Central Government Control of French Canada’s Economy

In all departments of industry, the appeals for help are endless. Governors and intendants are so many sturdy beggars for the languishing colony.

Our special project presenting the definitive account of France in Canada by Francis Parkman, one of America’s greatest historians.

Previously in The Old Regime In Canada. Continuing chapter 17

The besetting evil of trade and industry in Canada was the habit they contracted, and were encouraged to contract, of depending on the direct aid of government. Not a new enterprise was set on foot without a petition to the king to lend a helping hand. Sometimes the petition was sent through the governor, sometimes through the intendant; and it was rarely refused. Denonville writes that the merchants of Quebec, by a combined effort, had sent a vessel of sixty tons to France with colonial produce; and he asks that the royal commissaries at Rochefort be instructed to buy the whole cargo, in order to encourage so deserving an enterprise. One Hazeur set up a sawmill, at Mai Bay. Finding a large stock of planks and timber on his hands, he begs the king to send two vessels to carry them to France; and the king accordingly did so. A similar request was made in behalf of another sawmill at St. Paul’s Bay. Denonville announces that one Riverin wishes to embark in the whale and cod fishery, and that though strong in zeal he is weak in resources. The minister replies, that he is to be encouraged, and that his Majesty will favorably consider his enterprise. [1] Various gifts were soon after made him. He now took to himself a partner, the Sieur Chalons; whereupon the governor writes to ask the minister’s protection for them. “The Basques,” he says, “formerly carried on this fishery, but some monopoly or other put a stop to it.” The remedy he proposes is homoeopathic. He asks another monopoly for the two partners. Louis Joliet, the discoverer of the Mississippi, made a fishing station on the island of Anticosti; and he begs help from the king, on the ground that his fishery will furnish a good and useful employment to young men. The Sieur Vitry wished to begin a fishery of white porpoises, and he begs the king to give him two thousand pounds of cod-line and two thousand pounds of one and two inch rope. His request was granted, on which he asked for five hundred livres. The money was given him, and the next year he asked to have the gift renewed. [2]

[1: The interest felt by the king in these matters is shown in a letter signed by his hand in which he enters with considerable detail into the plans of Riverin. Le Roy à Denonville et Champigny, 1 Mai, 1689. He afterwards ordered boats, harpooners, and cordage to be sent him, for which he was to pay at his convenience. Four years later, he complains that, though Riverin had been often helped, his fisheries were of slight account. “Let him take care,” pursues the king, “that he does not use his enterprises as a pretext to obtain favors.”. Mémoire du Roy a Frontenac et Champigny, 1693]

[2: All the above examples are drawn from the correspondence of the governor and intendant with the minister, between 1680 and 1699, together with a memorial of Hazeur and another of Riverin, addressed to the minister.]

Vitry’s porpoise-fishing appears to have ended in failure. In 1707 the intendant Raudot granted the porpoise fishery of the seigniory of Riviere Ouelle to six of the habitans. This fishery is carried on here successfully at the present day. A very interesting account of it was published in the Opinion Publique, 1873, by my friend Abbé Casgrain, whose family residence is the seigniorial mansion of Riviere Ouelle.]

The king was very anxious to develop the fisheries of the colony. “His Majesty,” writes the minister, “wishes you to induce the inhabitants to unite with the merchants for this object, and to incite them by all sorts of means to overcome their natural laziness, since there is no other way of saving them from the misery in which they now are.” [3] “I wish,” says the zealous Denonville, “that fisheries could be well established to give employment to our young men, and prevent them from running wild in the woods;” and he adds mournfully, “they (the fisheries) are enriching Boston at our expense.” “They are our true mines,” urges the intendant Meules; “but the English of Boston have got possession of those of Acadia, which belong to us; and we ought to prevent it.” It was not prevented; and the Canadian fisheries, like other branches of Canadian industry, remained in a state of almost hopeless languor. [4]

[3: Mémoire pour Denonville et Champigny, 8 Mars, 1688.]

