would unavoidably be drawn. At that moment, Garaconthy, the Iroquois chief, who had always been friendly to the French, advised the Five Nations to send an embassy to the governor of Canada, asking him to compose these differences. The Five Nations agreed, and Iroquois and Otoeus delegates, many hundreds in number, came to Quebec. A great council was held lasting three days, and Courcel succeeded in bringing about an understanding between the rival tribes. After the meetings, Garaconthi asked to be baptized, and Laval himself performed the ceremony. It was but a few days after these events that Alain arrived, and notwithstanding the improvement in the situation, he does not seem to have deemed peace perfectly secure.
For he wrote to the king that it would be advisable to send two hundred more soldiers. He added that the Iroquois caused great injury to the trade of the colony by hunting the beaver in the territories of the tribes, allied with the French, and selling the skins to Dutch and English traders. In another letter, Talon set forth that these traders drew from the Iroquois one million livres worth of the best beaver, And he suggested the construction of a small ship of the galley type to cruise on Lake Ontario, and that two posts manned by one hundred picked soldiers should be established, one on the north, the other on the south shore of that lake. These measures would ensure safe communication between the colony and the Otoeus country, keep the Iroquois aloof, and favor the opening of new roads to the south.
It was a broad and bold scheme. But could it be executed over the head of M. de Courcel? Tellon had foreseen this objection, and had begged that the governor should be instructed to give support and assistance. But once more the intendant was going beyond his authority. Such an undertaking was clearly within the governor's province. Tellon was told that he should lay his scheme before M. de Courcel, so that the governor might attend to its execution. This incident sheds light upon the relations that existed between Courcel and Talon. The former was valiant, energetic, and intelligent, but he felt that he was outshone by the latter's promptness, celerity in design, superior activity, wider and keener penetration, and he could not conceal his displeasure.
After the great councils held at Quebec, the Senecas again assumed a somewhat disquieting attitude. The governor, they said, had been too hard on them. He had threatened to chastise them in their own country if they did not bring back their prisoners. Perhaps his arm was not long enough to strike so far. Evidently, they had forgotten the expedition against the Mohawks five years ago. They were convinced the distance and natural impediments, such as rapids and torrents, protected them from invasion in their remote countries south of Lake Ontario. Courcel resolved to shake their confidence. Early in the spring he went to Montreal and ordered the construction of a flatboat. In this he set out from Lachine, June 3, 1671.
With Perrault, governor of Montreal, captain de Lobbia, Varens, Le Moyne, Lavalliere, Normanville, Abbe d'Hollier de Casson, and about fifty good men. Thirteen canoes accompanied the flatboat. After considerable exertion, the governor and his party passed the rapids and continued up the St. Lawrence. Nine days later, they entered Lake Ontario, to the amazement of a party of Iroquois whom they met there. The governor gave these Indians a message for the Senecas and the other nations, stating that he wished to keep the peace, but that, if necessary, he could come and devastate their country. The demonstration had the desired effect, and there was no further talk of war. It will be inferred from Talon's proposals and schemes already mentioned that his thoughts were now occupied with the external affairs of the colony.
This, indeed, was to be the characteristic feature of his second administration. When in Canada, before he had concentrated his attention chiefly upon judicial and political organization, and had directed his efforts to promote colonization, agriculture, industry, and trade—in a word, the internal economy of New France. But now, without neglecting any part of his duty, He seemed desirous of widening his sphere of action by the extension of French influence to the North, South, and West. On October 10, 1670, he wrote to the King, quote, Since my arrival, I have sent resolute men to explore farther than has ever been done in Canada, some to the West and North-West, others to the South-West and South.
They will all, on their return, write accounts of their expeditions, and frame their reports according to the instructions I have given them. Everywhere they will take possession of the country, erect posts bearing the king's arms, and draw memoranda of these proceedings to serve as title deeds.
