156 QUEBEC AXD ITS TEXAXTS. [1640. 



into the hands of this portion of its members. 

 They sought to evade obligations the fulfilment 

 of which would have ruined them. Instead of 

 sending out colonists, they granted lands with the 

 condition that the grantees should furnish a cer- 

 tain number of settlers to clear and till them, and 

 these were to be credited to the Company.-^ The 

 grantees took the land, but rarely fulfilled the 

 condition. Some of these grants were corrupt and 

 iniquitous. Thus, a son of Lauson, president of 

 the Company, received, in the name of a third 

 person, a tract of land on the south side of the St. 

 I<awrence of sixty leagues front. To this were 

 added all the islands in that river, excepting those 

 of Montreal and Orleans, together with the exclu- 

 sive right of fishing in it through its whole extent.^ 

 Lauson sent out not a smgle colonist to these vast 

 concessions. 



There w^as no real motive for emigration. Xo 

 persecution expelled the colonist from his home ; 

 for none but good Catholics were tolerated in Xew 

 France. The settler could not trade with the 

 Indians, except on condition of selling again to 

 the Company at a fixed price. He might hunt, 

 but he could not fish ; and he was forced to beg 



1 This appears in many early grants of the Company. Thus, in a 

 grant to Simon Le Maitre, Jan. 15, 1636, *' que les hommes que le dit 

 . . . fera passer en la X. F. tourneront a la decharge de la dite Com- 

 pagnie," etc., etc. — See Pieces sur la Tenure Seigneuriale, pubHshed by the 

 Canadian government, passim. 



2 Archives du Se'ininaire de Villemarie, cited by Faillon, I. 350. Lau- 

 son's father owned Montreal. The son's grant extended from the River 

 St. Francis to a point far above Montreal. — La Fontaine, Meirwire sur la 

 Famille de Lauson. 



