Great efforts were made, at the same time, to
build up Detroit as a centre of French power in the West. The methods
employed were of the debilitating, paternal character long familiar to
Canada. All emigrants with families were to be carried thither at the
King's expense; and every settler was to receive in free gift a gun, a
hoe, an axe, a ploughshare, a scythe, a sickle, two augers, large and
small, a sow, six hens, a cock, six pounds of powder, and twelve pounds
of lead; while to these favors were added many others. The result was
that twelve families were persuaded to go, or about a twentieth part of
the number wanted.[46] Detroit was expected to furnish supplies to the
other posts for five hundred miles around, control the neighboring
Indians, thwart English machinations, and drive off English interlopers.
[Footnote 45: _Le Ministre a la Jonquiere et Bigot, 14 Mai, 1749. Le
Ministre a Celoron, 23 Mai, 1749_.]
[Footnote 46: _Ordonnance du 2 Jan. 1750. La Jonquiere et Bigot au
Ministre, 1750_. Forty-six persons of all ages and both sexes had been
induced by La Galissoniere to go the year before. _Lettres communes de
la Jonquiere et Bigot, 1749_. The total fixed population of Detroit and
its neighborhood in 1750 is stated at four hundred and eighty-three
souls. In the following two years, a considerable number of young men
came of their own accord, and Celoron wrote to Montreal to ask for girls
to marry them.
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