Of these explorers, one of the most noted was Cavalier de La Salle. He had been born in 1643. After pursuing his studies in a Jesuit college, he came to Canada in 1666, and obtained from the Sulpicians a grant of land near Montreal, named by him Saint-Sulpice, but ultimately known under the name of Lachine. In 1669, Courcel gave him letters patent for an exploring journey towards the Ohio and the Meschasebi, or Mississippi. By way of these rivers, he hoped to reach the Remilian Sea, or Gulf of California, and thus open a new road to China via the Pacific Ocean. At the same time, the Abbes d'Hollier and de Galigny, Sulpicians, had prepared for a remote mission to the Ataeus. It was thought advisable to combine the two expeditions.
Thus it happened that La Salle and the Sulpetians left Montreal in 1669, and journeyed together as far as the western end of Lake Ontario. There they parted. The Sulpetians wintered on the shores of Lake Erie, and next spring, passed the strait between Lakes Erie and Huron, reached the Sault Ste. Marie, and then returned to Montreal by French River, Lake Nipissing, and the Ottawa River. Their journey lasted from July 4th, 1669 to June 18th, 1670. In the meantime, La Salle had reached the Ohio, and had followed it to the falls at Louisville. He also returned in the summer of 1670. The itinerary of his next expedition, undertaken in the same year, is not very well known. According to an account of doubtful authority, He went through Lakes Erie and Huron, entered Lake Michigan, reached the Illinois River, and even the Mississippi.
But a careful study of contemporaneous documents and evidence leads to the conclusion that the Mississippi must be omitted from this itinerary. In our opinion, La Salle did not reach that river in 1671, as has been asserted. He probably went as far as the Illinois country. Another of Talon's resolute explorers was Simon François d'Amon de St. Luzon. Accompanied by Nicolas Perrault, the well-known interpreter, he left Quebec in September 1670, and wintered with an Otoeus tribe near Lake Superior. Perrault sent word to the neighboring nations that they should meet next spring at Sault Ste. Marie, a delegate of the great French Onothio. On June 14th, representatives of fourteen nations were gathered at the Sioux.
The Jesuit fathers, Dablon, Drillets, Allouet, and André were present. A great council was held on a height. Saint-Lausanne had a cross erected with a post bearing the king's arms. The Vexilla, Regis, and Exoudiate were sung. The intendant's delegates took possession of the country in the name of their monarch. There was firing of guns and shouts of Vive le Roi. Then Father Allouet and Saint-Luzon made speeches suitable to the occasion and the audience. At night, the blaze of an immense bonfire illuminated with its fitful light the dark trees and foaming rapids. The singing of the Te Diem crowned that memorable day. The intendant was pleased with the result of Saint-Luzon's expedition. He wrote to the king, There is every reason to believe that from the point reached by this explorer to the Vermilion Sea is a distance of not more than three hundred leagues.
The Western Sea, the Pacific Ocean, does not seem more distant. According to calculation based on the Indian's report and on the charts, there should not be more than fifty hundred leagues of navigation to reach Tartary, China, and Japan.
Talon showed his high appreciation of St. Luzon's services by immediately giving him another mission, this time to Acadia, for the purpose of finding and reporting as to the best road to that colony. In 1670, Grand Fontaine had taken possession of Acadia, which had been restored to France by the Treaty of Breda. He had received from Sir Richard Walker the keys of Fort Pentaguit at the mouth of the Penobscot River. And had sent Joibert de Solange to hoist the French flag over Jemsec and Port Royal. It was therefore incumbent on the intendant to see to the opening of a road between Quebec and Pentagouet. His letters and those of Colbert, written in 1671, are full of this project. A fund of 30,000 livres was appropriated for the purpose.
The Intendant's plan was to erect about twenty houses well provided with stores along the proposed route at intervals of sixty leagues. He also had in mind the establishment of settlements along the rivers Penobscot and Kennebec to form a barrier between New France and New England. With the object of establishing trade relations between Canada and Acadia, he sent to the French Bay, Bay of Fundy, A barge loaded with clothes and supplies, and was extremely pleased to receive in return a cargo of six thousand pounds of salt meat. In 1671, for Colbert's information, he drew up a census of Acadia. But, as we shall see, the great intendant was not to remain in Canada long enough to bring his Acadian undertaking to full fruition.
