He took his recall with magnanimity, and on his way wrote at Gaspé a memorial to Colbert, in which he commends New France to the attention of the king. “The St. Lawrence,” he says, “is the entrance to what may be made the greatest state in the world;” and, in his purely military way, he recounts the means of realizing this grand possibility. Three thousand soldiers should be sent to the colony, to be discharged and turned into settlers after three years of service. During these three years they may make Quebec an impregnable fortress, subdue the Iroquois, build a strong fort on the river where the Dutch have a miserable wooden redoubt, called Fort Orange [_Albany_], and finally open a way by that river to the sea. Thus the heretics will be driven out, and the king will be master of America, at a total cost of about four hundred thousand francs yearly for ten years. He closes his memorial by a short allusion to the charges against him, and to his forty years of faithful service; and concludes, speaking of the authors of his recall, Laval and the Jesuits: “By reason of the respect I owe their cloth, I will rest content, monseigneur, with assuring you that I have not only served the king with fidelity, but also, by the grace of God, with very good success, considering the means at my disposal.” * He had, in truth, borne himself as a brave and experienced * Avaugour, Mémoire, Gaspé 4 Août 1663. soldier; and he soon after died a soldier’s death, while defending the fortress of Zrin, in Croatia, against the Turks. * * Lettre de Colbert au Marquis de Tracy, 1664. Mémoire du Boy, pout servir d’instruction au Sieur Talon CHAPTER VII. 1661-1664. LAVAL AND DUMESNIL _Péronne Dumesnil.--The Old Council.--Alleged Murder.--The New Council.--Bourdon And Villeray.--Strong Measures.--Escape Of Duhesnil.--Views Of Colbert._ |Though the proposals of Avaugour’s memorial were not adopted, it seems to have produced a strong impression at court. For this impression the minds of the king and his minister had already been prepared. Two years before, the inhabitants of Canada had sent one of their number, Pierre Boucher, to represent their many grievances and ask for aid. * Boucher had had an audience of the young king, who listened with interest to his statements; and when in the following year he returned to Quebec, he was accompanied by an officer named Dumont, who had under his command a hundred soldiers for the colony, and was commissioned to report its condition and resources. The movement * To promote the objects of his mission, Boucher wrote a little book, Histoire Véritable et Naturelle des Mœurs et Productions du Pays de la Nouvelle France. He dedicates it to Colbert. ** A long journal of Dumont is printed anonymously in the Relation of 1663. seemed to betoken that the government was wakening at last from its long inaction.