Led by intendant Jean Talon, the Council then legalized the trade – not for moral reasons, but to increase profits of colonial subjects. An interim period followed where the Sovereign Council refused to mete out any sentences for the crimes, but the Church would excommunicate suspected traders from ecclesiastical hierarchies. The activity did regain its illicit status, but the number of cases of the activity that made prosecution was trending downwards significantly throughout the later 18th century. Traffic of alcohol to Natives was only a minor crime by the mid-18th century.