[4: The Canadian fisheries must not be confounded with the French fisheries of Newfoundland, which were prosperous, but were carried on wholly from French ports.]

In a memorial addressed by the partners Chalons and Riverin to the minister Seignelay, they say: “Baston (Boston) et toute sa colonie nous donne un exemple qui fait honte à nostre nation, puisqu’elle s’augmente tous les jours par cette pesche (de la morue) qu’elle fait la plus grande partie sur nos costes pendant que les François ne s’occupent à rien.” Meules urges that the king should undertake the fishing business himself since his subjects cannot or will not.]

The government applied various stimulants. One of these, proposed by the intendant Duchesneau, is characteristic. He advises the formation of a company which should have the exclusive right of exporting fish; but which on its part should be required to take, at a fixed price, all that the inhabitants should bring them. This notable plan did not find favor with the king. [5] It was practiced, however, in the case of beaver skins, and also in that of woodashes. The farmers of the revenue were required to take this last commodity at a fixed price, on their own risk, and in any quantity offered. They remonstrated, saying that it was unsalable; adding that, if the inhabitants would but take the trouble to turn it into potash, it might be possible to find a market for it. The king released them entirely, coupling his order to that effect with a eulogy of free trade. [6]

[5: Ministre a Duchesneau, 15 Mai, 1678]

[6: Le Roy a Duchesneau, 11 Juin, 1680.]

In all departments of industry, the appeals for help are endless. Governors and intendants are so many sturdy beggars for the languishing colony.

Send us money to build storehouses, to which the habitants can bring their produce and receive goods from the government in exchange.” “Send us a teacher to make sailors of our young men: it is a pity the colony should remain in such a state for want of instruction for youth.” [7] “We want a surgeon: there is none in Canada who can set a bone.” [8] “Send us some tilers, brick-makers, and potters.” [9] “Send us iron-workers to work our mines.” [10] “It is to be wished that his Majesty would send us all sorts of artisans, especially potters and glass-workers.” [11] “Our Canadians need aid and instruction in their fisheries; they need pilots.” [12]

[7: Mémoire a Monseigneur le Marquis de Seignday, présenté par les Sieurs Chalons et Riverin, 1686.]

[8: Champigny au Ministre, 1688.]

[9: Ibid.]

[10: Denonville au Ministre, 1686.]

[11: Mémoire de Catalogue, 1712.]

[12: Denonville au Ministre, 1686.]

In 1688, the intendant reported that Canada was entirely without either pilots or sailors; and, as late as 1712, the engineer Catalogne informed the government that, though the St. Lawrence was dangerous, a pilot was rarely to be had. “There ought to be trade with the West Indies and other places,” urges another writer. “Everybody says it is best, but nobody will undertake it. Our merchants are too poor, or else are engrossed by the fur trade.”

[Mémoire de Chalons et Riverin présenté au Marquis de Seignelay.]

The languor of commerce made agriculture languish. “It is of no use now,” writes Meules, in 1682, “to raise any crops except what each family wants for itself.” In vain the government sent out seeds for distribution. In vain intendants lectured the farmers, and lavished well-meant advice. Tillage remained careless and slovenly. “If,” says the all-observing Catalogne, “the soil were not better cultivated in Europe than here, three-fourths of the people would starve.” He complains that the festivals of the church are so numerous that not ninety working days are left during the whole working season. The people, he says, ought to be compelled to build granaries to store their crops, instead of selling them in autumn for almost nothing, and every habitant should be required to keep two or three sheep. The intendant Champigny calls for seed of hemp and flax, and promises to visit the farms, and show the people the lands best suited for their culture. He thinks that favors should be granted to those who raise hemp and flax as well as to those who marry. Denonville is of opinion that each habitant should be compelled to raise a little hemp every year, and that the king should then buy it of him at a high price. [13] It will be well, he says, to make use of severity, while, at the same time, holding out a hope of gain; and he begs that weavers be sent out to teach the women and girls, who spend the winter in idleness, how to weave and spin. Weaving and spinning, however, as well as the culture of hemp and flax, were neglected till 1705, when the loss of a ship laden with goods for the colony gave the spur to home industry; and Madame de Repentigny set the example of making a kind of coarse blanket of nettle and linden bark. [14]

[13: Denonville au Ministre, 13 Nov.. 1685]

[14: Beauharnois et Raudot au Ministre, 1705.]

