the colony, to transmit
the commands of one and the wants of the other. He was to stand between
the Governor and the colony, to watch that the Governor did not overstep
his authority and that the colony obeyed the laws. He was to stand
between the Church and the colony, to see that the Church did not usurp
the prerogatives of the Governor and that the people were kept in the
path of right living without having their natural liberties curtailed.
He was, in a word, to accept the thankless task of taking all the cuffs
from the King and the kicks from the colony, all the blame of whatever
went amiss and no credit for what went well.

When Talon came to Canada there were less than two thousand people in the
colony. He wrote frantically to His Royal Master for colonists. "We
cannot depeople France to people Canada," wrote the King; but from his
royal revenue he set aside money yearly to send men to Canada as
soldiers, women as wives. In 1671 one hundred and sixty-five girls were
sent out to be wedded to the French youth. A year later came one hundred
and fifty more. Licenses would not be given to the wood rovers for the
fur trade unless they married. Bachelors were fined unless they quickly
chose a wife from among the King's girls. Promotion was withheld from
the young ensigns and cadets in the army unless they found brides.
Yearly the ships brought girls whom the cures of France had carefully
selected in country parishes. Yearly Talon gave a bounty to the
middle-aged duenna who had safely chaperoned her charges across seas to
the convents of Quebec and Montreal, where the bashful suitors came to
make choice. "We want country girls, who can work," wrote the Intendant;
and girls who could work the King sent, instructing Talon to mate as many
as he {124} could to officers of the Carignan Regiment, so that the
soldiers would be likely to turn settlers. Results: by 1674 Canada had a
population of six thousand seven hundred; by 1684, of nearly twelve
thousand, not counting the one thousand bush lopers who roamed the woods
and married squaws.

Between Acadia and Quebec lay wilderness. Jean Talon opened a road
connecting the two far-separated provinces. The Sovereign Council had
practically outlawed the bush lopers. Talon pronounced trade free, and
formed them into companies of bush fighters--defenders of the colony.
Instead of being wild-wood bandits, men like Duluth at Lake Superior and
La Motte Cadillac at Detroit