CHAPTER V. THE INTENDANT AND THE SOVEREIGN COUNCIL (2)
In 1667 the Sovereign Council—inspired by Talon—had to discuss a very important question. This was the formation of a company of Canadians to secure the exclusive privilege of trading. By its charter, the West India Company had been granted the commercial monopoly. Under pressure from Talon it had somewhat abated its pretensions and had allowed freedom of trade for a time. But again it was urging its rights. The council asked the intendant to support with his influence at court the plan for a Canadian company, which he did. Colbert did not say no; neither did he seem in a hurry to grant the request. In 1668 the council sent the minister a letter praying for freedom of trade. This year the company had enforced its monopoly and the people had suffered from the lack of necessaries, which could not be found in the company's stores; moreover, prices were exceedingly high. Such a state of things was detrimental to the colony. The council begged that, if Colbert were not disposed to grant freedom of trade, he would favourably consider the scheme for a trading company composed of Canadians, which had been submitted to him the year before. We shall see, later on, what came of this agitation against the West India Company.
The good understanding between the intendant and the Sovereign Council was absolute. The council had shown unequivocal confidence in Talon's ability and respect for his person and authority. A few days before the Marquis de Tracy had left the colony the council had ordered that all petitions to enter lawsuits should be presented to the intendant, who should assign them to the council or to the lieutenant civil and criminal, or try them himself, at his discretion. This was treating Talon as the supreme magistrate and acknowledging him as the dispenser of justice. M. de Courcelle, who was beginning to feel some uneasiness at Talon's great authority and prestige, refused to sign the proceedings of that day, inscribing these lines in the council's register: 'This decree being against the governor's authority and the public good, I did not wish to sign it.' At the beginning of the following year Talon, whose attention perhaps had not been called to Courcelle's written protest, requested the adoption of a similar decree; and the council did not hesitate to confirm its previous decision, notwithstanding the governor's former opposition, which he reiterated in the same terms. Courcelle was certainly mistaken in supposing that the council's decision was an encroachment on his authority. The superior jurisdiction in judicial matters belonged to the intendant. Under his commission he had the right to 'judge alone and with full jurisdiction in civil matters,' to 'hear all cases of crimes and misdemeanours, abuse and malversation, by whomsoever committed,' to 'proceed against all persons guilty of any crime, whatever might be their quality or condition, to pursue the proceedings until final completion, judgment and execution thereof.' Nevertheless, in practice and with due regard to the good administration of justice, the council's decree went perhaps too far. The question remained in abeyance and was not settled until four years afterwards, at the end of Talon's second term in Canada. He had written to Colbert on the subject stating that he would be glad to be discharged of the judicial responsibility, and to see the question of initiating lawsuits referred to the Sovereign Council.
As a matter of fact [he said], receiving the petitions for entering lawsuits does not mean retaining them before myself. I have not judged twenty cases, civil or criminal, since I came here, having always tried as much as I could to conciliate the opposing parties. The reason why I speak now of this matter is that very often, for twenty or thirty livres of principal, a plaintiff goes before the judge of first instance—which diverts the parties from the proper cultivation of their farms—and later on, by way of an appeal, before the Sovereign Council which likes to hear and judge cases.
Colbert did not deem the decision of the council advisable.
It is contrary [he wrote] to the order of justice, in virtue of which, leaving in their own sphere the superior judges, the judges of first instance are empowered to hear all cases within their jurisdiction, and their judgments can be appealed from to the Sovereign Council. Moreover it would be a burden for the king's subjects living far from Quebec to go there unnecessarily in order to ascertain before what tribunal they should be heard. We must now speak of a most important matter—the brandy traffic. The sale of intoxicating liquor to the Indians had always been prohibited in the colony. In 1657 a decree of the King's State Council had ratified and renewed this prohibition under pain of corporal punishment. Yet, notwithstanding the decree, greedy traders broke the law and, for the purpose of getting furs at a low price, supplied the Indians with eau-de-feu, or firewater, which made them like wild beasts. The most frightful disorders were prevalent, the most heinous crimes committed, and scandalous demoralization followed. In 1660 the evil was so great that Mgr de Laval, exercising his pastoral functions, decreed excommunication against all those pursuing the brandy traffic in defiance of ordinances. This might have stopped the progress of the evil had not the governor Avaugour opened the door to renewed disorder two years later by a most unfortunate policy. Thereupon Laval crossed the ocean to France, obtained the governor's recall, and succeeded, though with some difficulty, in maintaining the former prohibition. In 1663 the Sovereign Council enacted an ordinance strictly forbidding the selling or giving of brandy to Indians directly or indirectly, for any reason or pretence whatsoever. The penalty for the offence was a fine of three hundred livres, payable one-third to the informers, one-third to the Hotel-Dieu, and one-third to the public treasury. And for a second offence the punishment was whipping or banishment. In 1667, after the Sovereign Council had been finally reorganized, the prohibition was renewed, on a motion of attorney-general Bourdon, under the same penalties as before, and it devolved many times upon the council to condemn transgressors of this ordinance to fines, imprisonment, or corporal punishment. Talon was present and concurred in these condemnations. But gradually his mind changed. He was becoming daily more impressed with the material benefits of the brandy traffic and less convinced of its moral danger. He was besides displeased with the bishop's excommunication. In his view it was an encroachment of the spiritual upon the civil power. Under the influence of these feelings he came to consider prohibition of the liquor traffic as a mistake, damaging to the trade and progress of the colony and to French influence over the Indian tribes. These were the arguments put forward by the supporters of the traffic. According to them, to refuse brandy to the Indians was to let the English monopolize the profitable fur trade, and therefore to check the development of New France. The fur trade provided an abundance of beaver skins, which formed a most convenient medium of exchange. The possession of these gave an impetus to trade, and brought to Canada a number of merchants and others who were consumers of natural products and money spenders. Moreover, in Canada furs were the main article of exportation. Their abundance swelled the public revenue and increased the number of ships employed in the Canadian trade. And last, to use an argument of a higher order, the brandy traffic, in fostering trade with the Indian tribes, kept them in the bonds of an alliance and strengthened the political situation of France in North America.
