rs right,
"there was need of nothing but order, order, order." Colbert also wanted
order, but his views were higher and broader than those of Breton or
Gascon merchants; in spite of his desire to "put the kingdom in a
position to do without having recourse to foreigners for things necessary
for the use and comfort of the French," he had too lofty and too
judicious a mind to neglect the extension of trade; like Richelieu, he
was for founding great trading companies; he had five, for the East and
West Indies, the Levant, the North, and Africa; just as with Richelieu,
they were with difficulty established, and lasted but a little while;
it was necessary to levy subscriptions on the members of the sovereign
corporations; "M. de Bercy put down his name for a thousand livres," says
the journal of Oliver d'Ormesson. "M. de Colbert laughed at him, and
said that it could not be for his pocket's sake; and the end of it was,
that he put down three thousand livres." Colbert could not get over the
mortifying success of the company of the Dutch Indies. "I cannot believe
that they pay forty per cent.," said he. It was with the Dutch that he
most frequently had commercial difficulties. The United Provinces
produced but little, and their merchant navy was exclusively engaged in
the business of transport; the charge of fifty sous per ton on
merchandise carried in foreign vessels caused so much ill humor amongst
the Hollanders that it was partly the origin of their rupture with France
and of the treaty of the Triple Alliance. Colbert made great efforts to
develop the French navy, both the fighting and the merchant. "The
sea-traffic of all the world," he wrote in 1669 to M. de Pomponne, then
ambassador to Holland, "is done with twenty thousand vessels or
thereabouts. In the natural order of things, each nation should have its
own share thereof in proportion to its power, population, and seaboard.
The Hollanders have fifteen or sixteen thousand out of this number, and
the French perhaps four or five hundred at most. The king is employing
all sorts of means which he thinks useful in order to approach a little
more nearly to the number his subjects ought naturally to have."
Colbert's efforts were not useless; at his death, the maritime trade of
France had developed itself, and French merchants were effectually
protected at sea by ships of war. "It is necessary," said Colbert in his
instructions to Seignelay, "that my son should be as