Maritime trade, especially with the colonies, was a very profitable line of business. In French ports such as Nantes, La Rochelle and Bordeaux the merchants would prepare cargoes of manufactured goods for the various colonies, and on their return voyage the ships would bring back colonial goods. Tropical or semi-tropical products such as sugar, indigo, tobacco and later cotton were the most profitable. For this reason the French merchants were far more interested in trading with the West Indies than with Canada: apart from furs, Canada had nothing to offer which was not already available in France. Unlike imports such as sugar, however, furs were not acquired by most people. This engraving appeared in a 1675 publication by Jacques Savary, Le parfait negociant, a sort of manual on everything connected with business at the time, including bookkeeping, exchange and credit transactions, market information and so on. Many Canadian traders had this book in their libraries.
