CHAPTER 15
 1665-1672.

PATERNAL GOVERNMENT.

TRACY'S work was done, and he left Canada with the glittering noblesse, in his train.  Courcelle and Talon remained to rule alone; and now the great experiment was begun.  Paternal royalty would try its hand at building up a colony, and Talon was its chosen agent.  His appearance did him no justice.  The regular contour of his oval face, about which fell to his shoulders a cataract of curls, natural supposititious; the smooth lines of his well formed features, brows delicately arched, and a mouth more suggestive of feminine sensibility than of masculine force, would certainly have misled the disciple of Lavater.  Yet there was no want of manhood in him.  He was most happily chosen for the task placed in his hands, and from first to last approved himself a vigorous executive officer.  He was a true of Colbert, formed in his school and animated by his spirit.

Being on the spot, he was better able than his master to judge the working of the new order of things.  With regard to the company, he writes that it will profit by impoverishing the colony; that its monopolies dishearten the people and paralyze enterprise; that it is thwarting the intentions of the King, who wishes trade to be encouraged; and that if its exclusive privileges are maintained, Canada in ten years will be less populous than now.  But Colbert clung to his plan, though he wrote in reply that to satisfy the colonists he had persuaded the company to forego the monopolies for a year.  As this proved insufficient, the company was at length forced to give up permanently its right of exclusive trade, still exacting its share of beaver and moose skins.  This was its chief source of profit; it begrudged every sou deducted from it for charges of government, and the King was constantly obliged to do at his own cost that which the company should have done.  In one point it showed a ceaseless activity; and this was the levying of duties, in which it was never known to fail.

Trade, even after its exercise was permitted, was continually vexed by the hand of authority.  One of Tracy's first measures had been to issue a decree reducing the price of wheat one half.  The council took up the work of regulation, and fixed the price of all imported goods in three several tariffs,  one for Quebec, one for Three Rivers, and one for Montreal.  It may well be believed that there was in Canada little capital and little enterprise.  Industrially and commercially, the colony was almost dead.  Talon set himself to galvanize it; and if one man could have supplied the intelligence and energy of a whole community, the results would have been triumphant.

He had received elaborate instructions, and they indicate an ardent wish for the prosperity of Canada.  Colbert had written to him that the true means to strengthen the colony was to " cause justice to reign, establish a good police, protect the inhabitants, discipline them against enemies, and procure for them peace, repose, and plenty." " And as," the minister further says, "the King regards his Canadian subjects, from the highest to the lowest, almost as his own children, and wishes them to enjoy equally with the people of France the mildness and happiness of his reign, the Sieur Talon will study to solace them in all things, and encourage them to trade and industry.  And, seeing that nothing can better promote this end than entering into the details of their households and of all their little affairs, it will not be amiss that he visit all their settlements one after the other in order to learn their true condition, provide as much as possible for their wants, and, performing the duty of a good head of a family, put them in the way of making some profit." The intendant was also told to encourage fathers to inspire their children with piety, together with " profound love and respect for the royal person of his Majesty."

Talon entered on his work with admirable zeal.  Sometimes he used authority, sometimes persuasion, sometimes promises of reward.  Sometimes, again, he tried the force of example.  Thus he built a ship to show the people how to do it, and rouse them to imitation.  Three or four years later, the experiment was repeated.  This time it was at the cost of the King, who applied the sum of forty thousand livres to the double purpose of promoting the art of ship building, and saving the colonists from vagrant habits by giving them employment.  Talon wrote that three hundred and fifty men had been supplied that summer with work at the charge of government.

