[3] Frontenac au Roy, 25 Oct., 1696.
The king highly commended him, and sent him the cross of the Military Order of St. Louis. Callières, who had deserved it less, had received it several years before; but he had not found or provoked so many defamers. Frontenac complained to the minister that his services had been slightly and tardily requited. This was true, and it was due largely to the complaints excited by his own perversity and violence. These complaints still continued; but the fault was not all on one side, and Frontenac himself had often just reason to retort them. He wrote to Ponchartrain: "If you will not be so good as to look closely into the true state of things here, I shall always be exposed to detraction, and forced to make new apologies, which is very hard for a person so full of zeal and uprightness as I am. My secretary, who is going to France, will tell you all the ugly intrigues used to defeat my plans for the service of the king, and the growth of the colony. I have long tried to combat these artifices, but I confess that I no longer feel strength to resist them, and must succumb at last, if you will not have the goodness to give me strong support." [4]
[4] Frontenac au Ministre, 25 Oct., 1696.
He still continued to provoke the detraction which he deprecated, till he drew, at last, a sharp remonstrance from the minister. "The dispute you have had with M. de Champigny is without cause, and I confess I cannot comprehend how you could have acted as you have done. If you do things of this sort, you must expect disagreeable consequences, which all the desire I have to oblige you cannot prevent. It is deplorable, both for you and for me, that, instead of using my good-will to gain favors from his Majesty, you compel me to make excuses for a violence which answers no purpose, and in which you indulge wantonly, nobody can tell why." [5]
[5] Le Ministre à Frontenac, 21 Mai, 1698.
Most of these quarrels, however trivial in themselves, had a solid foundation, and were closely connected with the great question of the control of the west. As to the measures to be taken, two parties divided the colony; one consisting of the governor and his friends, and the other of the intendant, the Jesuits, and such of the merchants as were not in favor with Frontenac. His policy was to protect the Indian allies at all risks, to repel by force, if necessary, every attempt of the English to encroach on the territory in dispute, and to occupy it by forts which should be at once posts of war and commerce and places of rendezvous for traders and voyageurs. Champigny and his party denounced this system; urged that the forest posts should be abandoned, that both garrisons and traders should be recalled, that the French should not go to the Indians, but that the Indians should come to the French, that the fur trade of the interior should be carried on at Montreal, and that no Frenchman should be allowed to leave the settled limits of the colony, except the Jesuits and persons in their service, who, as Champigny insisted, would be able to keep the Indians in the French interest without the help of soldiers.
Strong personal interests were active on both sides, and gave bitterness to the strife. Frontenac, who always stood by his friends, had placed Tonty, La Forêt, La Motte-Cadillac, and others of their number, in charge of the forest posts, where they made good profit by trade. Moreover, the licenses for trading expeditions into the interior were now, as before, used largely for the benefit of his favorites. The Jesuits also declared, and with some truth, that the forest posts were centres of debauchery, and that the licenses for the western trade were the ruin of innumerable young men. All these reasons were laid before the king. In vain Frontenac represented that to abandon the forest posts would be to resign to the English the trade of the interior country, and at last the country itself. The royal ear was open to his opponents, and the royal instincts reinforced their arguments. The king, enamoured of subordination and order, wished to govern Canada as he governed a province of France; and this could be done only by keeping the population within prescribed bounds. Therefore, he commanded that licenses for the forest trade should cease, that the forest posts should be abandoned and destroyed, that all Frenchmen should be ordered back to the settlements, and that none should return under pain of the galleys. An exception was made in favor of the Jesuits, who were allowed to continue their western missions, subject to restrictions designed to prevent them from becoming a cover to illicit fur trade. Frontenac was also directed to make peace with the Iroquois, even, if necessary, without including the western allies of France; that is, he was authorized by Louis XIV. to pursue the course which had discredited and imperilled the colony under the rule of Denonville. [6]
[6] Mémoire du Roy pour Frontenac et Champigny, 26 Mai, 1696; Ibid., 27 Avril, 1697; Registres du Conseil Supérieur, Edit du 21 Mai, 1696.
"Ce qui vous avez mandé de l'accommodement des Sauvages alliés avec les Irocois n'a pas permis à Sa Majesté d'entrer dans la discution de la manière de faire l'abandonnement des postes des François dans la profondeur des terres, particulièrement à Missilimackinac … En tout cas vous ne devez pas manquer de donner ordre pour ruiner les forts et tous les édifices qui pourront y avoir esté faits." Le Ministre à Frontenac, 26 Mai, 1696.
Besides the above, many other letters and despatches on both sides have been examined in relation to these questions.