The above fairly, we think, represents the substance of the plea made by the supporters of the liquor traffic. Such indeed were the arguments used by the traders, finally accepted by Talon, developed in after years by Frontenac, approved by Colbert on many occasions; such was the political and commercial wisdom of those who thought mainly of the material progress of New France. To those arguments Laval, the clergy, and many enlightened persons interested in the public welfare had a double answer. First, there was at stake a question of principle important enough to be the sole ground of a decision. Was it right, for the sake of a material benefit, to outrage natural and Christian morality? Was it morally lawful, for the purpose of loading with furs the Quebec stores and the Rochelle ships, to instil into the Indian veins the accursed poison which inflamed them to theft, rape, incest, murder, suicide—all the frightful frenzy of bestial passion. As it was practised, the liquor traffic could have no other result. A powerful consensus of evidence established this truth above all discussion. For the Indians brandy was then, as it is now, a murderous poison. It is for this reason that at the present day the government of Canada prohibits absolutely the sale of intoxicating liquor in the territories where the wretched remnants of the aborigines are gathered. The strictness of the modern laws is a striking vindication of Laval and those who stood by him.
Moreover the prohibition of the brandy traffic was not as detrimental to the material development of the colony as was contended. It was possible to trade with the Outaouais, the Algonquins, the Iroquois, without the allurement of brandy. The Indians themselves acknowledged that strong liquor ruined them. The Abbe Dollier de Casson, superior of the Montreal Sulpicians, was perfectly right when he made the following statement:
We should have had all the Iroquois, if they had not seen that there is as much disorder here as in their country, and that we are even worse than the heretics. The Indian drunkard does not resist the drinking craze when brandy is at hand. But afterwards, when he sees himself naked and disarmed, his nose gnawed, his body maimed and bruised, he becomes mad with rage against those who caused him to fall into such a state.
Some years later the governor Denonville answered those who enlarged on the danger of throwing the Indians on the friendship of the Dutch and English if they were refused brandy. 'Those who maintain,' he said, 'that if we refuse liquor to the Indians they will go to the English, are not trustworthy, for the Indians are not anxious to drink when they do not see the liquor; and the most sensible of them wish that brandy had never existed, because they ruin themselves in giving away their furs and even their clothes for drink: Denonville's opinion was the more justified in that at one time the New England authorities proposed to the French a joint prohibition of the sale of brandy to Indians, and actually passed an ordinance to that effect. There were many other articles besides brandy that were needed by the Indians, and for which they were obliged to exchange their furs. But even had the prohibition caused a decrease in the fur trade, would the evil have been so great? Fewer colonists would have been diverted from agriculture. As it was, the exodus from the settlements of bushrangers in search of furs was a source of weakness, and the flower of Canadian youth disappeared every year in the wilderness. Had this drain of national vitality been avoided, the settlement of Canada would have been more rapid. Even from the material point of view it can be maintained that the opponents of the brandy traffic understood better than its supporters the true interests of New France.
For a long while this important question divided and agitated the Canadian people. The religious authorities, knowing the evil and crimes that resulted from the sale of intoxicating liquor to the Indians, made strenuous efforts to secure the most severe restriction if not the prohibition of the deadly traffic. They spoke in the name of public morality and national honour, of humanity and divine love. The civil authorities, more interested in the financial and political advantages than in the question of principle, favoured toleration and even authorization of the trade. Hence the conflicts and misunderstandings which have enlivened, or rather saddened, the pages of Canadian history.
It is to be regretted that the intendant Talon sided with the supporters of free traffic in brandy. We have said that at first he wavered. The rulings of the Sovereign Council in 1667 seem to show it. But his earnest desire for the prosperity of the colony—the development of her trade, the increase of her population, the improvement of her finances—his ambition for the economic progress of New France, misled him and perverted his judgment. This is the only excuse that can be offered for the greatest error of his life. For he must be held responsible for the ordinance passed by the Sovereign Council on November 10, 1668. This ordinance, after setting forth that in order to protect the Indians against the curse of drunkenness it was better to have recourse to freedom than to leave them a prey to the wily devices of unscrupulous men, enacted that thereafter, with the king's permission, all the residents of New France might sell and deliver intoxicating liquor to the Indians willing to trade with them. The gate was opened. It was in vain that the ordinance went on to forbid the Indians to get drunk under a penalty of two beavers and exposure in the pillory. A fearful punishment indeed!
Talon's good faith was undeniable. On this occasion he doubtless thought that he was still serving the cause of public welfare. But, without questioning his intentions, we cannot but admit that his life's record contains pages more admirable than this one.
