The bishop admitted the wisdom of this counsel, which he followed, and meanwhile the king, alarmed by a report from Commissioner Duchesneau, who shared the view of the missionaries, desired to investigate and come to a final decision on the question. He therefore ordered the Count de Frontenac to choose in the colony twenty-four competent persons, and to commission them to examine the drawbacks to the sale of intoxicating liquors. Unfortunately, the persons chosen for this enquiry were engaged in trade with the savages; their conclusions must necessarily be prejudiced. They declared that "very few disorders arose from the traffic in brandy, among the natives of the country; that, moreover, the Dutch, by distributing intoxicating drinks to the Iroquois, attracted by this means the trade in beaver skins to Orange and Manhattan. It was, therefore, absolutely necessary to allow the brandy trade in order to bring the savages into the French colony and to prevent them from taking their furs to foreigners." We cannot help being surprised at such a judgment when we read over the memoirs of the time, which all agree in deploring the sad results of this traffic. The most crying injustice, the most revolting immorality, the ruin of families, settlements devastated by drunkenness, agriculture abandoned, the robust portion of the population ruining its health in profitless expeditions: such were some of the most horrible fruits of alcohol. And what do we find as a compensation for so many evils? A few dozen rascals enriched, returning to squander in France a fortune shamefully acquired. And let it not be objected that, if the Indians had not been able to purchase the wherewithal to satisfy their terrible passion for strong drink, they would have carried their furs to the English or the Dutch, for it was proven that the offer of Governor Andros, to forbid the sale of brandy to the savages in New England on condition that the French would act likewise in New France, was formally rejected. "To-day when the passions of the time have long been silent," says the Abbe Ferland, "it is impossible not to admire the energy displayed by the noble bishop, imploring the pity of the monarch for the savages of New France with all the courage shown by Las Casas, when he pleaded the cause of the aborigines of Spanish America. Disdaining the hypocritical outcries of those men who prostituted the name of commerce to cover their speculations and their rapine, he exposed himself to scorn and persecution in order to save the remnant of those indigenous American tribes, to protect his flock from the moral contagion which threatened to weigh upon it, and to lead into the right path the young men who were going to ruin among the savage tribes."