review and judgment. In all cases appeals were allowable to the king
himself, but the difficulty of communication with Europe in those days
practically confined such references to a few special causes. The
seigniors had also certain judicial or magisterial powers, but they
never acted except in very trivial cases. Torture was sometimes applied
to condemned felons as in France and other parts of the old world. On
the whole justice appears to have been honestly and fairly administered.

Parkman, in a terse sentence, sums up the conditions which fettered all
Canadian trade and industry, "A system of authority, monopoly and
exclusion in which the government, and not the individual, acted always
the foremost part." Whether it was a question of ship-building, of a
brewery or a tannery, of iron works or a new fishery, appeals must be
made in the first instance to the king for aid; and the people were
never taught to depend exclusively on their individual or associated
enterprise. At the time of the conquest, and in fact for many years
previously, the principal products of the country were beaver skins,
timber, agricultural products, fish, fish oil, ginseng (for some years
only), beer, cider, rug carpets, homespun cloths--made chiefly by the
inmates of the religious houses--soap, potash, leather, stoves, tools
and other iron manufactures--made in the St. Maurice forges--never a
profitable industry, whether carried on by companies or the government
itself. All these industries were fostered by the state, but, despite
all the encouragement they received, the total value of the exports,
principally furs, seal and other oils, lumber, peas, grain and ginseng
never exceeded 3,500,000 francs, or about one-tenth of the export trade
of the English colonies to Great Britain. Two-thirds of this amount
represented beaver skins, the profits on which were very fluctuating, on
account of the unwise regulations by which, the trade was constantly
crippled. This business was heavily taxed to meet the necessities of