unfortunate policy.  Thereupon Laval crossed the ocean to France, obtained the governor’s recall, and succeeded, though with some difficulty, in maintaining the former prohibition.  In 1663 the Sovereign Council enacted an ordinance strictly forbidding the selling or giving of brandy to Indians directly or indirectly, for any reason or pretence whatsoever.  The penalty for the offence was a fine of three hundred livres, payable one-third to the informers, one-third to the Hotel-Dieu, and one-third to the public treasury.  And for a second offence the punishment was whipping or banishment.  In 1667, after the Sovereign Council had been finally reorganized, the prohibition was renewed, on a motion of attorney-general Bourdon, under the same penalties as before, and it devolved many times upon the council to condemn transgressors of this ordinance to fines, imprisonment, or corporal punishment.  Talon was present and concurred in these condemnations.  But gradually his mind changed.  He was becoming daily more impressed with the material benefits of the brandy traffic and less convinced of its moral danger.  He was besides displeased with the bishop’s excommunication.  In his view it was an encroachment of the spiritual upon the civil power.  Under the influence of these feelings he came to consider prohibition of the liquor traffic as a mistake, damaging to the trade and progress of the colony and to French influence over the Indian tribes.  These were the arguments put forward by the supporters of the traffic.  According to them, to refuse brandy to the Indians was to let the English monopolize the profitable fur trade, and therefore to check the development of New France.  The fur trade provided an abundance of beaver skins, which formed a most convenient medium of exchange.  The possession of these gave an impetus to trade, and brought to Canada a number of merchants and others who were consumers of natural products and money spenders.  Moreover, in Canada furs were the main article of exportation.  Their abundance swelled the public revenue and increased the number of ships employed in the Canadian trade.  And last, to use an argument of a higher order, the brandy traffic, in fostering trade with the Indian tribes, kept them in the bonds of an alliance and strengthened the political situation of France in North America.

The above fairly, we think, represents the substance of the plea made by the supporters of the liquor traffic.  Such indeed were the arguments used by the traders, finally accepted by Talon, developed in after years by Frontenac, approved by Colbert on many occasions; such was the political and commercial wisdom of those who thought mainly of the material progress of New France.  To those arguments Laval, the clergy, and many enlightened persons interested in the public welfare had a double answer.  First, there was at stake a question of principle important enough to be the sole ground of a decision.  Was it right, for the sake of a material benefit, to outrage natural