The most characteristic features of the Canadian fur trade still remain to be seen. Oudiette and his associates were not only charged with collecting the revenue, but were also vested with an exclusive right of transporting all the beaver-skins of the colony to France. On their part they were compelled to receive all beaver-skins brought to their magazines; and, after deducting the fourth belonging to the king, to pay for the rest at a fixed price. This price was graduated to the different qualities of the fur; but the average cost to the collectors was a little more than three francs a pound. The inhabitants could barter their furs with merchants; but the merchants must bring them all to the magazines of Oudiette, who paid in receipts convertible into bills of exchange. He soon found himself burdened with such a mass * Before me is one of these licenses, signed by the governor Denonville. A condition of carrying no brandy is appended to it. of beaver-skins, that the market was completely glutted. The French hatters refused to take them all; and for the part which they consented to take, they paid chiefly in hats, which Oudiette was not allowed to sell in France, but only in the French West Indies, where few people wanted them. An unlucky fashion of small hats diminished the consumption of fur and increased his embarrassments, as did also a practice common among the hatters of mixing rabbit fur with the beaver. In his extremity he bethought him of setting up a hat factory for himself under the name of a certain licensed hatter, thinking thereby to alarm his customers into buying his stock. * The other hatters rose in wrath and petitioned the minister. The new factory was suppressed, and Oudiette soon became bankrupt. Another company of farmers of the revenue took his place with similar results. The action of the law of supply and demand was completely arrested by the peremptory edict which, with a view to the prosperity of the colony and the profit of the king, required the company to take every beaver-skin offered. All Canada, thinking itself sure of its price, rushed into the beaver trade, and the accumulation of unsalable furs became more and more suffocating. The farmers of the revenue could not meet their engagements. Their bills of exchange were unpaid, and Canada was filled with distress and consternation. In 1700, a change of system was ordered. The monopoly of exporting beaver * Mémoire touchant le Commerce du Canada, 1687.