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Duchesneau now asked him to retire from this position, producing as warrant his commission which stated that he should preside over the Council, 'in the absence of the said Sieur de Frontenac. Why this last clause should have been inserted one finds it hard to understand, for Colbert's subsequent letters place his intention beyond doubt.
That he did expect it, there is positive evidence, for a deposition is extant, taken at the instance of his enemy, the Intendant Duchesneau, in which three witnesses attest that the Governor, La Salle, his lieutenant La Forest, and one Boisseau, had formed a partnership to carry on the trade of Fort Frontenac. A curious incident occurred soon, after the building of the fort on Lake Ontario.
Let us now regard Frontenac's policy from his own point of view, and attempt to estimate what he had accomplished down to the date of his recall. However closely Laval and Duchesneau might seek to narrow Frontenac's sphere of action, there was one power they could not deny him. As commander of the king's troops in Canada he controlled all matters relating to colonial defence.
In the Sovereign Council these three dignitaries sat together, and so close was the connection of Church with State that not a month could pass without bringing to light some fresh matter which concerned them all. Broadly speaking, the differences between Frontenac and Laval were of more lasting moment than those between Frontenac and Duchesneau.
Let us now regard Frontenac's policy from his own point of view, and attempt to estimate what he had accomplished down to the date of his recall. However closely Laval and Duchesneau might seek to narrow Frontenac's sphere of action, there was one power they could not deny him. As commander of the king's troops in Canada he controlled all matters relating to colonial defence.
"I see," Colbert wrote in 1677 to Commissioner Duchesneau, "that the Count de Frontenac is of the opinion that the trade with the savages in drinks, called in that country intoxicating, does not cause the great and terrible evils to which Mgr. de Québec takes exception, and even that it is necessary for commerce; and I see that you are of an opinion contrary to this.
For sixteen years Laval had been a great person in Canada, and Duchesneau had come to occupy the post which Talon had made almost more important than that of governor.
Had Duchesneau succeeded in his efforts, Du Lhut would have been severely punished, and probably excluded from the West for the remainder of his life. Thanks to Frontenac's support, he became the mainstay of French interests from Lake Ontario to the Mississippi.
So long as he kept within the bounds of reason and decency, the government raised no objection. Frontenac certainly was not a governor who pillaged the colony to feather his own nest. If he took profits, they were not thought excessive by any one except Duchesneau. The king recalled him not because he was venal, but because he was quarrelsome.
A personal element was also added, for in almost every letter to the minister Frontenac and Duchesneau accused each other of taking an illicit profit from beaver skins. In support of these accusations the most minute details are given. Duchesneau even charged Frontenac with spreading a report among the Indians of the Great Lakes that a pestilence had broken out in Montreal.
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