The Great Company
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Title: The Great Company
being a history of the honourable company of merchants-adventurers trading into Hudson's Bay
Author: Beckles Willson
Author of introduction, etc.: Baron Donald Alexander Smith Strathcona and Mount Royal
Illustrator: Arthur Heming
Release date: March 9, 2013 [eBook #42279]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
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[Illustration: LORD STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL
_Present Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company_.]
THE GREAT COMPANY
Being a History of the Honourable Company of Merchants-Adventurers
Trading into Hudson's Bay
by
BECKLES WILLSON
With an Introduction by
Lord Strathcona And Mount Royal
Present Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company
With Original Drawings by Arthur Heming
and
Maps, Plans and Illustrations
New York
Dodd, Mead & Company
1900
Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year one
thousand eight hundred and ninety-nine, by the Copp, Clark Company,
Limited, Toronto, in the Office of the Minister of Agriculture.
TO
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
SIR WILFRID LAURIER, G.C.M.G.,
TO WHOSE GENEROUS SUGGESTION AND CONTINUED
ENCOURAGEMENT IS SO LARGELY DUE THE
COMPILATION OF THESE ANNALS.
PREFACE.
Praiseworthy as the task is of unifying the scattered elements of our
Canadian story, yet it will hardly be maintained that such historical
studies ought not to be preceded by others of a more elementary
character. Herein, then, are chronicled the annals of an institution
coherent and compact--an isolated unit.
The Hudson's Bay Company witnessed the French dominion in Northamerica
rise to its extreme height, decline and disappear; it saw new colonies
planted by Britain; it saw them quarrel with the parent State, and
themselves become transformed into States. Wars came and
passed--European Powers on this continent waxed and waned, rose and
faded away; remote forests were invaded by loyal subjects who erected
the wilderness into opulent provinces. Change, unceasing, never-ending
change, has marked the history of this hemisphere of ours; yet there
is one force, one institution, which survived nearly all conditions
and all _régimes_. For two full centuries the Hudson's Bay Company
existed, unshorn of its greatness, and endures still--the one enduring
pillar in the New World mansion.
In pondering the early records of the Company, one truth will hardly
escape observation. It did not go forth amongst the savages with the
Bible in its hand. Elsewhere, an old axiom, and true--first the
missionary, then the soldier, then the trader. In the case of the
Company, this order has been reversed. The French associations in
Canada for the collection and sale of furs were preceded by the
Jesuits--brave, fearless, self-denying--whose deeds form the theme of
some of Parkman's most thrilling pages.
A few years since, in the solitudes of the West, two European tourists
were struck by the frequency with which they encountered a certain
mystic legend. Eager to solve its meaning, they addressed a half-breed
lounger at a small station on the Canadian Pacific Railway.
"Tell us, my friend," they said, "what those three letters yonder
signify. Wherever we travel in this country we encounter 'H. B. C.' We
have seen the legend sewn on the garments of Indians; we have seen it
flying from rude forts; it has been painted on canoes; it is inscribed
on bales and boxes. What does 'H. B. C.' mean?"
"That's _the Company_," returned the native grimly, "Here Before
Christ."
Might not the first missionary who, in 1818, reached York Factory
contemplate his vast cure, and say: Here, bartering, civilizing,
judging, corrupting, revelling, slaying, marching through the
trackless forest, making laws and having dominion over a million
souls--_here before Christ!_
It is probable a day is at hand when all this area will be dotted with
farms, villages and cities, a time when its forests will be uprooted
and the plains of Rupert's Land and the North-West Territory tilled by
the husbandman, its hills and valleys exploited by the miner; yet,
certain spots in this vast region must ever bear testimony to the
hunter of furs. Remote, solitary, often hungry and not seldom
frozen--the indomitable servant of the Great Fur Company lived here
his life and gave his name to mountain, lake and river.
Whatsoever destiny has in store for this country, it can never
completely obliterate either the reverence and admiration we have for
brave souls, or those deeper feelings which repose in the bosoms of so
many Canadian men and women whose forefathers lent their arms and
their brains to the fur-trade. The beaver and the marten, the fox and
the mink, may soon be as extinct as the bison, or no more numerous
than the fox and the beaver are to-day in the British Isles; but this
volume, imperfect as it is, may serve as a reminder that their
forbears long occupied the minds and energies of a hardy race of men,
the like of whose patience, bravery and simple honest careers may not
soon again be seen.
He who would seek in these pages the native romance, the vivid colour,
the absorbing drama of the Great North-West, will seek, I fear, in
vain. My concern has been chiefly with the larger annals of the
Hudson's Bay Company, its history proper, which until now has not been
compiled.
TORONTO, 27th June, 1899.
INTRODUCTION.
Mr. Beckles Willson has asked me to write a short introduction for his
forthcoming book on the Hudson's Bay Company, and it gives me great
pleasure to comply with his request.
It is gratifying to know that this work has been undertaken by a young
Canadian, who has for some years had a laudable desire to write the
history of what he appropriately calls "The Great Company," with whose
operations the development of the Western parts of Canada has been so
closely connected.
The history of the Company during the two centuries of its existence
must bring out prominently several matters which are apt now to be
lightly remembered. I refer to the immense area of country--more than
half as large as Europe--over which its control eventually extended,
the explorations conducted under its auspices, the successful
endeavours, in spite of strenuous opposition, to retain its hold upon
what it regarded as its territory, its friendly relations with the
Indians, and, finally, the manner in which its work prepared the way
for the incorporation of the "illimitable wilderness" within the
Dominion.
It is not too much to say that the fur-traders were the pioneers of
civilization in the far West. They undertook the most fatiguing
journeys with the greatest pluck and fortitude; they explored the
country and kept it in trust for Great Britain. These fur-traders
penetrated to the Rocky Mountains, and beyond, into what is now known
as British Columbia, and even to the far north and northwest, in
connection with the extension of trade, and the establishment of the
famous "H. B. C." posts and forts, which were the leading features of
the maps of the country until comparatively recent times. The names of
many of these early explorers are perpetuated in its rivers and
lakes; and many important Arctic discoveries are associated with the
names of officers of the Company, such as Hearne, Dease, and Simpson,
and, in later times, Dr. John Rae.
The American and Russian Companies which were seeking trade on the
Pacific Coast, in the early days of the present century, were not able
to withstand the activity and enterprise of their British rivals, but
for whose discoveries and work even British Columbia might not have
remained British territory. For many years the only civilized
occupants of both banks of the Columbia River were the fur-traders,
and it is not their fault that the region between it and the
international boundary does not now belong to Canada. Alaska was also
leased by the Hudson's Bay Company from Russia, and one cannot help
thinking that if that country had been secured by Great Britain, we
should probably never have heard of the Boundary Question, or of
disputes over the Seal Fisheries. However, these things must be
accepted as they are; but it will not, in any case, be questioned that
the work of the Company prepared the way for the consolidation of the
Dominion of Canada, enabling it to extend its limits from the Atlantic
to the Pacific, and from the international boundary to the far north.
The principal business of the Company in the early days was, of
course, the purchasing of furs from the Indians, in exchange for arms,
ammunition, clothes and other commodities imported from the United
Kingdom. Naturally, therefore, the prosperity of the Company depended
largely upon good relations being maintained with the Indians. The
white man trusted the Indians, and the Indians trusted the white man.
This mutual confidence, and the friendly relations which were the
result, made the transfer of the territory to Canada comparatively
easy when the time for the surrender came. It is interesting to note
also, that while intent upon trading with the Indians, the Company did
not neglect the spread of civilizing influences among them. The result
of their wise policy is seen in the relations that have happily
existed since 1870 between the Government and the Indians. There has
been none of the difficulties which gave rise to so many disasters in
the western parts of the United States. Even in the half-breed
disturbance in 1869-70, and in that of 1885, the Indians (with very
few exceptions) could not be induced to take arms against the forces
of law and order.
Although the Red River settlement was inaugurated and carried out
under its auspices, it has been stated, and in terms of reproach, that
the Company did not encourage settlement or colonization. The
statement may have an element of truth in it, but the condition of the
country at the time must be borne in mind. Of course, the fur trade
and settlement could not go on side by side. On the other hand, until
the country was made accessible, colonization was not practicable.
Settlers could not reach it without the greatest difficulty, even for
many years after the transfer of the territory took place, or get
their produce away. Indeed, until the different Provinces of Canada
became federated, and were thus in a position to administer the
country and to provide it with the necessary means of communication,
the opening up of its resources was almost an impossibility. No single
province of Canada could have undertaken its administration or
development, and neither men nor money were available, locally, to
permit of its blossoming out separately as a Colony, or as a series of
Provinces.
