|We have seen the head of the colony, its guiding intellect and will: it remains to observe its organs of nutrition. Whatever they might have been under a different treatment, they were perverted and enfeebled by the regimen to which they were subjected. The spirit of restriction and monopoly had ruled from the beginning. The old governor Lauson, seignior for a while of a great part of the colony, held that Montreal had no right to trade directly with France, but must draw all her supplies from Quebec; * and this preposterous claim was revived in the time of Mézy. The successive companies to whose hands the colony was consigned had a baneful effect on individual enterprise. In 1674, * Faillon, Colonie Française, II. 244. the charter of the West India Company was revoked, and trade was declared open to all subjects of the king; yet commerce was still condemned to wear the ball and chain. New restrictions were imposed, meant for good, but resulting in evil. Merchants not resident in the colony were forbidden all trade, direct or indirect, with the Indians. * They were also forbidden to sell any goods at retail except in August, September, and October; ** to trade anywhere in Canada above Quebec; and to sell clothing or domestic articles ready made. This last restriction was designed to develop colonial industry. No person, resident or not, could trade with the English colonies, or go thither without a special passport, and rigid examination by the military authorities. *** Foreign trade of any kind was stiffly prohibited. In 1719, after a new company had engrossed the beaver trade, its agents were empowered to enter all houses in Canada, whether ecclesiastical or secular, and search them for foreign goods, which when found were publicly burned. **** In the next year, the royal council ordered that vessels engaged in foreign trade should be captured by force of arms, like pirates, and confiscated along with their cargoes; (v) while anybody having an article of foreign manufacture in his possession was subjected to a heavy fine. (v*) Attempts were made to fix the exact amount of profit which merchants from France should be * Réglement de Police, 1676, Art. xl. ** Edits et Ord., II. 100. *** Ibid., I. 489. **** Ibid.. I. 402. (v) Ibid., I. 425. (v*) Ibid., I. 505.