It was decided that M. Chartier (de Lotbiniere) should be so maintained, and he was duly confirmed as lieutenant civil et criminel on January 10, 1667.  He had jurisdiction in the first instance over all cases civil and criminal in the Quebec district and in appeal from the judgments of the local or seigneurial judges.  The Sovereign Council acted as a court of appeal in the last resort, except in cases where the parties made a supreme appeal to the King’s Council of State in France.  In 1669 Talon wrote a memorandum in which we find these words:  ’Justice is administered in the first instance by judges in the seigneuries; then by a lieutenant civil and criminal appointed by the company in each of the jurisdictions of Quebec and Three Rivers; and above all by the Sovereign Council, which in the last instance decides all cases where an appeal lies.’  At Montreal there was a lieutenant civil and criminal appointed by the Sulpicians, seigneurs of the island.  In 1667 there were seigneurial judges in the seigneuries of Beaupre, Beauport, Notre-Dame-des-Anges, Cap-de-la-Magdeleine.

It is interesting to find that Talon attempted to establish a method of settlement out of court, the principle of which was accepted by the legislature of the province of Quebec more than two centuries later.  What was called the amiable composition of the French intendant may be regarded as a first edition of the law passed at Quebec in 1899, which provides for conciliation or arbitration proceedings before a lawsuit is begun. [Footnote:  62 Vict. cap. 54, p. 271.] Talon also introduced an equitable system of land registration.

In the proceedings of the Sovereign Council, of which Talon at this time was the inspiring mind, we may see reflected the condition and internal life of the colony.  Decrees for the regulation of trade were frequent.  Commercial freedom was unknown.  Under the administration of the governor Avaugour (1661-63) a tariff of prices had been published, which the merchants were compelled to observe.  Again, in 1664 the council had decided that the merchants might charge fifty-five per cent above cost price on dry goods, one hundred per cent on the more expensive wines and spirits, and one hundred and twenty per cent on the cheaper, the cost price in France being determined by the invoice-bills.  In 1666 a new tariff was enacted by the council, in which the price of one hogshead of Bordeaux wine was fixed at eighty livres, and that of Brazil tobacco at forty sous a pound.  In 1667 again changes took place:  on dry goods the merchants were allowed seventy per cent above cost; on spirits and wines, one hundred or one hundred and twenty per cent as in 1664.  The merchants did not accept these rulings without protest.  In 1664 the most important Quebec trader, Charles Aubert de la Chesnaye, was prosecuted for contravention, and made this bold declaration in favour of commercial freedom:  ’I have always deemed that I had a right to the free disposal