The effect of this measure, which seems to have been adopted without consulting the Company of New France, was to give the council full control of the fur trade of the country. That trade had to bear all the expenses of government, as well as provide for the toll to be paid to the Old Company; and it rested with the council to fix the proportion which the inhabitants should contribute out of the gross proceeds of the furs they either bought from the Indians or procured by the chase. If they bought from the Indians they would have to pay for them with goods purchased at the general stores, which again were controlled by the council or its nominees; and it was a constant matter of complaint that the prices of these goods were so high that it was impossible to trade with the Indians on any favourable terms; the latter, as a rule, having sense enough to put up their prices accordingly. A more burdensome system, or one more liable to abuse, could not easily be imagined. In 1651, M. de Lauson was sent to replace M. d'Ailleboust. The question at this time was seriously debated whether the colony would not have to be abandoned. The settlement at Montreal was in imminent danger of extinction. Maisonneuve saw clearly that, with the scanty force he had, it was only a matter of time when the place would be at the mercy of the foe. He therefore sailed in this year for France, determined, if he could not obtain reinforcements, to return to Canada and bring all his people back to France. The position of matters at Quebec was little better. Mere de l'Incarnation writes: "The Iroquois have made such ravages in this part of the country that for a time we thought we should all have to return to France." Maisonneuve succeeded in his mission; but he was two years absent from the country, and meantime anxiety both at Quebec and at Montreal was at the highest pitch. He arrived in the month of September 1653, bringing with him over one hundred soldiers carefully chosen and well equipped, furnished, not by the government or the Hundred Associates, who were tolerably indifferent to the fate of Montreal, but by the company which had sent him out in the first place. The governor was anxious to keep the whole force at Quebec; and Maisonneuve had to exercise considerable firmness in order to be permitted to take them all with him to Montreal. It was in the vessel which brought out this detachment that Margaret Bourgeoys, whose name has already been mentioned, came to Canada. She was struck on her arrival by the desperately poverty-stricken look of the country. "There were at the time in the Upper Town" (of Quebec), she says, "only five or six houses, and in the Lower Town only the storehouse of the Jesuits and that of the Montreal people. The hospital nuns were dressed in grey. The poverty on all sides was something pitiable." The Quebec Ursulines were desirous that Sister Bourgeoys should join their community, and