supremacy in the textile and related industries.

If we turn to the field of commerce, the spirit of restriction appears
as prominently as in the domain of industry. The Company of One
Hundred Associates, during its thirty years of control, allowed no one
to proceed to Quebec except on its own vessels, and nothing could be
imported except through its storehouses. Its successor, the Company of
the West Indies, which dominated colonial commerce from 1664 to
1669, was not a whit more liberal. Even under the system of royal
government, the consistent keynotes of commercial policy were
regulation, paternalism, and monopoly.

This is in no sense surprising. Spain had first given to the world
this policy of commercial constraint and the great enrichment of the
Spanish monarchy was everywhere held to be its outcome. France, by
reason of her similar political and administrative system, found it
easy to drift into the wake of the Spanish example. The official
classes in England and Holland would fain have had these countries do
likewise, but private initiative and enterprise proved too strong in
the end. As for New France, there were spells during which the grip of
the trading monopolies relaxed, but these lucid intervals were never
very long. When the Company of the West Indies became bankrupt in
1669, the trade between New France and Old was ostensibly thrown open
to the traders of both countries, and for the moment this freedom gave
Colbert and his Canadian apostle, Talon, an opportunity to carry out
their ideas of commercial upbuilding.

The great minister had as his ideal the creation of a huge fleet of
merchant vessels, built and operated by Frenchmen, which would ply to
all quarters of the globe, bringing raw products to France and taking