The work of the Company is still being continued, although, of course,
under somewhat different conditions. The fur trade is quite as large
as ever it was, and the relations of the Company are as cordial as of
old with the Indians and other inhabitants in the districts remote
from settlement, in which this part of the business is largely carried
on. It has also adapted itself to the times, and is now one of the
leading sources of supplies to the settlers in Manitoba, the
North-West Territories, and British Columbia, and to the prospectors
and miners engaged in developing the resources of the Pacific
province. Besides, it has a very large stake in the North-West, in the
millions of acres of land handed over to it, according to agreement,
as the country is surveyed. In fact, it may be stated that the
Hudson's Bay Company is as inseparably bound up with the future of
Western Canada as it has been with its past.
There are, of course, many other things that might be mentioned in an
introduction of this kind, and there is room especially for an
extended reference to the great and wonderful changes that have been
apparent in Manitoba, the North-West Territories, and British
Columbia, since, in the natural order of things, those parts of Canada
passed out of the direct control of the Company. The subject is so
fascinating to me, having been connected with the Company for over
sixty years, that the tendency is to go on and on. But the different
details connected with it will doubtless be dealt with by Mr. Beckles
Willson himself much better than would be possible in the limited time
at my disposal, and I shall therefore content myself with stating, in
conclusion, that I congratulate the author on the work he has
undertaken, and trust that it will meet with the success it deserves.
It cannot fail to be regarded as an interesting contribution to the
history of Canada, and to show, what I firmly believe to be the case,
that the work of the Hudson's Bay Company was for the advantage of the
Empire.
[Illustration: SIGNATURE OF LORD STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL.]
LONDON, June 23rd, 1899.
CONTENTS.
PAGE.
CHAPTER I.--1660-1667.
Effect of the Restoration on Trade -- Adventurers at Whitehall --
The East India Company Monopoly -- English Interest in North
America -- Prince Rupert's Claims -- The Fur Trade of Canada --
Aim of the Work. 17
CHAPTER II.--1659-1666.
Groseilliers and Radisson -- Their Peregrinations in the
North-West -- They Return to Quebec and Lay their Scheme before
the Governor -- Repulsed by him they Proceed to New England --
And thence Sail for France, where they Endeavour to Interest M.
Colbert. 23
CHAPTER III.--1667-1668.
Prince Rupert -- His Character -- Serves through the Civil War
-- His Naval Expedition in the West Indies -- Residence in
France -- And ultimately in London -- He receives Groseilliers
and introduces him to the King. 35
CHAPTER IV.--1668-1670.
The Prince Visits the _Nonsuch_ -- Arrival in the Bay -- Previous
Voyages of Exploration -- A Fort Commenced at Rupert's River --
Gillam's Return -- Dealing with the Nodwayes -- Satisfaction of
the Company -- A Royal Charter granted. 44
CHAPTER V.--1668-1670.
Danger Apprehended to French Dominion -- Intendant Talon -- Fur
Trade Extended Westward -- News of the English Expedition
Reaches Quebec -- Sovereign Rights in Question -- English
Priority Established. 52
CHAPTER VI.--1671.
First Public Sale at Garraway's -- Contemporary Prices of Fur
-- The Poet Dryden -- Meetings of the Company -- Curiosity of
the Town -- Aborigines on View. 60
CHAPTER VII.--1671-1673.
Mission of the Père Albanel -- Apprehension at Fort Charles --
Bailey's Distrust of Radisson -- Expedition to Moose River --
Groseilliers and the Savages -- The Bushrangers Leave the
Company's Service -- Arrival of Governor Lyddal. 69
CHAPTER VIII.--1673-1682.
Progress of the Company -- Confusion as to the Names and Number
of the Tribes -- Radisson goes to Paris -- His Efforts to
Obtain Support there, and from Prince Rupert, in England, Fail
-- Arrival of M. de la Chesnaye -- With his help Radisson
Secures Support -- And Sails for Quebec -- Thence Proceeds with
Two Ships to Attack the English Ports in Hudson's Bay -- His
Encounters with Gillam's Expedition from London, and his Son's,
from New England. 80
CHAPTER IX.--1682-1683.
Death of Prince Rupert -- The Company's Difficulty in Procuring
Proper Servants -- Radisson at Port Nelson -- The two Gillams
-- Their Meeting -- Capture of the New England Party -- The
First Scotchman in the Bay -- Governor Bridgar Carried off
Prisoner -- Indian Visitors to the Fort -- Disasters to the
Ships -- The French Burn the Island Fort -- Radisson's Harangue
to the Indians -- Return to France. 94
CHAPTER X.--1684-1687.
Hays writes to Lord Preston -- Godey sent to Radisson's
lodgings -- La Barre's strenuous efforts -- Radisson Returns to
the English -- He leaves for the Bay -- Meets his nephew,
Chouart -- Fort Bourbon Surrendered to the Company --
Radisson's dramatic Return to London. 112
CHAPTER XI.--1683-1686.
Feigned Anger of Lewis -- He writes to La Barre -- Importance
Attached to Indian Treaties -- Duluth's Zeal -- Gauthier de
Comportier -- Denonville made Governor -- Capture of the
_Merchant of Perpetuana_ -- Expedition of Troyes against the
Company's Posts in the Bay -- Moose Fort Surrendered. 125
CHAPTER XII.--1686-1689.
The French Attack upon Fort Rupert -- Governor Sargeant
Apprised -- Intrepidity of Nixon -- Capture of Fort Albany --
Disaster to the _Churchill_ -- The Company Hears the ill News --
Negotiations for Colonial Neutrality -- Destruction of New
Severn Fort -- Loss of the _Hampshire_ -- The Revolution. 134
CHAPTER XIII.--1689-1696.
Company's Claims Mentioned in Declaration of War -- Parliament
Grants Company's Application for Confirmation of its Charter --
Implacability of the Felt-makers -- Fort Albany not a Success
in the hands of the French -- Denonville urges an Attack upon
Fort Nelson -- Lewis Despatches Tast with a Fleet to Canada --
Iberville's Jealousy prevents its Sailing to the Bay --
Governor Phipps Burns Fort Nelson -- Further Agitation on the
part of the French to Possess the West Main -- Company Makes
another Attempt to Regain Fort Albany -- Fort Nelson
Surrendered to Iberville -- Its Re-conquest by the Company. 146
CHAPTER XIV.--1696-1697.
Imprisoned French Fur-Traders Reach Paris -- A Fleet under
Iberville Despatched by Lewis to the Bay -- Company's four
Ships precede them through the Straits -- Beginning of a Fierce
Battle -- The _Hampshire_ Sinks -- Escape of the _Dering_ and
capture of the _Hudson's Bay_ -- Dreadful Storm in the Bay --
Losses of the Victors -- Landing of Iberville -- Operations
against Fort Nelson -- Bailey Yields -- Evacuation by the
English. 158
CHAPTER XV.--1698-1713.
Petition Presented to Parliament Hostile to Company --
Seventeenth Century Conditions of Trade -- _Coureurs de
Bois_ -- Price of Peltries -- Standard of Trade Prescribed --
Company's Conservatism -- Letters to Factors -- Character of
the Early Governors -- Henry Kelsey -- York Factory under the
French -- Massacre of Jérémie's Men -- Starvation amongst the
Indians. 169
CHAPTER XVI.--1697-1712.
Company Seriously Damaged by Loss of Port Nelson -- Send an
Account of their Claims to Lords of Trade -- Definite Boundary
Propositions of Trade -- Lewis anxious to Create Boundaries --
Company look to Outbreak of War -- War of Spanish Succession
Breaks Out -- Period of Adversity for the Company -- Employment
of Orkneymen -- Attack on Fort Albany -- Desperate Condition of
the French at York Fort -- Petition to Anne. 187
CHAPTER XVII.--1712-1720.
Queen Anne Espouses the Cause of the Company -- Prior's View of
its Wants -- Treaty of Utrecht -- Joy of the Adventurers --
Petition for Act of Cession -- Not Pressed by the British
Government -- Governor Knight Authorized to take Possession of
Port Nelson -- "Smug Ancient Gentlemen" -- Commissioners to
Ascertain Rights -- Their Meeting in Paris -- Matters Move
Slowly -- Bladen and Pulteney return to England. 198
CHAPTER XVIII.--1719-1727.
The South Sea Bubble -- Nation Catches the Fever of Speculation
-- Strong Temptation for the Company -- Pricking of the Bubble
-- Narrow Escape of the Adventurers -- Knight and his
Expedition -- Anxiety as to their Fate -- Certainty of their
Loss -- Burnet's Scheme to Cripple the French -- It Forces them
Westward into Rupert's Land. 208
CHAPTER XIX.--1687-1712.
