Colbert, in fact, was too strongly prejudiced against the clergy of Canada by the reports of Talon and Frontenac.  These three men were wholly devoted to the interests of France as well as to those of the colony, but they judged things only from a purely human point of view.  “I see,” Colbert wrote in 1677 to Commissioner Duchesneau, “that the Count de Frontenac is of the opinion that the trade with the savages in drinks, called in that country intoxicating, does not cause the great and terrible evils to which Mgr. de Quebec takes exception, and even that it is necessary for commerce; and I see that you are of an opinion contrary to this.  In this matter, before taking sides with the bishop, you should enquire very exactly as to the number of murders, assassinations, cases of arson, and other excesses caused by brandy ... and send me the proof of this.  If these deeds had been continual, His Majesty would have issued a most severe and vigorous prohibition to all his subjects against engaging in this traffic.  But, in the absence of this proof, and seeing, moreover, the contrary in the evidence and reports of those that have been longest in this country, it is not just, and the general policy of a state opposes in this the feelings of a bishop who, to prevent the abuses that a small number of private individuals may make of a thing good in itself, wishes to abolish trade in an article which greatly serves to attract commerce, and the savages themselves, to the orthodox Christians.”  Thus M. Dudouyt could not but fail in his mission, and he wrote to Mgr. de Laval that Colbert, while recognizing very frankly the devotion of the bishop and the missionaries, believed that they exaggerated the fatal results of the traffic.  The zealous collaborator of the Bishop of Quebec at the same time urged the prelate to suspend the spiritual penalties till then imposed upon the traders, in order to deprive the minister of every motive of bitterness against the clergy.

The bishop admitted the wisdom of this counsel, which he followed, and meanwhile the king, alarmed by a report from Commissioner Duchesneau, who shared the view of the missionaries, desired to investigate and come to a final decision on the question.  He therefore ordered the Count de Frontenac to choose in the colony twenty-four competent persons, and to commission them to examine the drawbacks to the sale of intoxicating liquors.  Unfortunately, the persons chosen for this enquiry were engaged in trade with the savages; their conclusions must necessarily be prejudiced.  They declared that “very few disorders arose from the traffic in brandy, among the natives of the country; that, moreover, the Dutch, by distributing intoxicating drinks to the Iroquois, attracted by this means the trade in beaver skins to Orange and Manhattan.  It was, therefore, absolutely necessary to allow the brandy trade in order to bring the savages into the French colony and to prevent them from taking their furs to foreigners.”