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84 a body of pioneers or merchant adventurers and leaving them to plant settlements or factories by their own resources. The expeditions were not only authorized, but energetically promoted by the government, with the result that the governing classes insisted on sharing the investment or taking their part in the speculations, with an eye to the benefits promised in this world and the next. All the administrative and military commands were distributed among the noblesse; and among the hundred associates of the Company of New France we find thirty seigneurs de la cour, besides a certain number of ecclesiastic and even princely dignitaries, who were represented on the board by their secretaries.

No chartered association for the single purpose of trade, like the English or Dutch East India Companies, was founded by Richelieu, nor could any such company have been launched upon the system that has just been described. The French mercantile community demurred to conditions which placed all these corporations so completely under the paternal supervision of priests, nobles, and high officials; they also betrayed a perverse mistrust of the religious and propagandist element. They cautiously suggested that in commercial transactions spiritual directorship and ministerial supervision were not altogether desirable. The Chambers of Rouen and Marseilles recommended that at no price, and on no pretext, should the captains of their vessels be nominated by the king; they complained of French consuls abroad and revenue officers at home as equally