Hudson's Bay Tribes Peaceful -- Effect of the Traders' Presence
-- Depletion of Population -- The Crees and Assiniboines --
Their Habits and Customs -- Their Numbers -- No Subordination
Amongst Them -- Spirituous Liquors -- Effect of Intemperance
upon the Indian. 217
CHAPTER XX.--1685-1742.
Errant Tribes of the Bay -- The Goose Hunt -- Assemblage at
Lake Winnipeg -- Difficulties of the Voyage -- Arrival at the
Fort -- Ceremony followed by Debauch -- Gifts to the Chief --
He makes a Speech to the Governor -- Ceremony of the Pipe --
Trading Begun. 230
CHAPTER XXI.--1725-1742.
System of Licenses re-adopted by the French -- Verandrye Sets
Out for the Pacific -- His Son Slain -- Disappointments -- He
reaches the Rockies -- Death of Verandrye -- Forts in Rupert's
Land -- Peter the Great and the Hudson's Bay Company --
Expeditions of Bering -- A North-West Passage -- Opposition of
the Company to its Discovery -- Dobbs and Middleton --
Ludicrous distrust of the Explorer -- An Anonymous Letter. 240
CHAPTER XXII.--1744-1748.
War again with France -- Company takes Measures to Defend its
Forts and Property -- "Keep Your Guns Loaded" -- Prince
"Charlie" -- His Stock in the Company Confiscated -- Further
Instructions to the Chief Factors -- Another Expedition to
Search for a North-West Passage -- Parliament Offers Twenty
Thousand Pounds Reward -- Cavalier Treatment from Governor
Norton -- Expedition Returns -- Dobbs' Enmity -- Privy Council
Refuse to Grant his Petition -- Press-gang Outrages -- Voyage
of the _Seahorse_. 257
CHAPTER XXIII.--1748-1760.
Parliamentary Committee of Enquiry Appointed -- Aim of the
Malcontents -- Lord Strange's Report -- Testimony of Witnesses
-- French Competition -- Lords of Plantations Desire to
Ascertain Limits of Company's Territory -- Defeat of the
Labrador Company -- Wolfe's Victory -- "Locked up in the Strong
Box" -- Company's Forts -- Clandestine Trade -- Case of Captain
Coats. 269
CHAPTER XXIV.--1763-1770.
Effect of the Conquest on the Fur-trade of the French --
Indians again Seek the Company's Factories -- Influx of
Highlanders into Canada -- Alexander Henry -- Mystery
Surrounding the _Albany_ Cleared Up -- Astronomers Visit Prince
of Wales' Fort -- Strike of Sailors -- Seizure of Furs --
Measures to Discourage Clandestine Trade. 286
CHAPTER XXV.--1768-1773.
Reports of the "Great River" -- Company Despatch Samuel Hearne on
a Mission of Discovery -- Norton's Instructions -- Saluted on
his Departure from the Fort -- First and Second Journeys --
Matonabee -- Results of the Third Journey -- The Company's
Servants in the Middle of the Century -- Death of Governor
Norton. 299
CHAPTER XXVI.--1773-1782.
Company Suffers from the Rivalry of Canadians -- Cumberland
House Built -- Debauchery and License of the Rivals --
Frobisher Intercepts the Company's Indians -- The Smallpox
Visitation of 1781 -- La Pérouse appears before Fort Prince of
Wales -- Hearne's Surrender -- Capture of York Fort by the
French -- The Post Burned and the Company's Servants carried
away Prisoners. 314
CHAPTER XXVII.--1783-1800.
Disastrous Effects of the Competition -- Montreal Merchants
Combine -- The North-Westers -- Scheme of the Association --
Alexander Mackenzie -- His two Expeditions Reach the Pacific --
Emulation Difficult -- David Thompson. 327
CHAPTER XXVIII.--1787-1808.
Captain Vancouver -- La Pérouse in the Pacific -- The Straits
of Anian -- A Fantastic Episode -- Russian Hunters and Traders
-- The Russian Company -- Dissensions amongst the Northmen --
They Send the _Beaver_ to Hudson's Bay -- The Scheme of
Mackenzie a Failure -- A Ferocious Spirit Fostered -- Abandoned
Characters -- A Series of Outrages -- The Affair at Bad
Lake. 344
CHAPTER XXIX.--1808-1812.
Crisis in the Company's Affairs -- No Dividend Paid -- Petition
to Lords of the Treasury -- Factors Allowed a Share in the
Trade -- Canada Jurisdiction Act -- The Killing of MacDonnell
-- Mowat's Ill-treatment -- Lord Selkirk -- His Scheme laid
before the Company -- A Protest by Thwaytes and others -- The
Project Carried -- Emigrants sent out to Red River -- Northmen
Stirred to Reprisal. 361
CHAPTER XXX.--1812-1815.
The Bois-Brulés -- Simon McGillivray's Letter -- Frightening
the Settlers -- A Second Brigade -- Governor McDonnell's
Manifesto -- Defection of Northmen to the Company --
Robertson's Expedition to Athabasca -- Affairs at Red River --
Cameron and McDonell in Uniform -- Cuthbert Grant -- Miles
McDonnell Arrested -- Fort William -- News brought to the
Northmen -- Their confiscated account-books -- War of 1812
concluded. 383
CHAPTER XXXI.--1816-1817.
A New Brigade of Immigrants -- Robert Semple -- Cuthbert
Grant's Letter -- The De Meuron Regiment -- Assembling of the
Bois-Brulés -- Tragedy at Seven Oaks -- Selkirk at Fort William
-- McGillivray Arrested -- Arrest of the Northmen -- Selkirk
Proceeds to Red River. 404
CHAPTER XXXII.--1817-1821.
The English Government Intervenes -- Selkirk at Red River --
Makes a Treaty with the Indians -- Hostilities at Peace River
-- Governor Williams makes Arrests -- Franklin at York Factory
-- The Duke of Richmond Interferes -- Trial of Semple's
Murderers -- Death of Selkirk -- Amalgamation. 423
CHAPTER XXXIII.--1821-1847.
The Deed Poll -- A Governor-in-Chief Chosen -- A Chaplain
Appointed -- New License from George IV. -- Trade on the Pacific
Coast -- The Red River Country Claimed by the States -- The
Company in California -- The Oregon Question -- Anglo-Russian
Treaty of 1825 -- The _Dryad_ Affair -- Lieutenant Franklin's two
Expeditions -- Red River Territory Yielded to Company --
Enterprise on the Pacific. 436
CHAPTER XXXIV.--1846-1863.
The Oregon Treaty -- Boundary Question Settled -- Company
Proposes Undertaking Colonization of North America -- Enmity
and Jealousy Aroused -- Attitude of Earl Grey -- Lord Elgin's
Opinion of the Company -- Amended Proposal for Colonization
Submitted -- Opposition of Mr. Gladstone -- Grant of Vancouver
Island Secured, but Allowed to Expire in 1859 -- Dr. Rae's
Expedition -- The Franklin Expedition and its Fate -- Discovery
of the North-West Passage -- Imperial Parliament Appoints
Select Committee -- Toronto Board of Trade Petitions
Legislative Council -- Trouble with Indians -- Question of
Buying Out the Company -- British Government Refuses Help --
"Pacific Scheme" Promoters Meet Company in Official Interview
-- International Financial Association Buys Company's Rights --
Edward Ellice, the "Old Bear." 459
CHAPTER XXXV.--1863-1871.
Indignation of the Wintering-Partners -- Distrust and
Misgivings Arise -- Proposals of Governor Dallas for the
Compensation of the Wintering-Partners in Exchange for their
Abrogation of Deed Poll -- Threatened Deadlock -- Position of
those in Authority Rendered Untenable -- Failure of Duke of
Newcastle's Proposals for Surrender of Territorial Rights --
The Russo-American Alaskan Treaty -- The Hon. W. McDougall's
Resolutions -- Deputation Goes to England -- Sir
Stafford-Northcote becomes Governor -- Opinion of Lord
Granville as to the Position of Affairs -- Lack of Military
System Company's Weakness -- Cession now Inevitable -- Terms
Suggested by Lord Granville Accepted -- First Riel Rebellion --
Wolseley at Fort Garry. 481
CHAPTER XXXVI.--1821-1871.
The Company still King in the North-West -- Its Forts Described
-- Fort Garry -- Fort Vancouver -- Franklin -- Walla Walla --
Yukon -- Kamloops -- Samuel Black -- Mountain House -- Fort
Pitt -- Policy of the Great Company. 497
The Hudson's Bay Posts. 509
APPENDIX.
Royal Charter Incorporating the Hudson's Bay Company 515
The Alaska Boundary 527
Governors of the Hudson's Bay Company 531
Deputy-Governors of the Hudson's Bay Company 532
INDEX 533
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
FULL PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS.
Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal FRONTISPIECE.
FACING PAGE
Prince Rupert 32
Original Charter of The Great Company 48
Capt. Godey and Radisson 112
Marching out of the English Garrison 160
The Massacre of Jérémie's Men 192
The Bushranger and the Indians 337
Dog Brigade in the Far North 304
Tracking Canoes up the Rapids 368
Murder of Governor Semple 416
Sir George Simpson 432
Sir George Simpson receiving a Deputation 464
Interior Hudson's Bay Post 496
ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT.
PAGE
Early Map of North America 19
Radisson 25
Chart of Hudson's Straits 30
Prince Rupert 36
English Map of 1782 57
The Beaver 60
Arms of the Hudson's Bay Co. 67
Type of Early Trading Post 71
Bark Canoe of Indians on Hudson's Bay 74
Landing of Iberville's Men at Port Nelson 155
Ships on Hudson's Bay 160
French Encampment 163
Capture of Port Nelson by the French 167
Trading with the Indians 171
A Coureur des Bois 173
An Early River Pioneer 178
Facsimile of the Company's Standard of Trade 181
French Map of the Bay and Vicinity 215
Indian Tepee 218
An Assiniboine Indian 219
Indian with Tomahawk 220
Esquimau with Dogs 223
Modern Type of Indian 231
Type of Cree Indian 234
An Old Chief 237
Maldonado's Strait of Anian 246
Lapie's Map of 1821 247
Plans of York and Prince of Wales Forts 262
Map showing the Hays River 265
Fort Prince of Wales 281
A Blackfoot Brave 289
Alexander Henry 291
Dobbs' Map, 1744 301
Visit to an Indian Encampment 315
Indian Trappers 318
Ruins of Fort Prince of Wales 322
Sir Alexander Mackenzie 330
A Portage 337
De L'Isle's Map, 1752 345
The Rival Traders 353
York Factory 355
Lord Selkirk 372
Stornaway 380
A Bois-Brulé 384
Fort George (Astoria) 387
Arrival of the Upland Indians 388
On the way to Fort William 390
The Company's Ships in 1812 392
Fort Douglas, Red River 394
Scene of Red River Tragedy 411
Vicinity of Fort Douglas 414
Board Room, Hudson's Bay House 438
Red River Cart 441
Fur Train from the far North 446
Sir George Back, R.N. 451
Thomas Simpson 454
Hudson's Bay Company's Trade Tokens 458
Hudson's Bay Employees on their Annual Expedition 460
Opening of Cairn on Point Victory 467
Discovery of Relics of Franklin Expedition 468
Fort Prince of Wales 477
Fort Garry 482
Arrival of Hudson's Bay Ships at York Factory 498
Fort Pelly 499
Fort Simpson 501
York Factory 502
Father Lacombe 504
Gateway to Fort Garry 507
Sketch Map of South-East Alaska 527
THE GREAT COMPANY.
CHAPTER I.
1660-67.
Effect of the Restoration on Trade -- Adventurers at Whitehall
-- The East India Company Monopoly -- English interest in North
America -- Prince Rupert's claims -- The Fur Trade of Canada --
Aim of the Work.
That page in the nation's history which records the years immediately
following the Restoration of the Stewarts to the English throne, has
often been regarded as sinister and inauspicious. Crushed and broken
by the long strain of civil war, apparently bankrupt in letters,
commerce and arms, above all, sick of the restraints imposed upon them
by the Roundheads, the nation has too often been represented as
abandoning itself wholly to the pursuit of pleasure, while folly and
license reigned supreme at court. The almost startling rapidity with
which England recovered her pride of place in the commercial world has
been too little dwelt upon. Hardly had Charles the Second settled down
to enjoy his heritage when the spirit of mercantile activity began to
make itself felt once more. The arts of trade and commerce, of
discovery and colonization, which had languished under the Puritan
ascendancy, revived; the fever of "Imperial Expansion" burst out with
an ardour which no probability of failure was able to cool; and the
court of the "Merry Monarch" speedily swarmed with adventurers, eager
to win his favour for the advancement of schemes to which the chiefs
of the Commonwealth would have turned but a deaf ear.
Of just claimants to the royal bounty, in the persons of ruined
cavaliers and their children, there was no lack. With these there also
mingled, in the throng which daily beset the throne with petitions for
grants, charters, patents and monopolies,--returned free-booters,
buccaneers in embryo, upstarts and company-promoters. Every London
tavern and coffee-house resounded with projects for conquest, trade,
or the exploitation of remote regions.
From the news-letters and diaries of the period, and from the minutes
of the Council of Trade and the Royal Society, one may form an
excellent notion of the risks which zealous capital ran during this
memorable decade.
For two centuries and more mercantile speculation had been busy with
the far East. There, it was believed, in the realms of Cathay and
Hindustan, lay England's supreme market. A large number of the marine
expeditions of the sixteenth century were associated with an
enterprise in which the English nation, of all the nations in Europe,
had long borne, and long continued to bear, the chief part. From the
time of Cabot's discovery of the mainland in 1498, our mariners had
dared more and ventured oftener in quest of that passage through the
ice and barren lands of the New World which should conduct them to the
sunny and opulent countries of the East.
[Sidenote: English right to Hudson's Bay.]
The mercantile revival came; it found the Orient robbed of none of its
charm, but monopoly had laid its hand on East India. For over half a
century the East India Company had enjoyed the exclusive right of
trading in the Pacific between the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn,
and the merchants of London therefore were forced to cast about for
other fields of possible wealth. As far as North America was
concerned, the merest reference to a map of this period will reveal
the very hazy conception which then prevailed as to this vast
territory. Few courtiers, as yet, either at Whitehall or Versailles,
had begun to concern themselves with nice questions of frontier, or
the precise delimitation of boundaries in parts of the continent which
were as yet unoccupied, still less in those hyperborean regions
described by the mariners Frobisher, Button and Fox. To these
voyagers, themselves, the northern half of the continent was merely a
huge barrier to the accomplishment of their designs.
[Illustration: EARLY MAP OF NORTH AMERICA.]
Yet in spite of this destructive creed, it had long been a cardinal
belief in the nation that the English crown had by virtue of
Cabot's, and of subsequent discoveries, a right to such territories,
even though such right had never been actively affirmed.[1]
In the year 1664 the King granted the territory now comprised in the
States of New York, New Jersey and Delaware to his brother, the Duke
of York, and the courtiers became curious to know what similar mark of
favour would be bestowed upon his Majesty's yet unrewarded cousin,
Prince Rupert, Duke of Cumberland and Count Palatine of the Rhine.[2]
The Duke of York succeeded in wresting his new Transatlantic
possession from the Dutch, and the fur-trade of New Amsterdam fell
into English hands. Soon afterwards the first cargo of furs from that
region arrived in the Thames.
Naturally, it was not long before some of the keener-sighted London
merchants began to see behind this transaction vast possibilities of
future wealth. The extent of the fur-trade driven in Canada by the
French was no secret.[3] Twice annually, for many years, had vessels
anchored at Havre, laden with the skins of fox, marten and beaver,
collected and shipped by the Company of the Hundred Associates or
their successors in the Quebec monopoly. A feeling was current that
England ought by right to have a larger share in this promising
traffic, but, it was remarked, "it is not well seen by those cognizant
of the extent of the new plantations how this is to be obtained,
unless we dislodge the French as we have the Dutch, which his present
Majesty would never countenance."
Charles had little reason to be envious of the possession by his
neighbour Lewis, of the country known as New France.
[Sidenote: French fur-trade.]
Those tragic and melancholy narratives, the "Relations des Jesuites,"
had found their way to the English Court. From these it would seem
that the terrors of cold, hunger, hardships, and Indian hostility,
added to the cost and difficulties of civil government, and the
chronic prevalence of official intrigue, were hardly compensated for
by the glories of French ascendancy in Canada. The leading spirits of
the fur-trade then being prosecuted in the northern wilds, were well
aware that they derived their profits from but an infinitesimal
portion of the fur-trading territory; the advantages of extension and
development were perfectly apparent to them; but the difficulties
involved in dealing with the savage tribes, and the dangers attending
the establishment of further connections with the remote interior,
conspired to make them content with the results attained by the
methods then in vogue. The security from rivalry which was guaranteed
to them by their monopoly did not fail to increase their aversion to a
more active policy. Any efforts, therefore, which were made to extend
the French Company's operations were made by Jesuit missionaries, or
by individual traders acting without authority.