Let us follow him in another direction. He had tried to extend the sphere of French influence towards the West and South, and was doing his best to strengthen Canada on the New England border by promoting the development of Acadia. His next attempt was to bring the Northern tribes into the French alliance, and to open to the colony the tribe of the wide area extending from Lake St. John to Lake Miss Tocini, and thence to Hudson Bay. For an expedition to Hudson Bay, he chose Father Albanel, a Jesuit, and Monsieur de Saint-Simon. They left Quebec for Tadoussac in August 1671, and descended the Saguenay to Lake Saint-John, where they wintered. In June 1672, they continued their journey, reaching Lake Mystacini on the eighteenth of the same month, and James Bay on the twenty-eighth.
After formally taking possession of the country in the name of France, they returned by the same route to Quebec, Where, on July 23rd, they laid their report before the Intendant. One of the last, but not the least, of the explorations made under Talon's auspices was that which he entrusted to Louis Joliet, and which resulted in the discovery of the Upper Mississippi. Joliet left Montreal in the autumn of 1672, and wintered at Michilimackinac, where he joined Father Marquette. Next spring they set out together. And by way of Lake Michigan, Green Bay, Fox River, and the Wisconsin, they reached the Giant River, the mighty Mississippi, which they followed down as far as latitude thirty-three degrees.
Thus was discovered the highway through the interior of the continent to the Gulf of Mexico. One result of the discovery was the birth of Louisiana a few years later. Talon's patriotic enthusiasm was justified when he wrote to Louis XIV. "'I am no courtier, and it is not to please the king, or without reason, that I say this portion of the French monarchy is going to become something great. What I see now enables me to make such a prediction. The foreign colonies established on the adjoining shores of the ocean are already uneasy at what His Majesty has done here during the last seven years.'" This confidence was probably not shared by the king and his minister, for, in a letter to Frontenac some time later, Colbert remonstrated against long journeys to the upper St.
Lawrence and outlying settlements, and expressed his disapproval of discoveries far away in the interior of the continent, where the French could never settle or remain. Undoubtedly it was wise to advise concentration, and Tellan himself would not have differed on that score from the minister. He was too sagacious not to see that Canada, with a small population, should abstain from remote establishments. His policy of exploration and discovery did not aim at the immediate foundation of new colonies, but was only directed towards increasing the prestige of the French name, developing trade, and thus preparing the way for the future greatness of Canada. It was a far-sighted policy, Not seeking impossible achievements for to-day, but gaining a foothold for those of to-morrow.
That the political fabric of France and America was doomed to fall in no way dims the fame of the great intendant. Under his powerful direction, New France, through her missionaries, explorers, and traders, stamped her mark over three-quarters of the territory then known as North America. Her moral Political and commercial influence was felt beyond her boundaries, west, north, and south. She had hoisted the cross and the fleur-de-lis from the sunny banks of the Arkansas to the icy shores of the Hudson Bay, and from the surges of the Atlantic to the remotest limits of the Great Lakes. Her unceasing activity and daring enterprise, supplementing inferior numbers and wealth, gave her an undisputed superiority Over the industrious English colonies confined to their narrow strip between the Alleghenies and the sea, and her name inspired awe and respect in a hundred Indian tribes.
What was Courcel's attitude towards the extraordinary activity displayed by Talon? Evidently, the intendant often acted the part of the governor, and the real governor, outshone, could not conceal his ill-humor, and tried to assert his authority. There were several clashes between the two high officials. The governor frequently lost his temper, while Talon complained of Courcel's jealousy and harshness. It must be admitted that the great intendant, in his fervid zeal for the public good and his passion for action, was not always careful or tactful in his behavior to the governor.
-
9 9 - Talon's Administration Ends 11:40
A Chronicle of Jean Talon in Canada.
Chapter Nine. Talon's Administration Ends.
