e time to the minister the observations which
he had made on the French population of the country. "The people," said
Talon, "are a mosaic, and though composed of colonists from different
provinces of France whose temperaments do not always sympathize, they
seem to me harmonious enough. There are," he added, "among these
colonists people in easy circumstances, indigent people and people
between these two extremes."

But he thought only of the material development of the colony; upon
others, he thought, were incumbent the responsibility for and defence of
spiritual interests. He was mistaken, for, although he had not in his
power the direction of souls, his duties as a simple soldier of the army
of Christ imposed upon him none the less the obligation of avoiding all
that might contribute to the loss of even a single soul. The disorders
which were the inevitable result of a free traffic in intoxicating
liquors, finally assumed such proportions that the council, without
going as far as the absolute prohibition of the sale of brandy to the
Indians, restricted, nevertheless, this deplorable traffic; it forbade
under the most severe penalties the carrying of firewater into the woods
to the savages, but it continued to tolerate the sale of intoxicating
liquors in the French settlements. It seems that Cavelier de la Salle
himself, in his store at Lachine where he dealt with the Indians, did
not scruple to sell them this fatal poison.

From 1668 to 1670, during the two years that Commissioner Talon had to
spend in France, both for reasons of health and on account of family
business, he did not cease to work actively at the court for his beloved
Canada. M. de Bouteroue, who took his place during his absence, managed
to prejudice the minds of the colonists in his favour by his exquisite
urbanity and the polish of his manners.

It will not be out of place, we think, to give here some details of the
state of the country and its resources at this period. Since the first
companies in charge of Canada were formed principally of merchants of
Rouen, of La Rochelle and of St. Malo, it is not astonishing that the
first colonists should have come largely from Normandy and Perche. It
was only about 1660 that fine and vigorous offspring increased a
population which up to that time was renewed only through immigration;
in the early days, in fact, the colonists lost all their children, but
they found in this only a new reason for hope in the