We have already seen something of his views for the administration of New France.  He would have it emancipated from the jurisdiction of the West India Company; he tried also to impress on the king and his minister the advisability of augmenting the population in order to develop the resources of the colony—­in a word, he sought to lay the foundations of a flourishing state.  Undoubtedly Colbert wished to help and strengthen New France, but he seemed to think that Talon’s aim was too ambitious.  In one of his letters the intendant had gone the length of submitting a plan f or the acquisition of New Netherlands, which had been conquered by the English in 1664.  He suggested that, in the negotiations for peace between France, England, and Holland, Louis XIV might stipulate for the restoration to Holland of its colony, and in the meantime come to an understanding with the States-General for its cession to France.  Annexation to Canada would follow.  But Colbert thought that Talon was too bold.  The intendant had spoken of New France as likely to become a great kingdom.  In answer, the minister said that the king saw many obstacles to the fulfilment of these expectations.  To create on the shores of the St Lawrence an important state would require much emigration from France, and it would not be wise to draw so many people from the kingdom—­to ’unpeople France for the purpose of peopling Canada.’  Moreover if too many colonists came to Canada in one season, the area already under cultivation would not produce enough to feed the increased population, and great hardship would follow.  Evidently Colbert did not here display his usual insight.  Talon never had in mind the unpeopling of France.  He meant simply that if the home government would undertake to send out a few hundred settlers every year, the result would be the creation of a strong and prosperous nation on the shores of the St Lawrence.  The addition of five hundred immigrants annually during the whole period of Louis XIV’s reign would have given Canada in 1700 a population of five hundred thousand.  It was thought that the mother country could not spare so many; and yet the cost in men to France of a single battle, the bloody victory of Senef in 1674, was eight thousand French soldiers.  The wars of Louis XIV killed ten times more men than the systematic colonization of Canada would have taken from the mother country.  The second objection raised by Colbert was no better founded than the first.  Talon did not ask for the immigration of more colonists than the country could feed.  But he rightly thought that with peace assured the colony could produce food enough for a very numerous population, and that increase in production would speedily follow increase in numbers.

It must not be supposed that Colbert was indifferent to the development of New France.  No other minister of the French king did more for Canada.  It was under his administration that the strength which enabled the colony so long to survive its subsequent trials was acquired.  But Colbert was entangled in the intricacies of European politics.  Obliged to co-operate in ventures which in his heart he condemned, and which disturbed him in his work of financial and administrative reform, he yielded sometimes to the fear of weakening the trunk of the old tree by encouraging the growth of the young shoots.