1672. Fourteen horses and fifty sheep were sent in 1669,
thirteen horses in 1670, the same number of horses and
a few asses in 1671. So that during these seven years
Canada received from France about eighty horses. Twenty
years afterwards, in 1692, there were four hundred horses
in the colony. In 1698 there were six hundred and
eighty-four; and in 1709 the number had so increased that
the intendant Raudot issued an ordinance to restrain the
multiplication of these animals.

From what has been said it will be seen that this period
of Canadian history was one of great progress. What
Colbert was to France Talon was to New France. While the
great minister, in the full light of European publicity,
was gaining fame as a financial reformer and the reviver
of trade and industry, the sagacious and painstaking
intendant in his remote corner of the globe was laying
the foundations of an economic and political system, and
opening to the young country the road of commercial,
industrial, and maritime progress. Talon was a colonial
Colbert. What the latter did in a wide sphere and with
ample means, the former was trying to do on a small scale
and with limited resources. Both have deserved a place
of honour in Canadian annals.




CHAPTER V