r and by the Intendant were often contradictory, but even
where the two officials were agreed there was no certainty that their
counsel would be taken. With greater freedom and discretion the
colonial government could have accomplished much more in the way of
developing trade and industry; but for every step the acquiescence of
the home authorities had first to be secured. To obtain this consent
always entailed a great loss of time, and when the approval arrived
the opportunity too often had passed. From November until May there
was absolutely no communication between Quebec and Paris save that in
a great emergency, if France and England happened to be at peace, a
dispatch might be sent by dint of great hardship to Boston with a
precarious chance that it would get across to the French ambassador in
London. Ordinarily the officials sent their requests for instructions
by the home-going vessels from Quebec in the autumn and received their
answers by the ships which came in the following spring. If any plans
were formulated after the last ship sailed in October, it ordinarily
took eighteen months before the royal approval could be had for
putting them into effect. The routine machinery of paternalism thus
ran with exasperating slowness.

There was, however, one mitigating feature in the situation. The hand
of home authority was rigid and its beckonings were precise; but as
a practical matter it could be, and sometimes was, disregarded
altogether. Not that the colonial officials ever defied the King or
his ministers, or ever failed to profess their intent to follow the
royal instructions loyally and to the letter. They had a much safer
plan. When the provisions of a royal decree seemed impractical or
unwise, it was easy enough to let them stand unenforced. Such decrees
were duly registered in the records of the Sovereign Council at Quebec
and were then promptly pigeonholed so that no one outside the little
circle of officials at the Chateau de St. Louis ever heard of them.
In one case a new intendant on coming to the colony unearthed a royal
mandate of great importance which had been kept from public knowledge
for twenty years.

Absolutism, paternalism, and religious solidarity were characteristic
of both France and her colonies in the great century of overseas
expansion. There was no self-government, no freedom of individual
initiative, and very little heresy either at home or abroad.
The factors which made France strong