We cannot help being surprised at such a judgment when we read over the memoirs of the time, which all agree in deploring the sad results of this traffic.  The most crying injustice, the most revolting immorality, the ruin of families, settlements devastated by drunkenness, agriculture abandoned, the robust portion of the population ruining its health in profitless expeditions:  such were some of the most horrible fruits of alcohol.  And what do we find as a compensation for so many evils?  A few dozen rascals enriched, returning to squander in France a fortune shamefully acquired.  And let it not be objected that, if the Indians had not been able to purchase the wherewithal to satisfy their terrible passion for strong drink, they would have carried their furs to the English or the Dutch, for it was proven that the offer of Governor Andros, to forbid the sale of brandy to the savages in New England on condition that the French would act likewise in New France, was formally rejected.  “To-day when the passions of the time have long been silent,” says the Abbe Ferland, “it is impossible not to admire the energy displayed by the noble bishop, imploring the pity of the monarch for the savages of New France with all the courage shown by Las Casas, when he pleaded the cause of the aborigines of Spanish America.  Disdaining the hypocritical outcries of those men who prostituted the name of commerce to cover their speculations and their rapine, he exposed himself to scorn and persecution in order to save the remnant of those indigenous American tribes, to protect his flock from the moral contagion which threatened to weigh upon it, and to lead into the right path the young men who were going to ruin among the savage tribes.”

The worthy bishop desired to prevent the laxity of the sale of brandy that might result from the declaration of the Committee of Twenty-four, and in the autumn of 1678 he set out again for France.  To avoid a journey so fatiguing, he might easily have found excuses in the rest needed after a difficult pastoral expedition which he had just concluded, in the labours of his seminary which demanded his presence, and especially in the bad state of his health; but is not the first duty of a leader always to stand in the breach, and to give to all the example of self-sacrifice?  A report from his hand on the disorders caused by the traffic in strong liquors would perhaps have obtained a fortunate result, but thinking that his presence at the court would be still more efficacious, he set out.  He managed to find in his charity and the goodness of his heart such eloquent words to depict the evils wrought upon the Church in Canada by the scourge of intoxication, that Louis XIV was moved, and commissioned his confessor, Father La Chaise, to examine the question conjointly with the Archbishop of Paris.  According to their advice, the king expressly forbade the French to carry intoxicating liquors to the savages in their dwellings or in the