In the survey of Talon's first term of office, mention was made of the many enterprises he set on foot for the internal progress of the colony. One of these was shipbuilding. During his second term, a stronger impulse was given to this industry. One of the intendant's first official acts, after his arrival in 1670, was to issue a decree for the conservation of the forests suitable for shipbuilding purposes, to prohibit the felling of oak, elm, Beech and cherry trees until the skilled carpenters sent by the king should have inspected them and made their choice. It is interesting, too, to find that in all grants of land Talon inserted a clause reserving these trees. Shipbuilding in Canada was to be encouraged and promoted.
Had not Colbert given forty thousand livres for the purpose? A shipyard was set up on the banks of the St. Charles River. Many ships were built there, at first only small ones, But the industry gradually developed. In 1672, a ship of over 400 tons was launched, and preparations had been made for another of 800 tons. Seven years earlier, only 19 out of 2,378 vessels in the French mercantile marine had exceeded 400 tons. The infant shipyard at Quebec was doing well. Agriculture and industry were flourishing in New France. Hemp was being grown successfully, and a larger quantity of wool was made available by increasing flocks of sheep. The intendant insisted that women and girls should be taught to spin.
He distributed looms to encourage the practice of weaving, and after a time the colony had homemade carpets and table-covers of drugget, and serges and buntings. The great number of cattle insured abundance of raw hides. Accordingly, the intendant established a tannery, and this in turn led to the preparation of leather and the making of shoes, so that in 1671 Talonka wrote to the king, I am now clothed from foot to head with homemade articles. Tobacco was grown to some extent, but Colbert did not wish to encourage its cultivation by the Canadian farmers. The minister was better pleased when the intendant wrote concerning potash and tar. And, Sir Nicola Follin, Undertook to make potash out of wood ashes, and was granted a privilege with a bounty of 10 sous per ton, and free entry into France for his product.
The potash proved excellent. In the meantime, an expert on tar, named Arnauld Alix, came from France, and found that the Canadian trees were eminently fit for the production of that article, so necessary in shipbuilding. Indeed, at this time, Colbert was doing his best to manufacture it in France, so that the shipyards of the kingdom might use French tar instead of the foreign product. The news that it could be made in Canada was very welcome to the minister. The intendant continued his search for mines, but without substantial results. There had been talk of iron ore at Bay St. Paul, and also in the region of Three Rivers. The sieur de la Potardiere was sent to examine these ores, But although his report was favorable, and Colbert seemed highly interested, and began to speak of casting cannon on the shores of the St.
Maurice, for some reason nothing was done, and sixty years were to elapse before the establishment of the St. Maurice forges. In another chapter, we saw that Tullon was always ready to help the religious institutions, and that he was very friendly towards the Hotel Dieu at Quebec. This hospital had become too small for the requirements of the growing population. At his own expense, the intendant had a substantial wing erected, superintending the work himself, and at the same time securing for the institution an abundant supply of water. The Ursulines also received ample evidence of his goodwill and friendship. He was greatly pleased with their Seminaire Sauvage, Indian Seminary, where they displayed an unceasing zeal for the instruction and civilization of the little red-skinned girls.
The Jesuit relation of 1671 mentions the baptism of an Indian girl with her mother. Talon wished to be godfather, and asked Madame Delbouste to act as godmother. Laval officiated. In 1671, the Ursulines had 50 Indian girls in their Seminaires Sauvages, and in Montreal, the Sulpicians and the Sisters of the Congregation, as already narrated, were devoting themselves to the Indian children. In this good work, the intendant was greatly interested. He rejoiced in educational progress, as is shown by the following from one of his letters to the king. The Canadian youth are improving their knowledge. They take to schools for sciences, arts, handicrafts, and especially navigation. And if the movement is sustained, there is every reason to hope that this country will produce mariners, fishermen, seamen, and skilled workmen, for the youth here are naturally inclined to these pursuits.
The sieur de Saint-Martin, A lay brother at the Jesuits, who knows enough mathematics, is going to give lessons at my request. New France at this time was prosperous and happy. Peace reigns within as well as without the colony, wrote Talon at the end of the year, 1671. There was work and activity on all sides. New settlements were opened, new families were founded, new industries were born. No wonder that Talon, when he reflected on what had been achieved in seven years, should have written, This portion of the French monarchy is going to become something great.
