He thought they were less given to intoxication than the French, and much less than the English of New York. Two delegates were entirely opposed to the trade as being hurtful to religion, and the source of moral disorders. Two others thought it should be restricted to the settlements, and that no liquor should be sold in the woods.[18] How far the opinions of those who favoured the traffic were disinterested may be open to question. Traders are apt to consider exclusively the immediate interests of trade; and the love of gain is often sufficient to stifle the instincts of humanity. The church looked upon the Indians as its wards; but the majority of the settlers, it is to be feared, thought only of exploiting, if not of actually plundering, them. It is difficult to read the little treatise composed about twenty-five years after these events, under the title of the _History of Brandy in Canada_, without feeling persuaded that there was more ground for the position taken by the clergy than the seigneurs and others who assembled at Quebec were willing to admit. From what the anonymous writer, evidently a missionary in close touch with the facts, says, it is clear that brandy was often made an instrument for the robbery of the unhappy Indian. We are told of one man at Three Rivers who, having made an Indian drunk, insisted next day that the score for the brandy the poor savage had taken amounted to thirty moose skins. The author of the treatise is convinced that the horrible massacre at Lachine, of which we shall have to speak in a later chapter, was a direct manifestation of the anger of God at the drink traffic, of which that place in particular was the headquarters. If so, the warning unfortunately was not taken to heart, for the writer himself tells us that the traffic was resumed and prosecuted as vigorously as ever as soon as the village was rebuilt.