bring the savages into the French colony and to prevent them from taking
their furs to foreigners."

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
cau