The Great Intendant : A Chronicle of Jean Talon in Canada, 1665-1672

From the opening

When the year 1665 began, the French colony on the shores of the St Lawrence, founded by the valour and devotion of Champlain, had been in existence for more than half a century. Yet it was still in a pitiable state of weakness and destitution. The care and maintenance of the settlement had devolved upon trading companies, and their narrow-minded mercantile selfishness had stifled its progress. From other causes, also, there had been but little growth. Cardinal Richelieu, the great French minister, had tried at one time to infuse new life into the colony; [Footnote: For the earlier history of New France the reader is referred to three other volumes in this Series--The Founder of New France, The Seigneurs of Old Canada, and The Jesuit Missions.] but his first attempts had been unlucky, and later on his powerful mind was diverted to other plans and achievements and he became absorbed in the wider field of European politics. To the shackles of commercial greed, to forgetfulness on the part of the mother country, had been added the curse of Indian wars. During twenty-five years the daring and ferocious Iroquois had been the constant scourge of the handful of settlers, traders, and missionaries. Champlain's successors in the office of governor, Montmagny, Ailleboust, Lauzon, Argenson, Avaugour, had no military force adequate to the task of meeting and crushing these formidable foes. Year after year the wretched colony maintained its struggle for existence amidst deadly perils, receiving almost no help from France, and to all appearance doomed to destruction. To make things worse, internal strife exercised its disintegrating influence; there was contention among the leaders in New France over the vexed question of the liquor traffic. In the face of so many adverse circumstances--complete lack of means, cessation of immigration from the mother country, the perpetual menace of the bloody Iroquois incursions, a dying trade, and a stillborn agriculture--how could the colony be kept alive at all?

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