La Salle and the discovery of the great West - North Central ...

110 PARTY STRIFE. [1678admitted that they carried on a trade, but deniedthat they gained so much by it as was commonlysupposed. 1The memoir proceeds to affirm that they tradelargely with the Sioux at Ste. Marie, and with othertribes at Michilimackinac, and thatthey are mastersof the trade of that region, where the forts are intheir possession. 2 An Indian said, in full council,at Quebec, that he had prayed and been a Christianas long as the Jesuits would stay and teach him, butsince no more beaver were left in his country, themissionaries were gone also. The Jesuits, pursuesthe memoir, will have no priests but themselves intheir missions, and call them all Jansenists, notexcepting the priests of St. Sulpice.The bishop is next accused of harshness andintolerance, as well as of growing rich by tithes, andeven by trade, in which it is affirmed he has a covertinterest. 3 It is added that there exists in Quebec,under the auspices of the Jesuits, an association1 " Pour vou8 parler franchement, ils [les Jesuites] songent autanta la conversion du Castor qu'a celle des ames." — Lettre de Frontenaca Colbert, 2 Nov., 1672.In his despatch of the next year, he says that the Jesuits oughtto content themselves with instructing the Indians in their old missions,instead of neglecting them to make new ones in countrieswhere there are " more beaver-skins to gain than souls to save."2These forts were built by them, and were necessary to the securityof their missions.8 Francois Xavier de Laval-Montmorency, first bishop of Quebec,was a prelate of austere character. His memory is cherishedin Canada by adherents of the Jesuits and all ultramontaneCatholicg.