Such, in brief, was the state of affairs in the year 1666 when two
intrepid bushrangers, employees of the old Company,[4] dissatisfied
with their prospects under the new _régime_, sought their way out from
the depths of the wilderness to Quebec, and there propounded to the
Intendant, Jean Talon, a scheme for the extension of the fur-trade to
the shores of Hudson's Bay. This enterprising pair saw their project
rejected, and as a sequel to this rejection came the inception and
establishment of an English association,[5] which subsequently
obtained a charter from the King, under the name and title of "The
Governor and Company of Merchants-Adventurers trading into Hudson's
Bay."
To narrate the causes which first led to the formation of this
Company, the contemporary interest it excited, the thrilling
adventures of its early servants, of the wars it waged with the
French and drove so valiantly to a victorious end; its vicissitudes
and gradual growth; the fierce and bloody rivalries it combated
and eventually overbore; its notable expeditions of research by
land and sea; the character of the vast country it ruled and the
Indians inhabiting it; and last but not least, the stirring and
romantic experiences contained in the letters and journals of the
Great Company's factors and traders for a period of above two
centuries--such will be the aim and purpose of this work.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] "The great maritime powers of Europe," said Chief Justice
Marshall, "discovered and visited different parts of this Continent at
nearly the same time. The object was too immense for any of them to
grasp the whole; and the claimants were too powerful to submit to the
exclusive or unreasonable pretensions of any single potentate. To
avoid bloody conflicts, which might terminate disastrously to all, it
was necessary for the nations of Europe to establish some principle
which all would acknowledge and which would decide their respective
rights as between themselves. This principle, suggested by the actual
state of things, was, 'that discovery gave title to the Government by
whose subjects or by whose authority it was made, against all other
European governments, which title might be consummated by
possession.'"
[2] "Prince Rupert, we hear, is of no mind to press his Plantation
claims until this Dutch warre is over. A Jamaica pattent is spoke
of."--_Pleasant Passages_, 1665.
[3] As early as 1605, Quebec had been established, and had become an
important settlement; before 1630, the Beaver and several other
companies had been organized, at Quebec, for carrying on the fur-trade
in the West, near and around the Great Lakes and in the North-West
Territory; that the enterprise and trading operations of these French
Companies, and of the French colonists generally, extended over vast
regions of the northern and the north-western portions of the
continent; that they entered into treaties with the Indian tribes and
nations, and carried on a lucrative and extensive fur-trade with the
natives. In the prosecution of their trade and other enterprises these
adventurers evinced great energy, courage and perseverance. They had,
according to subsequent French writers, extended their hunting and
trading operations to the Athabasca country. It was alleged that some
portions of the Athabasca country had before 1640 been visited and
traded in, and to some extent occupied by the French traders in Canada
and their Beaver Company. From 1640 to 1670 these discoveries and
trading settlements had considerably increased in number and
importance.
[4] In 1663 the charter of the Compagnie des Cents Assocés, granted by
Richelieu in 1627, was ceded to the Crown. In 1665 the new Association
"La Compagnie des Indes Occidentals" received its charter.
[5] "Several noblemen and other public-spirited Englishmen, not
unmindful of the discovery and right of the Crown of England to those
parts in America, designed at their own charge to adventure the
establishing of a regular and constant trade in Hudson's Bay, and to
settle forts and factories, whereby to invite the Indian nations (who
live like savages, many hundred leagues up the country), down to their
factories, for a constant and yearly intercourse of trade, which was
never attempted by such settlements, and to reside in that
inhospitable country, before the aforesaid English adventurers
undertook the same."--_Company's Memorial_, 1699.
CHAPTER II.
1659-1666.
Groseilliers and Radisson -- Their Peregrinations in the
North-West -- They Return to Quebec and lay their Scheme before
the Governor -- Repulsed by him they Proceed to New England --
And thence Sail for France, where they Endeavour to Interest M.
Colbert.
The year 1659, notable in England as the last of the Puritan
ascendancy and the herald of a stirring era of activity, may be
reckoned as the first with which the annals of the Great Company are
concerned. It is in this year that we first catch a glimpse of two
figures who played an important part in shaping its destinies. Little
as they suspected it, the two intrepid fur-traders, Groseilliers and
Radisson, who in the spring of that year pushed their way westward
from Quebec to the unknown shores of Lake Superior, animated in this,
as in all their subsequent exploits, by a spirit of adventure as well
as a love of gain, were to prove the ancestors of the Great Company.
[Sidenote: Groseilliers' first marriage.]
Medard Chouart, the first of this dauntless pair, was born in France,
near Meaux, and had emigrated to Quebec when he was a little over
sixteen years old. His father had been a pilot, and it was designed
that the son should succeed him in the same calling. But long before
this intention could be realized he fell in with a Jesuit, returned
from Canada, who was full of thrilling tales about the New France
beyond the seas; and so strongly did these anecdotes, with their
suggestion of a rough and joyous career in the wilderness, appeal to
his nature, that he determined to take his own part in the glowing
life which the priest depicted. In 1641 he was one of the fifty-two
_emigrés_ who sailed with the heroic Maissoneuve from Rochelle. Five
years later we find him trading amongst the Hurons, the tribe whose
doom was already sealed by reason of the enmity and superior might of
the Iroquois; and at the close of another year comes the record of his
first marriage. The bride is Etienne, the daughter of a pilot, Abraham
Martin of Quebec, the "eponymous hero" of that plateau adjoining
Quebec where, a century later, was to take place the mortal struggle
between Wolfe and Montcalm.
It was probably soon after this marriage that Chouart adopted the
title "des Groseilliers," derived from a petty estate which his father
had in part bequeathed to him.
Not long did his wife survive the marriage; and she died without
leaving any legacy of children to alleviate his loss. But the young
adventurer was not destined to remain for any length of time
disconsolate. Within a year of his wife's death, there arrived in the
colony a brother and sister named Pierre and Marguerite Radisson,
Huguenots of good family, who had been so persistently hounded in
France by the persecution which sought to exterminate their community,
that the one key to happiness had seemed to them to lie beyond the
seas. No sooner had their father died than they bade farewell to
France and sailed for Canada, there to start a new life amidst new and
more tranquil surroundings.
With this couple young Groseilliers soon struck up an acquaintance;
and so rapidly did the intimacy ripen that before long he was united,
to the sister in matrimony, and to the brother in a partnership for
the pursuit of commercial adventure. The double union proved doubly
fortunate; for Marguerite seems to have made a well-suited wife, and
Pierre, though in birth and education superior to Groseilliers, was no
whit less hardy and adventurous, nor in any respect less fitted for
the arduous tasks which their rough life imposed upon them. The two
speedily became fast friends and associates in enterprise, and thus
united they soon took their place as the leading spirits of the
settlement at Three Rivers. Here, in 1656, Radisson married for the
first time, his bride being a Mlle. Elizabeth Herault, one of the few
Protestant young women in the whole of Canada. Groseilliers, who had
been long disgusted at the priestly tyranny of which he had seen so
much in Canada, probably needed but little inducement to embrace the
Protestant religion, if indeed this had not been stipulated upon at
the time of his marriage. At all events, we now find him reputed to be
among the Protestants of the Colony; some of whom were, in spite of
the bitter prejudice against them, the boldest and most successful
spirits the fur-trading community of that period had to show.
[Illustration: RADISSON.
(_After an old print._)]
[Sidenote: Radisson weds Miss Kirke.]
Radisson, like Groseilliers,[6] had the misfortune to lose his wife
soon after their marriage; but, like his comrade, he too sought
consolation in a fresh marriage. This time he allied himself with the
daughter of a zealous English Protestant, who afterwards became Sir
John Kirke. It was to the brothers of this Kirke that the great
Champlain, thirty years before, had surrendered Quebec.
With this introduction to the characters of the two remarkable men
whose fortunes were to become so closely entwined with that of the
Hudson's Bay Company, we may pass to their early efforts to extend the
fur-trade beyond those limits which the distracted and narrow-minded
officers of the Compagnie des Cent Assocés, thought it necessary to
observe.
Reaching the shore of Lake Superior in the early summer of 1659,
Radisson and Groseilliers travelled for six days in a south-westerly
direction, and then came upon a tribe of Indians incorporated with the
Hurons, known as the Tionnontates, or the Tobacco Nation. These people
dwelt in the territory between the sources of the Black and Chippeway
rivers, in what is now the State of Wisconsin, whence, in terror of
the bloody enmity of the Iroquois, they afterwards migrated to the
small islands in Lake Michigan at the entrance of Green Bay.
