Champigny and
his party denounced this system; urged that the forest posts should be
abandoned, that both garrisons and traders should be recalled, that
the French should not go to the Indians, but that the Indians should
come to the French, that the fur trade of the interior should be
carried on at Montreal, and that no Frenchman should be allowed to
leave the settled limits of the colony, except the Jesuits and persons
in their service, who, as Champigny insisted, would be able to keep
the Indians in the French interest without the help of soldiers.
Strong personal interests were active on both sides, and gave
bitterness to the strife. Frontenac, who always stood by his friends,
had placed Tonty, La Foret, La Motte-Cadillac, and others of their
number, in charge of the forest posts, where they made good profit by
trade. Moreover, the licenses for trading expeditions into the
interior were now, as before, used largely for the benefit of his
favorites. The Jesuits also declared, and with some truth, that the
forest posts were centres of debauchery, and that the licenses for the
western trade were the ruin of innumerable young men. All these
reasons were laid before the king. In vain Frontenac represented that
to abandon the forest posts would be to resign to the English the
trade of the interior country, and at last the country itself.
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