* Réglement de Police, 1676, Art. xl.
** Edits et Ord., II. 100.
*** Ibid., I. 489.
**** Ibid.. I. 402.
(v) Ibid., I. 425.
(v*) Ibid., I. 505.
allowed to make in the colony. One of the first acts of the superior council was to order them to bring their invoices immediately before that body, which thereupon affixed prices to each article. The merchant who sold and the purchaser who bought above this tariff were alike condemned to heavy penalties; and so, too, was the merchant who chose to keep his goods rather than sell them at the price ordained. * Resident merchants, on the other hand, were favored to the utmost. They could sell at what price they saw fit; and, according to La Hontan, they made great profit by the sale of laces, ribbons, watches, jewels, and similar superfluities to the poor but extravagant colonists.
A considerable number of the non-resident merchants were Huguenots, for most of the importations were from the old Huguenot city of Rochelle. No favor was shown them; they were held under rigid restraint, and forbidden to exercise their religion, or to remain in the colony during winter without special license. ** This sometimes bore very hard upon them. The governor Denonville, an ardent Catholic, states the case of one Bernon, who had done great service to the colony, and whom La Hontan mentions as the principal French merchant in the Canadian trade. “It is a pity,” says Denonville, “that he cannot be converted. As he is a Huguenot, the bishop wants me to order him home this autumn, which I have done, though he
* Edits et Ord., II. 17, 19.
** Réglement de Police, 1676. Art. xxxvii.
carries on a large business, and a great deal of money remains due to him here.” *
For a long time the ships from France went home empty, except a favored few which carried furs, or occasionally a load of dried pease or of timber. Payment was made in money when there was any in Canada, or in bills of exchange. The colony, drawing every thing from France, and returning little besides beaver skins, remained under a load of debt. French merchants were discouraged, and shipments from France languished. As for the trade with the West Indies, which Talon had tried by precept and example to build up, the intendant reports in 1680 that it had nearly ceased; though six years later it grew again to the modest proportions of three vessels loaded with wheat. **
The besetting evil of trade and industry in Canada was the habit they contracted, and were encouraged to contract, of depending on the direct aid of government. Not a new enterprise was set on foot without a petition to the king to lend a helping hand. Sometimes the petition was sent through the governor, sometimes through the intendant; and it was rarely refused. Denonville writes that the merchants of Quebec, by a combined effort, had sent a vessel of sixty tons to France with colonial produce; and he asks that the royal commissaries at Rochefort be instructed to buy the whole cargo, in order to encourage so
* Denonville au Ministre, 1685.
** Ibid., 1686. The year before, about 18,000 minots of
grain were sent hither. In 1736, the shipments reached
80,000 minots.
deserving an enterprise. One Hazeur set up a saw-mill, at Mai Bay. Finding a large stock of planks and timber on his hands, he begs the king to send two vessels to carry them to France; and the king accordingly did so. A similar request was made in behalf of another saw-mill at St. Paul’s Bay. Denonville announces that one Riverin wishes to embark in the whale and cod fishery, and that though strong in zeal he is weak in resources. The minister replies, that he is to be encouraged, and that his Majesty will favorably consider his enterprise. * Various gifts were soon after made him. He now took to himself a partner, the Sieur Chalons; whereupon the governor writes to ask the minister’s protection for them. “The Basques,” he says, “formerly carried on this fishery, but some monopoly or other put a stop to it.” The remedy he proposes is homoeopathic. He asks another monopoly for the two partners. Louis Joliet, the discoverer of the Mississippi, made a fishing station on the island of Anticosti; and he begs help from the king, on the ground that his fishery will furnish a good and useful employment to young men. The Sieur Vitry wished to begin a fishery of white porpoises, and he begs the king
* The interest felt by the king in these matters is shown
in a letter signed by his hand in which he enters with
considerable detail into the plans of Riverin. Le Roy à
Denonville et Champigny, 1 Mai, 1689. He afterwards ordered
boats, harpooners, and cordage to be sent him, for which he
was to pay at his convenience. Four years later, he
complains that, though Riverin had been often helped, his
fisheries were of slight account. “Let him take care,”
pursues the king, “that he does not use his enterprises as a
pretext to obtain favors.”. Mémoire du Roy a Frontenac et
Champigny, 1693