During their temporary sojourn with this branch of the unhappy Hurons
the two pioneering traders heard constant mention of a deep, wide, and
beautiful river--comparable to the St. Lawrence--to the westward, and
for a time they were half tempted by their ever-present thirst for
novelty to proceed in that direction. Other counsels, however, seem to
have prevailed; for instead of striking out for the unknown river of
the west they journeyed northward, and wintered with the
Nadouechiouecs or Sioux, who hunted and fished among the innumerable
lakes of Minnesota. Soon afterwards they came upon a separate band of
war-like Sioux, known as the Assiniboines, a prosperous and
intelligent tribe, who lived in skin and clay lodges and were
"familiar with the use of charcoal."
[Sidenote: A Route to the Bay.]
From these Assiniboines, Radisson and Groseilliers first heard of the
character and extent of that great bay to the north, named by the
English marine explorers "Hudson's Bay," which was to be the scene of
their later labours; and not only did they glean news of its nature,
but they also succeeded in obtaining information as to the means of
reaching it.
In August, 1660, the two adventurers found their way back to Montreal,
after over a year's absence. They were accompanied by three hundred
Indians, and in possession of sixty canoes laden with furs, which they
undertook to dispose of to the advantage of the savages and
themselves. As they had anticipated, they found the little colony and
its leaders deeply interested in their reports of the extent and
richness of the fur-producing countries to the westward, as well as
in their description of the unfamiliar tribes inhabiting that region.
The sale of the furs having resulted in a handsome profit,
Groseilliers announced to his brother-in-law his intention of making
the journey on his own account. There was no dearth of volunteers
eager to embark in the enterprise, and from those who offered their
services he chose six Frenchmen--_coureurs des bois_ or bushrangers;
and having provided himself with an ample outfit, turned his footsteps
once more to the prairies of the west, while Radisson went to rejoin
his wife and sister at Three Rivers.
On the eve of his departure the Jesuit Fathers, distrusting
Groseilliers' religious proclivities and suspecting that he might
attempt to influence the Assiniboines, insisted upon one of their
number accompanying him. The priest chosen for this arduous mission
was the aged missionary Réné Ménard, who, in spite of his physical
frailty was still undaunted by any prospect of peril; though he was,
on this occasion, prevailed upon to allow his servant Guérin to
accompany him. It was the priest's last journey. When Groseilliers
again reached Montreal, after a season in the wilderness as prosperous
as its forerunner, he bore the mournful news that Ménard had been
massacred and his body, beyond question, devoured by a fierce band of
Indians.
This voyage, besides showing lucrative results, also proved a
memorable one for Groseilliers, inasmuch as it was during his winter's
sojourn with the distant Assiniboines that he acquired information
which affected his whole subsequent career. There can be no question
that it was the knowledge he obtained from this tribe of a convenient
route to Hudson's Bay, by way of Lake Superior, and of a system of
trade with the tribes dwelling on or in proximity to that unknown sea,
that caused him to set out once again in May, 1662, for the west. He
was accompanied by ten men, all of whom were disaffected towards the
powers which then controlled the fur-trade in New France, and the
combination of good fortune and _esprit de corps_ among his followers
proved so successful that when, after a year's absence, he returned
to the eastern colonies, the number of furs he brought back was
sufficiently great to render a simultaneous disposal of all the packs
inadvisable. He adopted the wise course of dividing them into three
consignments, and these were sold respectively at Montreal, Three
Rivers, and Quebec. Henceforward, but one idea possessed
Groseilliers--a journey to the great fur-lands of the north. It should
be his life's work to exploit the fur-trade of Hudson's Bay. Already
he saw himself rich--richer even than the merchant-princes of old
Rochelle.
[Sidenote: A new fur Company.]
But alas for his plans, the official laxity and dissensions which had
made it possible for himself and others thus to infringe with
impunity, the general monopoly granted by the King came to a sudden
end. A fresh patent for a new Company was issued by the Crown; a new
Governor, M. d'Avagour, entered upon the scene, and the rigorous
measures enacted against private traders drove many of these over to
the English and the Dutch.
A commission from M. d'Avagour, dated the 10th of May, 1663, conveyed
permission to one M. Couture to remove with five men to the bottom of
the Great Bay to the North of Canada, consequent upon the requisition
of some Indians, who had returned to Quebec to ask for aid to conduct
and assist them in their affairs. This same Couture afterwards
certified, or the French Government certified in his stead, that he
really undertook this voyage, and "erected anew upon the lands at the
bottom of the said Bay a cross and the arms of the King engraved on
copper, and placed between two plates of lead at the foot of a large
tree." Much justifiable doubt has been cast upon this story, and at a
much later period, when French and English interests were contesting
hotly for the sovereignty of the territory surrounding Hudson's Bay,
an expedition was sent in search of the boasted memorials, but no
trace of the cross or the copper escutcheon could be found. There
seems every probability that the allegation, or the subsequent
statement of an allegation of this description, was false.
Groseilliers had thus to reckon with the new fur-trading proprietors
of Quebec, who were to prove themselves less complaisant than the old.
They instantly interdicted traders from going in search of peltries;
reasoning that the produce would ultimately find its way into their
hands, without the need of any such solicitation. And though
Groseilliers persistently explained to them that their policy of
interdiction was really a short-sighted one; that the Indians could
not be always depended upon to bring their own furs to the Company's
mart; and that no great time would elapse before the English or Dutch
would push their way westward to Lake Superior, and so acquire an
unequalled opportunity of developing the resources of the northern
regions; neither his criticism and advice (founded on personal
knowledge of the unstable Indian character) nor the apprehensions of
rivalry, which he showed good grounds for entertaining, had any power
to move the officials of the Hundred Associates. Neither argument,
entreaty, nor prognostications of danger would induce them to look
with any favour upon Groseilliers' project, or even entertain his
proposals.
[Sidenote: Groseilliers in Boston.]
Groseilliers afterwards hinted that it was prejudice against his
adopted religion which really lay at the bottom of this complete
rejection of his scheme, and also accounted for the Company's refusal
to avail themselves of his services, otherwise than as a mere salaried
servant. It was at this juncture that he sought the advice of
Radisson, and it is not unlikely that it was the counsels of his
brother-in-law which induced him to resolve upon a bold step in the
furtherance of his cherished project. It was well-known that the
English colonists settled in New England were putting forth the
strongest efforts to secure a share of the fur-trade of the North.
Their allies, the redoubtable Iroquois, had upon several occasions
way-laid and plundered the Huron tribes, who were conveying their
cargoes to Quebec and Montreal, and had delivered these into the hands
of the English. Farther westward, the Dutch were indefatigable in
their endeavours to divert the fur-traffic of the North from the St.
Lawrence to the Hudson. But the Dutch had been vanquished by the
English; New Amsterdam was now New York; and it was English brains
and English money which now controlled the little colony and the
untravelled lands which lay beyond it. It was to the English,
therefore, that the indomitable adventurer now determined to apply.
Madame Radisson had relatives in Boston; her father was an intimate
friend of the Governor. Relying on such influences as these, but still
more on the soundness of his project, Groseilliers made his way to
Boston by way of Acadia.
[Illustration: A CHART OF HUDSON'S STREIGHTS AND BAY OF DAVIS
STREIGHTS, AND BAFFIN'S BAY; AS PUBLISHED IN THE YEAR 1668. ]
Early in 1664 we find the Mother Superior of the Ursuline Nuns at
Quebec writing thus of Groseilliers:
"As he had not been successful in making a fortune, he was seized with
a fancy to go to New England to better his condition. He excited a
hope among the English that he had found a passage to the Sea of the
North."
The good Mother Superior was deceived. It was no part of Groseilliers'
plan to seek a passage to the Sea of the North; but one can hardly
doubt that he found it highly politic that such a report should obtain
currency in Quebec. The fur-trade of the North, and the fur-trade
alone, was Groseilliers' lode-stone; but in spite of all it had cost
him to acquire the knowledge he already possessed, he was ready to
abandon the land and fresh water route, and seek the shores of
Hudson's Bay from the side of the Atlantic Ocean.
Doubtless many causes operated to alter his original plan; but there
can be little question that the most potent was the opposition of the
Canadian Company. Yet had the sea route not existed, even the
opposition of the Company would not have sufficed to baulk him of a
fulfilment of his designs. He would not have been the first French
trader, even at that early day in the history of the rival colonies,
to circumvent his countrymen, and, taking advantage of their confined
area of activity, to conduct negotiations with the Indians surrounding
the most distant outposts of their territory. The proceeding would
have been hazardous had the Company possessed the force necessary to
assert its rights to the trade of the whole northern and north-western
country; but the new company would not as yet possess the force. The
most real danger Groseilliers had to fear was that, if he persisted in
his endeavours to draw away the trade of the northern tribes, he might
be outlawed and his property, and that of his brother-in-law Radisson,
confiscated. Groseilliers had left his wife and his son in Canada, and
he therefore went to work with considerable caution.
