, some eighteen,
twenty and twenty-five miles long by six, eight, twelve miles wide,
others less, certainly few larger, so the lesser properties, accounts
of which are rare among works dealing with the state of society at the
time, varied also. While numerous collections of facts pertaining to
the original fiefs or seigneuries (usually called _cadastres_) exist,
it is not so common to meet with similar attempts to define and
describe the exact position of others in the early colony beside the
seigneurs. The large land-holder figures prominently in colonial
documents, but the rise of the trader, the merchant, the notary, the
teacher, the journalist, is difficult to follow. Very often the
seigneur was also the merchant; to be _grand marchand de Canada_ in the
new colony signified solid pecuniary success.

As far back as the year 1682 the Sieur de la Chinay _et autres
marchands de Canada_ equipped, it is presumed at their own expense,
several ships, and proceeded to Port Nelson, raiding and burning the
Hudson Bay Post, and carrying away sixteen subjects of His Majesty.
The Sieur de Caen gave his name to the Society of Merchants still
farther back, in 1627. Henry, in 1598, and Francis, in 1540, each
granted letters patent and edicts confirming certain Court favourites
and nobles in possession of the great fur-bearing districts of
Hochelaga, Terres Neuves, and also of "_La Baye du Nord de Canada oui a
ete depuis appelle Hudson est comprise_". It is plain that commerce
had as much to do with early colonization as the love of conquest,
ecclesiastical ambition, or the desire on the part of jaded adventurers
and needy nobles for pastures new. From the Sieur de Roberval to the
merchant princes of Montreal is an unbroken line of resolute men of
business enterprise, bearing in mind only that what the French began,
the English, or rather the Scotch, "lifted" with increasing vigour. In
1677 royal permission was given to open mines in Canada in favour of
the Sieur de Lagny. The "Compagnie du Castor de Canada," carried on
what even at this day would be regarded as an immense trade in beaver
skins. "La Manon," wrecked about 1700, carried beaver skins amounting
to 107,000,587 livres. The Sieur Guigne, known as the Farmer of the
Western Domain, paid at one time the sum of 75,000 livres per annum on
account of beavers.

In lesser degree the same was true of moose skins and of the finer furs
for apparel and ornament, and thus fo