Talon sailed from La Rochelle on July 15.  He was accompanied by Captain Francois Marie Perrot, one of the six commanders of the companies sent to Canada; by Fathers Romuald Papillion, Hilarion Guesnin, Cesaire Herveau, and Brother Cosme Graveran.  Perrot was married to the niece of the intendant.  The friars belonged to the Franciscan order and to the particular branch of it known under the name of Recollets.  It had been thought good to reintroduce into Canada the religious society whose priests had been the first to preach the Gospel there.  The intendant’s former voyage from France to Canada had lasted one hundred and seventeen days, so that, allowing for all probable delays, he might expect to reach Quebec by the end of October at the latest.  But it was decreed that he was not to see New France this year.  His ship was assailed by a series of storms and hurricanes and driven far from her right course.  After three months of exertion and suffering the captain was obliged to make for the port of Lisbon.  There the ship was revictualled; but, having sailed again, she struck upon a rocky shoal at a distance of three leagues from Lisbon and was totally wrecked.  Talon and his companions were fortunately saved, and found themselves back in France at the beginning of the year 1670.

In the meantime what was going on in Canada?  Talon’s successor, M. de Bouteroue, was upright and intelligent, but without Talon’s masterly gifts and activity.  He attended principally to the administration of justice.  At the judicial sittings of the Sovereign Council he was almost always present; he himself heard many cases, and often acted as judge-advocate.  On his advice the council gave out an ordinance fixing the price of wheat.  There had been complaints that sometimes creditors refused to accept wheat in payment, or accepted it only at a price unreasonably low.  So it was enacted that for three months after the promulgation of the decree debtors should be at liberty to pay their creditors in wheat of good quality at the price of four livres per bushel.

The evil consequences of the previous action of the council in freeing the brandy traffic were already manifest.  The scourge of the coureurs de bois, later to prove so damaging to the colony, was beginning to be felt.  A new ordinance now prohibited the practice of going into the woods with liquor to meet the Indians and trade with them.  This ordinance also enjoined sobriety upon the Indians and held them responsible for the drunkenness of their squaws, while the French were forbidden to drink with them.  Hunting in the forest was only allowed by leave of the commandant of the district or the nearest judge, to whose inspection all luggage and goods for trade must be submitted.  Brandy might be taken on these expeditions, but no more than one pot per man for eight days.  The penalty for violating any of these provisions of the law was confiscation, with a fine of fifty livres for a first offence and corporal punishment for a second.  Thus, but in vain, did the leaders of New France attempt to stay the progress of Indian debauchery.