lands and trade. The real aim of the West India Company,
as he had learned, was to enforce its commercial monopoly
to the utmost; and become the only trading medium between
the colony and the mother country. Such a policy could
have but one result; it would put an end to private
enterprise and discourage immigration.

In spite of the company's apparent overlordship, Talon
thought that, as the king's agent, he was bound to exercise
the powers appertaining to his office for the good of
the colony. By the end of the year 1665 he had planned
a new settlement in the vicinity of Quebec on lands
included in the limits of the seigneury of Notre-Dame-
des-Anges at Charlesbourg, which he had withdrawn from
the grant to the Jesuits, under the king's authority.
This was the occasion of some friction between the Jesuits
and the intendant. Talon gave the necessary orders for
the erection of about forty dwellings which should be
ready to receive new settlers during the following year.
These were to be grouped in three adjacent villages named
Bourg-Royal, Bourg-la-Reine, and Bourg-Talon. We shall
learn more of them in a following chapter.

Another enterprise of the intendant was numbering the
people. Under his personal supervision, during the winter
of 1666-67, a general census of the colony was taken--the
first Canadian census of which we have any record. The
count showed, as we have already said, a total population
of 3215 in Canada at that time--2034 males and 1181
females. The married people numbered 1109, and there were