Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/35

The Office of Intendant in New France 2 5 later of fifteen) members, the intendant had really a very consider- able power at the council-board ; for the members of the council usually grouped themselves into two factions, one of which looked to him as its leader. This was especially true during the first three or four decades following the establishment of the conciliar ad- ministration, when the interests of religion and commerce in the colony came into conflict, and the question of the liquor traffic with the Indians split the colonial population into two hostile camps. With a majority of the councillors behind him, the intendant was in a position absolutely to dominate the civil affairs of the colony. 2. More important, however, were the duties and powers of the intendant as an independent administrative and judicial officer. In this field he was not a subordinate of the governor, nor were his actions subject to review by the council ; his responsibility was to the king alone. ^ His communications and reports did not have to pass through the hands of the governor, but were made directly to the minister — a privilege which was looked upon as affording a good link in the chain of checks and balances. One result was, of course, that when the governor and the intendant quarrelled they flayed each other unmercifully in their despatches to their common superiors.^ While it was essential .to the progress and quiet of the colony that the two officials should not come into a too violent an- tagonism, it may reasonably be inferred from the tenor of their in- structions that the complete harmony of the two officials was neither ' The respective jurisdictions of governor and intendant in the colony were never precisely defined by any royal edict, though the issue of such would have prevented many of the disagreements which arose from time to time between the two officials. In the Correspondance Generale is preserved an interesting docu- ment entitled, " Difficulte qu'il plaira a M. le Marquis de Seignelay de decider sur les fonctions de gouverneur et intendant de Canada ". This document comprises a list of questions evidently submitted to the king in 1684, with the answers of His Majesty written in the margin. One of these answers is as follows : " Sur le fait de la guerre et des armes le gouverneur doit ordonner ce qu'il estimera a propos. Et pour ce qui est de la justice et de la police a I'egard des sauvages meslez avec les Francois I'intendant et le conseil souvrain en doivent connoistre. Sa Majeste ne veut pas que I'intendant donne aucun ordre aux gouverneurs, mais quand il'y a quelque choses qui regarde le bien de son service il peut leur escrire et les gouverneurs a cet egard doivent suivre ses avis" (April 10, 1684, Correspon- dance Generale, VI. 322). The governor, nevertheless, sometimes claimed the right to intervene in purely civil matters. On one occasion Governor Courcelle wrote on the margin of an ordinance passed by the council, and relating wholly to a civil matter, the following terse comment : " Cette Ordonnance estant contre I'autorite du Gouverneur et bien public, je ne I'ay pas voulu signer" (lugements et Deliberations du Conseil Souverain dc la Nonvelle-France, Quebec, 1885, I. 448). = See the despatches of Frontenac and Duchesneau during the years 167S- 1682, in Correspondance Generale. V.