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The Syndic was an officer elected by the inhabitants of the community to which he belonged, to manage its affairs. Hence a slight ingredient of liberty was introduced into the new organization. The colony, since the transfer of the fur-trade, had become a resident corporation of merchants, with the Governor and Council at its head.
If the government of the United States could not acquire a foothold north of the Ohio, the British forts were safe, and the trade in peltries secure. The result of this policy was of course foreseen. It meant war between the United States and the Indian tribes. But in the meantime England would hold the fur-trade.
These posts were to cost the Crown nothing; since by a device common in such cases, those who built and maintained them were to be paid by a monopoly of the fur-trade in the adjacent countries. It was admitted, however, that the subsequent exploration must be at the charge of the government, and would require fifty good men, at 300 francs a year each, besides equipment and supplies.
In the struggle the English colonies had one significant moral advantage: they desired the land that they might occupy it; the French wished only to hold it vacant for some future and remote settlement, or to control the fur-trade. For many years the final conflict had been postponed by the existence of a barrier state, the Iroquois, or Six Nations of Indians.
Free Trader Spear was a character, and I afterward learned that he was an Oxford University man, who, having been "ploughed," left for Canada, entered the service of the Hudson's Bay Company, and had finally been moved to Fort Consolation where he served seven years, learned the fur-trade business, and resigned to become a "free trader" as all fur traders are called who carry on business in opposition to "The Great Company."
It was the fur-trade that mainly led to the discovery of the great West and to the opening up of the Mississippi valley. But always by the side of the fur-trader and explorer we see the Recollet or Jesuit missionary pressing forward with the cross in his hands and offering his life that the savage might learn the lessons of his Faith.
Then, as the fishing-folk grew familiar with Newfoundland and the continental shores, their attention was drawn to the skins worn by the natives. What prices they would bring in France! Here was a field that would make richer returns than rough and perilous fishing. In this way the fur-trade, which became the life of Canada, had its beginning.
There were irritating questions to be settled with England about boundaries, and the occupation of military posts which she had agreed to evacuate. There were British intrigues with Indians in the interior to make disturbance, while on the borders the fur-trade and fisheries were unsettled.
They burned, hacked, and devoured the neophytes; exterminated whole villages at once; destroyed the nations whom the Fathers hoped to convert; and ruined that sure ally of the missions, the fur-trade. Not the most hideous nightmare of a fevered brain could transcend in horror the real and waking perils with which they beset the path of these intrepid priests.
They built rude huts along the shores of Anticosti, where, at that day, the bison, it is said, could be seen wallowing in the sands. They outraged the Indians; they quarrelled with each other; and this infancy of the Canadian fur-trade showed rich promise of the disorders which marked its riper growth.