where he had full opportunity to become acquainted with a state of
things to which his attention had already been directed. This state of
things was as follows:--When the intendant, Talon, came for the second
time to Canada, in 1669, an officer named Perrot, who had married his
niece, came with him. Perrot, anxious to turn to account the influence
of his wife's relative, looked about him for some post of honor and
profit, and quickly discovered that the government of Montreal was
vacant. The priests of St. Sulpice, feudal owners of the place, had
the right of appointing their own governor. Talon advised them to
choose Perrot, who thereupon received the desired commission, which,
however, was revocable at the will of those who had granted it. The
new governor, therefore, begged another commission from the king, and
after a little delay he obtained it. Thus he became, in some measure,
independent of the priests, who, if they wished to rid themselves of
him, must first gain the royal consent.

Perrot, as he had doubtless foreseen, found himself in an excellent
position for making money. The tribes of the upper lakes, and all the
neighboring regions, brought down their furs every summer to the
annual fair at Montreal. Perrot took his measures accordingly. On the
island which still bears his name, lying above Montreal and directly
in the route of the descending savages, he built a storehouse, and
placed it in charge of a retired lieutenant named Brucy, who stopped
the Indians on their way, and carried on an active trade with them, to
the great profit of himself and his associate, and the great loss of
the merchants in the settlements below. This was not all. Perrot
connived at the desertion of his own soldiers, who escaped to the
woods, became _coureurs de bois_, or bush-rangers, traded with the
Indians in their villages, and shared their gains with their
commander. Many others, too, of these forest rovers, outlawed by royal