84 THE FALL OF NEW FRANCE 
tell tales about him to the minister of state at home. 
Another part of the intendant’s duty was to travel 
about the colony and pry into the affairs of every 
household, in order that whatever was wrong might be 
set right, and the wants of the people provided for. 
We can imagine the wrath and the hooting which 
such an official would have provoked in any English 
colony that ever existed; but in Canada this sort of 
thing was thought to be quite proper. No enterprise 
of any sort was undertaken without an appeal to the 
king for aid. Bounties were attached to all kinds of 
trades, in order to encourage them, and at the same 
time it was attempted to prescribe, as far as possible, 
the exact percentage of profit which might be legally 
earned. If people got out of work, they were to be 
supplied with work at the cost of the government. In 
order to foster a taste for ship-building, the king had 
ships built at his own expense; yet at the same time 
the ships which came over from France often went 
home empty, save those which by royal edict were 
allowed to carry furs or lumber. In order to encour- 
age the raising of hemp, it was proposed that all hemp 
grown within the colony should be purchased by the 
king at a high price. To encourage agriculture in 
general, the king sent over seeds of all sorts to be dis- 
tributed among the farmers gratis, while the intendant 
went about to see that the seeds were duly planted. 
While native industry was thus sedulously fostered, 
foreign trade was absolutely prohibited. No mild pro- 
hibitory tariff, such as our modern protectionists 
advocate, was resorted to, but foreign goods were 
seized wherever found and solemnly burned in the 
streets. The interests of landed property were also 