He despatched two engineers to search for coal, lead, iron, copper, and other minerals.  Important discoveries of iron were made; but three generations were destined to pass before the mines were successfully worked.  The copper of Lake Superior raised the intendant's hopes for a time, but he was soon forced to the conclusion that it was too remote to be of practical value.  He labored vigorously to develop arts and manufactures; made a barrel of tar, and sent it to the King as a specimen; caused some of the colonists to make cloth of the wool of the sheep which the King had sent out; encouraged others to establish a tannery, and also a factory of hats and of shoes.  The Sieur Follin was induced by the grant of a monopoly to begin the making of soap and potash.  The people were ordered to grow hemp, and urged to gather the nettles of the country as material for cordage; and the Ursulines were supplied with flax and wool, in order that they might teach girls to weave and spin.

Talon was especially anxious to establish trade between Canada and the West Indies; and, to make a beginning, he freighted the vessel he had built with salted cod, salmon, eels, pease, fish oil, staves, and planks, and sent her thither to exchange her cargo for sugar, which she was in turn to exchange in France for goods suited for the Canadian market.  Another favorite object with him was the fishery of seals and white porpoises for the sake of their oil; and some of the chief merchants were urged to undertake it, as well as the establishment of stationary cod fisheries along the Lower Saint Lawrence.  But, with every encouragement, many years passed before this valuable industry was placed on a firm basis.

Talon saw with concern the huge consumption of wine and brandy among the settlers, costing them, as he wrote to Colbert, a hundred thousand livres a year; and to keep this money in the colony, he declared his intention of building a brewery.  The minister approved the plan, not only on economic grounds, but because " the vice of drunkenness would thereafter cause no more scandal by reason of the cold nature of beer, the vapors whereof rarely deprive men of the use of judgment." The brewery was accordingly built, to the great satisfaction of the poorer colonists.

Nor did the active intendant fail to acquit himself of the duty of domiciliary visits, enjoined upon him by the royal instructions, —• a point on which he was of one mind with his superiors, for he writes that "those charged in this country with his Majesty's affairs are under a strict 'obligation to enter into the detail of families." Accordingly, we learn from Mother Juchereau that "he studied with the affection of a father how to succor the poor and cause the colony to grow; entered into the minutest particulars; visited the houses of the inhabitants, and caused them to visit him; learned what crops each one was raising; taught those who had wheat to sell it at a profit, helped those who had none, and encouraged everybody." And Dollier de Casson represents him as visiting in turn every house at Montreal, and giving aid from the King to such as needed it.  Horses, cattle, sheep, and other domestic animals were sent out at the royal charge in considerable numbers, and distributed gratuitously, with an order that none of the young should be killed till the country was sufficiently stocked.  Large quantities of goods were also sent from the same high quarter.  Some of these were distributed as gifts, and the rest bartered for corn to supply the troops.  As the intendant perceived that the farmers lost much time in coming from their distant clearings to buy necessaries at Quebec, he caused his agents to furnish them with the King's goods at their own houses,  to the great annoyance of the merchants of Quebec, who complained that their accustomed trade was thus forestalled.

These were not the only cares which occupied the mind of Talon.  He tried to open a road across the country to Acadia,  an almost impossible task, in which he and his successors completely failed.  Under his auspices, Albanel penetrated to Hudson's Bay, and Saint Lusson took possession in the King's name of the country of the Upper Lakes.  It was Talon, in short, who prepared the way for the remarkable series of explorations described in another work.  Again and again he urged upon Colbert and the King a measure from which, had it taken effect, momentous consequences must have sprung.  This was the purchase or seizure of New York,  involving the isolation of New England, the subjection of the Iroquois, and the undisputed control of half the continent.

Great as were his opportunities of abusing his trust, it does not appear that he took advantage of them.  He held lands and houses in Canada, owned the brewery which he had established, and embarked in various enterprises of productive industry; but, so far as I can discover, he is nowhere accused of making illicit gains, and there is reason to believe that he acquitted himself of his charge with entire fidelity.  His health failed in 1668, and for this and other causes he asked for his recall.  Colbert granted it with strong expressions of regret; and when, two years later, he resumed the intendancy, the colony seems to have welcomed his return.