Other statistics may fittingly be given here.  During the period under consideration, the West India Company sent to Canada for the king’s account many horses and sheep.  These were badly needed in the colony.  Since its first settlement there had been seen in New France only a single horse, one which had been presented by the Company of One Hundred Associates to M. de Montmagny, the governor who succeeded Champlain.  But from 1665 to 1668 forty-one mares and stallions and eighty sheep were brought from France.  Domestic animals continued to be introduced until 1672.  Fourteen horses and fifty sheep were sent in 1669, thirteen horses in 1670, the same number of horses and a few asses in 1671.  So that during these seven years Canada received from France about eighty horses.  Twenty years afterwards, in 1692, there were four hundred horses in the colony.  In 1698 there were six hundred and eighty-four; and in 1709 the number had so increased that the intendant Raudot issued an ordinance to restrain the multiplication of these animals.

From what has been said it will be seen that this period of Canadian history was one of great progress.  What Colbert was to France Talon was to New France.  While the great minister, in the full light of European publicity, was gaining fame as a financial reformer and the reviver of trade and industry, the sagacious and painstaking intendant in his remote corner of the globe was laying the foundations of an economic and political system, and opening to the young country the road of commercial, industrial, and maritime progress.  Talon was a colonial Colbert.  What the latter did in a wide sphere and with ample means, the former was trying to do on a small scale and with limited resources.  Both have deserved a place of honour in Canadian annals.

CHAPTER V

THE INTENDANT AND THE SOVEREIGN COUNCIL

In the preceding chapter a sketch has been given of Talon’s endeavours to promote colonization, agriculture, shipbuilding, and commerce, to increase the population, and to foster generally the prosperity of New France.  Let us now see how he provided for the good administration and internal order of the colony.

In 1666 he had prepared and submitted to Tracy and Courcelle a series of rules and enactments relating to various important matters, one of which was the administration of justice.  Talon wished to simplify the procedure; to make justice speedy, accessible to all, and inexpensive.  In each parish he proposed to establish judges having the power to hear and decide in the first instance all civil cases involving not more than ten livres.  In addition, there would be four judges at Quebec, and appeals might be taken before three of them from all decisions given by the local judges—­’unless,’ Talon added, ’it be thought more advisable to maintain the Sieur Chartier in his charge of lieutenant-general, to which he has been appointed by the West India Company.’