The jealousy of colonial manufactures shown by England appears but rarely in the relations of France with Canada. According to its light, the French government usually did its best to stimulate Canadian industry, with what results we have just seen. There was afterwards some improvement. In 1714, the intendant Bégon reported that coarse fabrics of wool and linen were made; that the sisters of the congregation wore cloth for their own habits as good as the same stuffs in France; that black cloth was made for priests, and blue cloth for the pupils of the colleges. The inhabitants, he says, have been taught these arts by necessity. They were naturally adroit at handiwork of all kinds; and during the last half century of the French rule, when the population had settled into comparative stability, many of the mechanic arts were practiced with success, notwithstanding the assertion of the Abbé La Tour that everything but bread and meat had still to be brought from France. This change may be said to date from the peace of Utrecht, or a few years before it. At that time, one Duplessis had a new vessel on the stocks. Catalogne, who states the fact, calls it the beginning of ship-building in Canada, evidently ignorant that Talon had made a fruitless beginning more than forty years before.

Of the arts of ornament not much could have been expected; but, strangely enough, they were in somewhat better condition than the useful arts. The nuns of the Hôtel-Dieu made artificial flowers for altars and shrines, under the direction of Mother-Juchereau; [15] and the boys of the seminary were taught to make carvings in wood for the decoration of churches. [16] Pierre, son of the merchant Le Ber, had a turn for painting, and made religious pictures, described as very indifferent. [17] His sister Jeanne, an enthusiastic devotee, made embroideries for vestments and altars, and her work was much admired.

[15: Juchereau, Hist, de l’Hôtel-Dieu, 244.]

[16: Abeille, II., 13.]

[17: Faillon, Vie de Mlle. Le Ber, 331.]

The colonial finances were not prosperous. In the absence of coin, beaver-skins long served as currency. In 1669, the council declared wheat a legal tender, at four francs the minot or three French bushels; [18] and, five years later, all creditors were ordered to receive moose-skins in payment at the market rate. [19] Coin would not remain in the colony. If the company or the king sent any thither, it went back in the returning ships. The government devised a remedy. A coinage was ordered for Canada one-fourth less in value than that of France. Thus the Canadian livre or franc was worth, in reality, fifteen sous instead of twenty. [20] This shallow expedient produced only a nominal rise of prices, and coin fled the colony as before.

[18: Edits et Ord., II. 47.]

[19: Ibid., II. 55.]

[20: This device was of very early date. See Boucher, Hist. Véritable chap, xiv]

– The Old Regime In Canada, Chapter 17 by Francis Parkman

The below is from Francis Parkman’s Introduction.

If, at times, it may seem that range has been allowed to fancy, it is so in appearance only; since the minutest details of narrative or description rest on authentic documents or on personal observation.

Faithfulness to the truth of history involves far more than a research, however patient and scrupulous, into special facts. Such facts may be detailed with the most minute exactness, and yet the narrative, taken as a whole, may be unmeaning or untrue. The narrator must seek to imbue himself with the life and spirit of the time. He must study events in their bearings near and remote; in the character, habits, and manners of those who took part in them, he must himself be, as it were, a sharer or a spectator of the action he describes.

With respect to that special research which, if inadequate, is still in the most emphatic sense indispensable, it has been the writer’s aim to exhaust the existing material of every subject treated. While it would be folly to claim success in such an attempt, he has reason to hope that, so far at least as relates to the present volume, nothing of much importance has escaped him. With respect to the general preparation just alluded to, he has long been too fond of his theme to neglect any means within his reach of making his conception of it distinct and true.

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