1696-98.] PARTIES IN CANADA. 419 



not go to the Indians, but that the Indians should 

 come to the French, that the fur trade of the inte- 

 rior should be carried on at Montreal, and that no 

 Frenchman should be allowed to leave the settled 

 limits of the colony, except the Jesuits and persons 

 in their service, who, as Champigny insisted, would 

 be able to keep the Indians in the French interest 

 without the help of soldiers. 



Strong personal interests were active on both 

 sides, and gave bitterness to the strife. Frontenac, 

 who always stood by his friends, had placed Tonty, 

 La Foret, La Motte-Cadillac, and others of their 

 number, in charge of the forest posts, where they 

 made good profit by trade. Moreover, the licenses 

 for trading expeditions into the interior were now, 

 as before, used largely for the benefit of his favor- 

 ites. The Jesuits also declared, and with some 

 truth, that the forest posts were centres of de- 

 bauchery, and that the licenses for the western 

 trade were the ruin of innumerable young men. 

 All these reasons were laid before the king. In 

 vain Frontenac represented that to abandon the 

 forest posts would be to resign to the English the 

 trade of the interior country, and at last the coun- 

 try itself. The royal ear was open to his oppo- 

 nents, and the royal instincts reinforced their 

 arguments. The king, enamoured of subordina- 

 tion and order, wished to govern Canada as he 

 governed a province of France ; and this could be 

 done only by keeping the population within pre- 

 scribed bounds. Therefore, he commanded that 

 licenses for the forest trade should cease, that the 