It has been asserted, and perhaps with excellent point, that
Groseilliers may have been very powerfully influenced in the
abandonment of his land and fresh water route by obtaining an entirely
new idea of the configuration of northern North America. In the maps
which were likely at that time to have found their way to Quebec, the
northern regions are but very dimly defined; and with the knowledge of
geography gained only from these maps Groseilliers could hardly have
realized the accessibility of the approach by sea. It seems likely
therefore that the change of route was not even thought of until
Groseilliers had had his interview with Radisson; it was probably
Radisson--with his superior geographical knowledge and more thorough
comprehension (through his kinship with the Kirkes, all famous
mariners) of the discoveries made by the English in the northern
parts--who advocated the sea-route. The idea must have grown upon him
gradually. His countrymen took it for granted that the whole northern
country was theirs, apparently assuming the sole mode of access to be
by land. The sea route never seems to have occurred to them, or if
they thought of it at all, it was dismissed as dangerous and
impracticable for purposes of commerce. The configuration of the
northern country, the form and extent of the seas, certainly the
character of the straits and islands, were to them little known.
Secure in what they regarded as nominal possession, forgetful that
English mariners had penetrated and named these northern waters, the
officials of the Canada Company were content to pursue a policy of
_laissez faire_ and to deprecate all apprehensions of rivalry.
Singular coincidence! More than a century was to elapse and another
Company with ten times the wealth, the power, the sovereignty wielded
by this one: not French--for France had then been shorn of her
dominion and authority--but English, scorning the all-conquering,
all-pervading spirit of mercantile England, was to pursue the same
policy, and to suffer the loss of much blood and treasure in
consequence of such pursuit.
[Sidenote: Groseilliers finds no patrons.]
In Boston, the main difficulty which Groseilliers encountered was a
scarcity of wealth. His scheme was approved by many of the leading
spirits there, and his assertions as to the wealth of the fur-bearing
country were not doubted. But at that period the little Puritan colony
was much put to it to carry out projects for its own security and
maintenance, not to mention plans for enrichment much nearer home. And
it was pointed out to him that so long as schemes which were regarded
as essential to safety could only be with difficulty supported, no
pecuniary assistance could be rendered for an extraneous project,
however promising its nature.[7]
[Illustration: PRINCE RUPERT.
(_After the painting by Sir P. Lely._)]
There were in Boston at this time, however, four personages whom the
King had sent as envoys, in 1664, to force the Dutch to evacuate
Manhattan, and who were also a kind of commission instructed to visit
the English colonies, and to hear and rule their complaints. They were
Richard Nichols, Robert Carr, George Cartwright and Samuel Maverick.
One of these, Colonel Carr, it is said, strongly urged Groseilliers to
proceed to England and offer his services to the King.
[Sidenote: Zachary Gillam.]
Although, therefore, he was unable to secure there the patronage he
desired, Groseilliers' visit to Boston was not quite barren of profit.
He fell in besides with an intelligent sea-faring man, Zachary Gillam,
who was then captain and part-owner of a small vessel, the _Nonsuch_,
with which he plied a trade between the colony and the mother country.
Gillam expressed himself eager to assist in the project as far as lay
in his power, and offered his services in case an equipment could be
found. A long correspondence passed between Groseilliers and his
brother-in-law in Canada, the latter very naturally urging that as the
New England project had failed, it would be advisable not to seek
further aid from the English, but that, as nothing was to be expected
from the Canada Company, or the merchants of Canada, it would be as
well to journey to France, and put the matter before the French Court.
Groseilliers seems to have agreed to this; and he wrote back begging
Radisson to join him in Boston with the object of accompanying him to
France. In June, 1665, both the adventurers set sail in the _Nonsuch_
for Plymouth, whence in all likelihood they proceeded direct to Havre.
It would be unprofitable, and at best but a repetition, to describe
the difficulties Groseilliers and his brother-in-law met with in
Paris, the petitions they presented and the many verbal
representations they made. In the midst of their ill-success Colonel
Carr came to Paris. There is extant a letter of his to Lord Arlington.
"Having heard," says he, "by the French in New England of a great
traffic in beavers" to be got in the region of Hudson's Bay, and
"having had proofs of the assertions" of the two adventurers, he
thought "the finest present" he could make to his majesty was to
despatch these men to him.
The ambassador pondered on this and at last decided to entrust
Groseilliers with a letter to a certain prince--a friend of his--and a
patron of the Arts and Sciences. Leaving Radisson despondent in Paris,
therefore, the other adventurer crossed the Channel and found himself,
with a beating heart, for the first time in the English capital.
FOOTNOTES:
[6] Each writer seems to have followed his own fancy in spelling our
hero's name, I find Groiseliez, Grozeliers, Groseliers, Groiziliers,
Grosillers, Groiseleiz, and Groseillers. Charlevoix spells it
Groseilliers. Dr. Dionne, following Radisson's Chouard, writes
Chouart. But as Dr. Brymner justly observes "he is as little known by
that name as Voltaire by his real name of Arouet, he being always
spoken of by the name of des Groseilliers, changed in one affidavit
into 'Gooseberry.'" The name literally translated is, of course,
Gooseberry-bushes.
[7] For example, the adjoining colony of Connecticut had appealed to
them for help in their laudable enterprise of despoiling the Dutch of
their possessions. Raids upon the territory and trading-posts
controlled by the Dutch were a constantly recurring feature in the
history of those times, and nearly the whole of the zeal and substance
remaining to the English colonists in Connecticut and Virginia, after
their periodical strifes with the Indians, were devoted to forcing the
unhappy Hollanders to acknowledge the sovereignty of King Charles of
England.
CHAPTER III.
1667-1668.
Prince Rupert -- His Character -- Serves through the Civil War
-- His Naval Expedition in the West Indies -- Residence in
France -- And ultimately in London -- He receives Groseilliers
and introduces him to the King.
It was a fortunate chance for Medard Chouart des Groseilliers that
threw him, as we shall see, into the hands of such a man as Rupert,
Prince of England and Bohemia.
A dashing soldier, a daring sailor, a keen and enlightened student, a
man of parts, and at the age of forty-seven still worshipping
adventure as a fetish and irresistibly attracted by anything that
savoured of novelty, there was perhaps no other noble in England more
likely to listen to such a project as the Canadian was prepared to
pour into his ear, no prince in the whole of Europe more likely to
succumb to its charm.
Rupert may, on good grounds, be considered one of the most remarkable
men of that age. He was the third son of the King of Bohemia by the
Princess Elizabeth Stuart, eldest daughter of James I. In common with
most German princes he had been educated for the army; and, as he used
to observe himself in after years, there was no profession better
fitted for a prince provided he could be allowed to fight battles. It
was a maxim of his that the arts of patience, of strategy, and
parleying with the enemy should be left to statesmen and caitiffs; and
it can be said with truth of Rupert that no one could possibly have
acted more completely in accordance with his rule than himself. "Than
Prince Rupert," wrote a chronicler at his death, "no man was more
courageous or intrepid. He could storm a citadel but, alas, he could
never keep it. A lion in the fray, he was a very lamb, tho' a fuming
one, if a siege was called for."
[Illustration: PRINCE RUPERT.
(_After a painting by Vandyke._)]
Youthful, high-spirited and of comely appearance, Rupert found his way
to England during his twentieth year to offer his services to his
royal uncle, King Charles I. The country was then on the brink of a
civil war. Parliament had proved refractory. The Puritan forces had
already assembled; and in a few months the first blow was struck. The
young Prince placed himself at the head of a troop of cavaliers and
soon all England was ringing with the fame of his exploits. On more
than one occasion did Cromwell have reason to remember the prowess of
"fiery Prince Rupert."
[Sidenote: The Great Company's Founder.]
Such dashing tactics and spontaneous strategy, however, could not
always prevail. He was charged with the defence of Bristol, with what
result is a matter of common historical knowledge. His own observation
on this episode in his career is an admirable epitome of his
character, as comprehensive as it is brief, "I have no stomach for
sieges."
Charles wrote him a letter of somewhat undue severity, in which he
exhibited all the asperity of his character as well as his ignorance
of the situation. Perhaps if he had realized that the circumstances
would have rendered the retention of Bristol impossible even to a
Caesar or a Turenne, he might have written in a more tolerant strain;
but it is not very probable. In any case the letter cut Rupert to the
heart.
Before his final overthrow Charles, indeed, relented from his
severity, and created his nephew Earl of Holdernesse and Duke of
Cumberland, granting him also a safe conduct to France, which was
honoured by the Parliamentary leaders.