Unfortunately, his activities and service in Canada were nearing the end. His health was breaking down. Louis XIV had promised that he should be relieved from his arduous task in two years. Talon reminded his royal master of this promise, and on May 17, 1672, the king was pleased to give him permission to come home. Courcel had asked for his own recall. His request was also granted, and the Comte de Frontenac was named in his stead. No intendant was appointed to fill Tullon's place. At the beginning of September 1672, while Tullon had still two months to serve, Frontenac arrived in Quebec to take up his duties as the sole executive head of the colony. Footnote. Another volume of this series, The Fighting Governor, tells of what happened in New France in Frontenac's time.
One of Talon's last official acts was the allotment, under authority of a decree of the King's Council of State, of a large number of seigneuries, a matter of the highest importance for the development of the colony. He set himself to the task with his usual activity and earnestness. From October 10th to November 8th, he authorized about 60 seigniorial concessions to officers and others desirous of forming settlements. In one day alone, November 3rd, he made 31 grants. The autumn of 1672, during which all these seigniories were created, should be remembered in the history of New France. Before Talon, it is true, seigniorial grants had been made in Canada, But only intermittently, and without any preconceived plan or well-defined object.
Now, it was quite different. The grants made by Talon, and the way in which they were made, show clearly the execution of a well-thought-out scheme. If Talon was not the founder, he was the organizer of the seigneurial institution in Canada. The object was twofold, to protect and to colonize the country. By his concessions to Sorel, Chambly, Varennes, St. Eure, All officers of the Carignol Regiment, he created so many little military colonies whose population would be composed chiefly of disbanded soldiers. These, being warriors as well as farmers, would be a strong barrier against possible Iroquois incursions. His second object, to stimulate colonization in general, was anticipated by a provision, inserted in each grant, that the seigneurs should live on their domains, and that their tenants should do the same.
This would mean the planting of many new settlements on both shores of the St. Lawrence. It was a sound policy. For over a century, the seigniorial system was to Canada a source of strength and progress.
This view is fully sustained by Prof. W. B. Monroe of Harvard University, who has made an exhaustive study of the subject. The reader is referred to the narrative of, The Seigneurs of Old Canada, in the present series, written by him.
Its organization was the crowning work of the Intendant Talon in New France. Talon's task was over. He had happily fulfilled his mission. He had set government and justice upon a foundation which was to last until the fall of the old regime. He had given a mighty impulse to agriculture, colonization, trade, industry, naval construction. He had encouraged educational and charitable institutions, created new centers of population, strengthened the frontiers of Canada, and, with admirable forethought, had prepared the way for the future extension and growth of the colony. He has had his critics. The word paternalism has been used to describe the system carried out by him and by Colbert. He has been accused of having too willingly substituted governmental action for individual activity.
Taking into consideration the time and circumstances, such criticism is not justified. When Talon came to Canada, the colony was dying. A policy of ensuring protection, of liberal and continuous subvention, of intelligent state initiative, was a necessity of the hour. Everywhere ground had to be broken, and the government alone could do it. The policy of Colbert and Talon saved the colony. The great intendant left Canada in November 1670. It was a mournful day for New France. In recognition of his services, the king had made him a barony of his estate, Desillets, and had created him Baron Desillets. Later on, he became Comte d'Orsainville. He had previously been appointed captain of the Marimont Castle.
Talon never came back to Canada. Louis XIV and Colbert received him with expressions of the greatest satisfaction. After a time, he became Premier Valet de la Garderobes du Roi, the first valet of the King's wardrobe, and finally he attained the coveted office of Secretary of the King's Cabinet. He died on November 24, 1694, at the age of about 69 years, 22 years after his departure from Canada. Jean Talot is one of the great names in Canadian history, the name of one of the makers of Canada.
End of a Chronicle of Jean Talot in Canada.