[Footnote 7: It was not till 1717 that the merchants of Montreal and Quebec were allowed to meet and discuss business affairs.] [Footnote 8: Quoted by Faillon, vol. iii. p. 432.] [Footnote 9: This office was held by Colbert (in connection with a general control of marine, finance, and public works) from 1669 to the date of his death, 6th September 1683; by his son, the Marquis of Seignelay, from 1683 to the date of his own death, 3rd November 1690; and from that time to the conclusion of the period covered by this narrative by the Marquis of Pontchartrain.] [Footnote 10: Through the influence of Talon, the king was induced in the year 1668 to sign a decree permitting the Recollets to return to Canada, and reinstating them in their former possessions. Pere Leclercq, Recollet, says they were very much wanted. "For thirty years," to quote his words, "complaint was made in Canada that consciences were being burdened; and the more the colony increased in population the greater was the outcry. I sincerely hope that there was no real occasion for it, and that the great rigour of the [Jesuit] clergy was useful and necessary. Still the Frenchman loves liberty, and under all skies is opposed to constraint, even in religion."] [Footnote 11: He had been speaking of the slow growth of the population of Canada.] [Footnote 12: Pere Leclercq, _Premier Etablissement de la Foi_, vol. ii. p. 117.] CHAPTER IV THE COMMENCEMENT OF TROUBLES It is difficult in the present advanced condition of all the arts and sciences which converge on the perfecting of our means of transport and communication to form an adequate idea of the toils, inconveniences, and perils encountered by those who in the seventeenth century attempted the task of colonizing this continent. To say nothing of the difficulties of land travel, the colonist, by the mere fact of crossing the ocean, placed a barrier of two or three months of perilous navigation between himself and the land that had been his home. To the dangers of the sea were added the yet more serious danger of infection on ill-ventilated and pest-breeding vessels. A ship coming to the St. Lawrence could in those days make but one trip to and fro in the year. It is easy to see, therefore, in how critical a position a colony would be that depended in any large measure on supplies brought from the other side. The wreck or capture of one or two vessels might bring it to the verge of starvation. Success in agriculture, again, can only be looked for where there is peaceable and secure possession of the land. If all the results of laborious tillage are liable to be carried off or destroyed at any moment by marauding foes, there is little encouragement to engage in that kind of industry. The population will, by preference, turn to the search for metals, or seek to trade in articles easily marketed. Thus it was that, in the early days, the Canadian settlers gave themselves up almost wholly to hunting and fur-trading.