Letter by Reverend Father Etienne de Carheil to Monsieur Louis Hector de Callieres, governor [on conditions in the Upper Lakes in 1702]

              1696-1702] CARHEIL TO CALLI&RES 191
and to constrain him to succor our missions. These are reduced to such an extremity that we can no longer maintain them against an infinite multitude of evil acts—acts of brutality and violence; of injus¬ tice and impiety; of lewd and shameless conduct; of contempt and insults. To such acts the infamous and baleful trade in brandy gives rise everywhere, among all the nations up here,— where it is carried on by going from village to village, and by roving over the lakes with a prodigious quantity of brandy in barrels, without any restraint. Had his majesty but once seen What passes, both here and at mont- real, during the whole time while This wretched traffic goes on, I am sure that he would not for a moment hesitate, at the very first sight of it, to forbid it forever under the severest penalties.
In our despair there is no other step to take than to leave our missions and abandon them to the brandy traders, so that they may establish therein the do¬ main of their trade, of drunkenness, and of immoral¬ ity. That is What we shall propose to our Superiors in Canada and in franco, being Compelled thereto by the state of nselessness and inability to which we have been reduced by the permission given to carry on That deplorable trade — a permission that has been obtained from his majesty only by means of a pretext apparently Reasonable, but known to be false; a permission that he would not grant if They upon whom he relies for ascertaining the truth really made it Known to him As they themselves, and the whole of Canada with them, Know it; a permission, in fine, that is at once the climax and the source of all the evils that are now occurring in the country.. Especially does it cause the wrecks, of which we