excuse, which passes with them for a complete justification, that at these times they are not free and not in their senses.”  Drunken savages are brutes, it is true, but were not the whites who fostered this fatal passion of intoxication more guilty still than the wretches whom they ignominiously urged on to vice?  Let us see what the same writer says of these corrupters.  “If it is difficult,” says he, “to explain the excesses of the savage, it is also difficult to understand the extent of the greed, the hypocrisy and the rascality of those who supply them with these drinks.  The facility for making immense profits which is afforded them by the ignorance and the passions of these people, and the certainty of impunity, are things which they cannot resist; the attraction of gain acts upon them as drunkenness does upon their victims.  How many crimes arise from the same source?  There is no mother who does not fear for her daughter, no husband who does not dread for his wife, a libertine armed with a bottle of brandy; they rob and pillage these wretches, who, stupefied by intoxication when they are not maddened by it, can neither refuse nor defend themselves.  There is no barrier which is not forced, no weakness which is not exploited, in these remote regions where, without either witnesses or masters, only the voice of brutal passion is listened to, every crime of which is inspired by a glass of brandy.  The French are worse in this respect than the savages.”

Governor d’Avaugour supported energetically the measures taken by Mgr. de Laval; unfortunately a regrettable incident destroyed the harmony between their two authorities.  Inspired by his good heart, the superior of the Jesuits, Father Lalemant, interceded with the governor in favour of a woman imprisoned for having infringed the prohibition of the sale of brandy to the Indians.  “If she is not to be punished,” brusquely replied d’Avaugour, “no one shall be punished henceforth!” And, as he made it a point of honour not to withdraw this unfortunate utterance, the traders profited by it.  From that time license was no longer bridled; the savages got drunk, the traders were enriched, and the colony was in jeopardy.  Sure of being supported by the governor, the merchants listened to neither bishop nor missionaries.  Grieved at seeing his prayers as powerless as his commands, Mgr. de Laval decided to carry his complaint to the foot of the throne, and he set sail for France in the autumn of 1662.  “Statesmen who place the freedom of commerce above morality of action,” says Jacques de Beaudoncourt, “still consider that the bishop was wrong, and see in this matter a fine opportunity to inveigh against the encroachments of the clergy; but whoever has at heart the cause of human dignity will not hesitate to take the side of the missionaries who sought to preserve the savages from the vices which have brought about their ruin and their disappearance.  The Montagnais race, which is still the most important in Canada, has been preserved by Catholicism from the vices and the misery which brought about so rapidly the extirpation of the savages.”