The West Indies. 91 monopoly was made part of the Domaine ^Occident in the form of a tax of a quarter of the beaver-skins and a tenth of the moose. The Crown took also 10 per cent, on wine and brandy, and five sous on the pound of tobacco entering the colony ; all else was free. The farm of the Crown's rights was let out for a composition to any adjudicataire who would take it. The colony ascribed its ruin to the farmers'* system, and agreed to take over the farm for 70,000 limes a year. In a short time however the colony ran up a heavy debt, and the farm passed under the control of a company (1706-17). The 25 per cent, on beaver was a mistake of the most serious kind ; for it robbed the colony of the very trade which it was most important to foster. The English, who had shown no aptitude for the trade, were encouraged to take it up; for the Indians, finding a better exchange there than in Canada, carried their furs to the English colonies. Ships that came to Canada laden with French goods sought a return cargo by going to the West Indies, taking in perhaps some coal at Cape Breton to be used in the sugar refineries of the islands. Nothing had been made even of the pitch and tar industry. The colonists engaged in a few of the roughest clothing industries, but on a scale so small as to escape the jealousy of the manufacturers of the mother-country. The Canadian Council vainly sought to secure the clearing of lands by ordering that those not actually occupied should be surrendered; and, to eliminate the difficulty of providing for live- stock during the long winter, the habitants were forbidden to have more than two horses and a mare. In 1711 the breeding of cattle and sheep was still a matter of such anxiety that live-stock was specially exempted from distraint. No fresh emigration of consequence augmented the population ; but the natural increase was good. A more rapid increase in white and black population went forward during this period in the West Indies; but the French islands still offered no promise of that startling development of prosperity which was to distinguish the next period. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes threatened for a time to have serious consequences in causing a general exodus of the heretical colonists, until the King directed that care should be taken to retain them. Signs of development are visible in the new regulations touching the amount of the Domaine d'Occident, which were directed to the relief of the colonists. In 1698 the French part of St Domingo, which had always been exempt from the Domaine^ and, since d'Ogeron had elected to bring it under the control of the Crown, subject to certain other charges, was for the first time put into the hands of a company for fifty years. The Company of St Domingo was modelled on the old pattern, without material reform. In return for sending 1500 white settlers and 2500 black at once, with further yearly reinforcements of 100 whites and 200 blacks, the Company received the monopoly of trade. All the French islands suffered severely during the War of the Spanish Succession, but a season of peace was all that was needed to
