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.
CHAPTER V
THE INTENDANT AND THE SOVEREIGN COUNCIL
In the preceding chapter a sketch has been given of Talon's endeavours 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 Courcelle a series of rules and enactments relating to various important matters, one of which was the administration of justice. Talon 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,' Talon 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 M. Chartier (de Lotbiniere) should be so maintained, and he was duly confirmed as lieutenant civil et criminel on January 10, 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 Talon wrote a memorandum in which we find these words: 'Justice is administered in the first instance by judges in the seigneuries; 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 Montreal 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-Anges, Cap-de-la-Magdeleine.
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. [Footnote: 62 Vict. cap. 54, p. 271.] 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 Avaugour (1661-63) 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 eighty livres, and that of Brazil tobacco at forty sous a pound. In 1667 again changes took place: on dry goods the merchants were allowed seventy per cent above cost; on spirits and wines, one hundred or one hundred and twenty per cent as in 1664. The merchants did not accept these rulings without protest. In 1664 the most important Quebec trader, Charles Aubert de la Chesnaye, was prosecuted for contravention, and made this bold declaration in favour 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, Courcelle, Talon, and Laval being present, the attorney- general Bourdon made out a case against Jacques de la Mothe, 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 one hundred livres and his tobacco at sixty 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 Maragnan quality, and he had always deemed it impossible to sell it for less than sixty sous. After hearing the case, the council decided that two of its members, Messieurs Damours and de la Tesserie, should make an inspection at La Mothe's store, in order to taste his wine and tobacco and gauge his hogsheads. Away they went; and afterwards they made their report. Finally La Mothe was condemned to a fine of twenty-two 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.