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, Courcelle 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 a 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 length of
submitting a plan f or 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 Talon 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 fulfilment 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 'unpeople 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 insight. 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 XIV's reign
would have given Canada in 1700 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 Senef in 1674,
was eight thousand French soldiers. The wars of Louis
XIV 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 co-operate 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 a preceding chapter, Talon
had expressed his apprehension of the evils likely to
spring from the wide privileges exercised by the company.
But this 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 half-way. The Indian trade, he
said, would be opened 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 dixieme. There was also the revenue obtained from the
sale or farming out of the trading privileges at Tadoussac,
la traite de Tadoussac. All these formed what was called
le fonds 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 Three
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 48,950 livres. [Footnote:
The livre was equivalent to the later franc, about twenty
cents of modern Canadian currency.] The company's agent
contended that they amounted only to 29,200 livres and
that the sum of 48,950 livres was exorbitant, as it
exceeded by 4000 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 the fur 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 defence 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, the construction of forts, the purchase
and shipment of supplies. In 1665 this extraordinary
budget amounted to 358,000 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 deference
to the king's instructions relative to concentration, he
contrived to plant 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 and defence. In pursuance of this plan he
made all his Charlesbourg 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 centre of the settlement. In this arrangement there
was originality and good sense. After more than two
centuries, Talon's idea remains stamped on the soil; and
the plans of the Charlesbourg villages as surveyed in
our own days show distinctly the form of settlement
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 habitants, 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 cultivation 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 neighbourhood of the St Charles
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
1668 Father Le Mercier wrote: 'It is fine to see new
settlements on each side of the St Lawrence for a distance
of eighty 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 Longue-Pointe, of Pointe-aux-Trembles, and of
Lachine were first cultivated. At the same time, along
the river Richelieu, in the vicinity of Forts Chambly
and Sorel, officers and soldiers of the Carignan-Salieres
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 11,448
acres under cultivation. That year there were 15,649,
and wheat production amounted to 130,979 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 caused
several acres to be sown with hemp. The seed was 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 procure 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 intendant's activity
and zeal for the public good manifested themselves. He
favoured the development of the St Lawrence fisheries
and encouraged some of the colonists to devote their
labour to them. Cod-fishing was attempted with good
results. Shipbuilding 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 has 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 colony's 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 much 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
Talon's successor, the intendant Duchesneau, wrote to
the minister that every year since his arrival two vessels
at least (in one year four) 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 Gaspe, and the West
India Company had made an unsuccessful search there. At
Baie Saint-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 Allouez 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 favourably 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 is continued through
the cape under the Chateau Saint-Louis, could not be
worked, I fear, without imperilling 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 Dufferin 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 St
Charles, on the spot at the foot of the hill where 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 turning 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 mean-time 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 XIV
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 somewhat 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 1828 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 pear ninety-two
girls came from France and they are already married to
soldiers and labourers.' 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 have 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;
four hundred livres was the reward for twelve. 'Marry
early' was the royal mandate. Colbert, writing to Talon
in 1668, says: 'I pray you to commend it to the
consideration of the whole people, that their prosperity,
their subsistence, and all that is dear to them, depend
on a general resolution, never to be departed from, to
marry youths at eighteen or nineteen years and girls at
fourteen or fifteen; 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 honours; 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 days 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 a like sum to the hospital.
He kept his money and married within the term.
The matrimonial zeal of Colbert and Talon did not slight
the noblemen and officers. Captain de la Mothe, marrying
and taking up his abode in the country, received sixteen
hundred livres. During the years 1665-68 six thousand
livres were expended to aid the marriage of young
gentlewomen without means, and six thousand to enable
four captains, three lieutenants, five 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 reared 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 cures of 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 cures.
During their journey to Canada they were under the care
and direction of persons highly respected for their
virtues and piety, 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 favoured by the disbanding of the Carignan companies.
In 1668 the regiment was recalled to France; four companies
only were left in Canada to garrison the 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 Contrecoeur, de
Saint-Ours, de Sorel, Dugue de Boisbriant, Lieutenants
Gaultier de Varennes and Margane de la Valtrie; Ensigns
Paul Dupuis, Becard de Grandville, Pierre Monet de Moras,
Francois Jarret de Vercheres.
The strenuous efforts of Colbert and Talon could not but
give a great impulse to population. The increase was
noticeable. In November 1671 Talon wrote:
His Majesty will see by the extracts of the registers
of baptisms that the number of children this year is
six or seven hundred; and in the coming years 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 desirous 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 3215 souls, and the number of families 533. In
1668 the number of families was 1139 and the population
6282. 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 forty-one
mares and stallions and eighty sheep were brought from
France. Domestic animals continued to be introduced until
1672. Fourteen horses and fifty sheep were sent in 1669,
thirteen 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 eighty horses. Twenty
years afterwards, in 1692, there were four hundred horses
in the colony. In 1698 there were six hundred and
eighty-four; and in 1709 the number had so increased that
the intendant Raudot 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 the reviver
of trade and industry, the sagacious and painstaking
intendant in his remote corner of the globe was laying
the foundations of an economic and political system, and
opening to the young country the road of 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 honour in Canadian annals.