The Great Intendant : A Chronicle of Jean Talon in Canada, 1665-1672Chapais, Thomas
History
The Great Intendant : A Chronicle of Jean Talon in Canada, 1665-1672
Chapais, Thomas
Canada -- History -- To 1763 (New France); Intendants -- Canada -- Biography; Talon, Jean, comte d'Orsainville, 1625?-1694
Talon sailed from La Rochelle on July 15. He was accompanied
by Captain Francois Marie Perrot, one of the six commanders
of the companies sent to Canada; by Fathers Romuald
Papillion, Hilarion Guesnin, Cesaire Herveau, and Brother
Cosme Graveran. Perrot was married to the niece of the
intendant. The friars belonged to the Franciscan order
and to the particular branch of it known under the name
of Recollets. It had been thought good to reintroduce
into Canada the religious society whose priests had been
the first to preach the Gospel there. The intendant's
former voyage from France to Canada had lasted one hundred
and seventeen days, so that, allowing for all probable
delays, he might expect to reach Quebec by the end of
October at the latest. But it was decreed that he was
not to see New France this year. His ship was assailed
by a series of storms and hurricanes and driven far from
her right course. After three months of exertion and
suffering the captain was obliged to make for the port
of Lisbon. There the ship was revictualled; but, having
sailed again, she struck upon a rocky shoal at a distance
of three leagues from Lisbon and was totally wrecked.
Talon and his companions were fortunately saved, and
found themselves back in France at the beginning of the
year 1670.
In the meantime what was going on in Canada? Talon's
successor, M. de Bouteroue, was upright and intelligent,
but without Talon's masterly gifts and activity. He
attended principally to the administration of justice.
At the judicial sittings of the Sovereign Council he was
almost always present; he himself heard many cases, and
often acted as judge-advocate. On his advice the council
gave out an ordinance fixing the price of wheat. There
had been complaints that sometimes creditors refused to
accept wheat in payment, or accepted it only at a price
unreasonably low. So it was enacted that for three months
after the promulgation of the decree debtors should be
at liberty to pay their creditors in wheat of good quality
at the price of four livres per bushel.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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