Thenceforward for a few years Rupert's career is directly associated
with the high seas. On the revolt of the fleet from the control of the
Commonwealth he made his way on board of one of the King's vessels,
and figured in several naval battles and skirmishes. But even here the
result was a foregone conclusion. The bulk of the ships and crews
still remaining loyal were rapidly captured or sunk, and the remnant,
of which Rupert assumed command, was exceedingly small. He began by
sailing to Ireland, whither he was pursued by Popham and Blake, who
very quickly blocked him up in the harbour of Kinsale. But the Puritan
captains were deceived if, as it appears, they fancied the Prince an
easy prey. Rupert was no more the sailor than he had been the soldier
to brook so facile a capture. He effected a bold escape, just under
their guns. But realizing his helplessness to engage the Puritan fleet
in open combat, he inaugurated a series of minor conflicts, a kind of
guerilla warfare, which, to our modern notions, would best be
classified under the head of privateering, to use no harsher term.
[Sidenote: A resemblance to piracy.]
The Spanish Main was at that period an excellent ground for operations
of this kind, and with very little delay Rupert was soon very busy
with his small but gallant fleet in those waters. Here the commander
of the little _Reformation_ and his convoys spent three years with no
little pecuniary profit to himself and crew. On more than one occasion
his exploits in the neighbourhood of the West Indies bore no distant
resemblance to piracy, as he boarded impartially not only English,
Dutch and Spanish ships, but also those flying the English colours.
Howbeit on one occasion, being advised that the master of one craft
was a Frenchman, he generously forebore to reap the profits of his
valour out of respect to the monarch with whom both his cousins,
Charles and James, had found a refuge. He insisted that the plunder
should be restored. On the whole, however, Rupert seems to have had
little conscience in the matter. The mere excitement of such
adventures alone delighted him, although it would scarce have
satisfied his crews. There is reason to suppose that he himself was
not actuated primarily by the mere love of gain. It is known that
several of his captains returned with large fortunes; Rupert's own
profits were long a matter for conjecture. Even at his death they
could not be approximately ascertained; for while he left a goodly
fortune, comprising jewels valued at twenty thousand pounds, much of
this fortune was acquired legitimately since these stirring days of
his youth; and no small part was derived from his share in the
Hudson's Bay Company.
The exiled prince, in whose name Rupert was always extremely careful
to conduct his depredations on the prosperous commerce of the West
Indies, does not appear himself to have derived much material
advantage therefrom. It was true the terror of his name was already
industriously spread in those waters, and this perhaps was some
consolation for the contempt with which it was regarded by the
insolent and usurping Puritans. In a newspaper of the period,
"Pleasant Passages," I find under date of October 15, 1652, the
following quaint comment:
"Prince Rupert hath lately seized on some good prizes and he keeps
himself far remote; and makes his kinsman, Charles Stuart, make a leg
for some cullings of his windfalls."
[Sidenote: Loss of the "Reformation."]
Rupert after a time transferred the scene of his operations to the
Azores, where after some collisions with the Portuguese, he met with a
catastrophe so severe as to compel him to permanently desist from his
predatory operations. A violent storm came on, and the _Reformation_
and his entire fleet perished, no fewer than 360 souls being lost on
the flagship. It was with difficulty that the Prince and twelve of his
companions, including his brother Maurice, escaped with a portion of
the treasure. A contemporary news-writer records that Rupert had
landed at Nantes with ten thousand pounds or so, "'tis said by those
best informed. The King hath sent his carriage to meet him at
Orleans."
Charles, who was of course the King mentioned, was then in high hopes
of obtaining funds from his cousin Rupert, which might enable him to
make an effort for the recovery of his crown. But the king, minus a
throne, was destined to be disappointed. Rupert did not yet seem
prepared to disgorge, acting, it is easy to see, on advice.[8]
"No money for his Majesty out of all this," forms the burden of
numerous letters written by the faithful Edward Hyde, afterwards to
become the Lord Chancellor Clarendon.
"The money the King should have received!" he complains, in an epistle
addressed to Sir Richard Browne. "Why, Rupert is so totally governed
by the Lord Keeper, Sir Edward Herbert, that the King knows him not.
The King hasn't had a penny, and Rupert pretends the King owes him
more than ever I was worth."
Hyde had no love for the Lord Keeper of the exiled court; but
according to several contemporary writers, the buccaneering Prince
looked upon Herbert as "an oracle," (to quote the diarist Evelyn) and
chose for a time at least to spend most of his gains in his own way.
But Rupert did not persist in the course suggested by his friend
Herbert. Soon afterwards he is announced to have made Charles a
present of two thousand pounds, for which the King expressed his
profound satisfaction by attaching him immediately to the royal
household.
A little later, in 1654, there is recorded the following, printed in
the "Loyal Gentleman at Court."
"Prince Rupert flourishes highly here, with his troop of blackamoors;
and so doth his cousin Charles, they having shared the money made of
his prize goods at Nantz."
[Sidenote: Rupert's Secretary.]
It was in this year that Rupert seems to have engaged one William
Strong, a cavalier who had lost all he possessed, to replace John
Holder as his private secretary, a circumstance worthy of mention,
inasmuch as it was Strong who was to figure later as the intermediary
between his master and the adventurer Groseilliers in London.
There is a passage of this period which describes Rupert as he
appeared in Paris, "a straight and comely man, very dark-featured,"
probably owing to exposure in warm climates, "with jet black hair and
a great passion for dress." He is often referred to in news-letters
and diaries of the time under the sobriquet of the "Black Prince."
"Our Black Prince Ruperte" records one, "has had a narrow escape from
drowning in the Seine; but by the help of one of his blackamoors
escaped."
This was perhaps the period of the closest friendship between Charles
and his Bohemian cousin; inasmuch as a decided coolness had already
arisen on the part of the exiled monarch and his brother, the Duke of
York. This coolness at length terminated in a quarrel, and a
separation in the ensuing year at Bruges. Indeed, the Duke advised
Rupert to have no further dealings with his royal brother, a
proposition which the Prince wisely, and fortunately for himself,
neglected to entertain, for had he acted otherwise, it is extremely
doubtful if at the Restoration he would have been in a position to
demand any favours at the monarch's hands. James, probably on this
score, never afterwards professed much cordiality towards his kinsman,
Rupert.
[Sidenote: A patron of commerce.]
In the years between 1656 and 1665, Rupert spent much of his time in
cultivating science and the arts. There are a hundred evidences of his
extraordinary ingenuity. A mere list of his devices and inventions, as
printed at his decease in 1682, almost entitles him to be considered
the Edison of his day, a day in which inventors were rare. Yet in the
period before the outbreak of the Dutch war his activity was by no
means limited to the laboratory which he had constructed for himself
in Kings' Bench Walk, Temple, or to his study at Windsor. None could
have exhibited greater versatility. In April, 1662, he was sworn a
member of the Privy Council; he also became a member of the Tangier
Commission; and in December of the same year he was unanimously
elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. He already cut a prominent
figure as a patron of commerce, being appointed a member of the
Council of Trade, and taking an active part in the promotion of
commerce with Africa as a member of the Royal African Company.
With all his sympathies and activities, however, it is very clear that
Rupert did not enjoy very great favour at Court. He was suspected of
holding his royal cousin in not very high esteem, and of entertaining
pronounced opinions on the subject of the royal prerogative; whatever
the cause, his influence at Whitehall was not always fortunate. Seeing
his councils neglected on several occasions, he kept aloof, and the
courtiers, taking as they supposed their cue from their master, made
light of his past achievements, finding in his surrender of the city
of Bristol, a specially suitable subject for their derision.
In 1664 we find in Pepys' Diary that Rupert had been "sent to command
the Guinny Fleet. Few pleased, as he is accounted an unhappy [_i.e._,
unlucky] man." As a consequence of these sentiments, which Rupert was
soon destined by his valour to alter, one Captain Holmes was sent
instead. Nevertheless it was known at Court that Rupert desired a
naval employment, and as the authorities found that their estimate of
his abilities was not mistaken, he was in 1666 selected to command the
fleet against the Dutch, in conjunction with the Duke of Albemarle.
His conduct was most exemplary. On one occasion he wrested a victory
from the Dutch, and again in the month of June beat them soundly,
pursuing them into their own harbour. Returning to England on the
cessation of hostilities, he found himself in much higher favour at
Court. But with a single exception, which I will proceed to relate,
Rupert sought no favours at the hands of his royal relations from this
moment until the day of his death. He was content to pursue an even
career in comparative solitude, a circumstance for which a serious
physical ailment, which soon overtook and for a time threatened his
life, was no doubt in some measure responsible. The fire which
distinguished his youth was exchanged, we are told, for good temper
and sedateness. He was credited with writing an autobiography, but if
the report be true, it is a pity there remains no tangible evidence of
such an intention. It is certain that his correspondence was so large
as to entail the continuous employment of a secretary, William Strong;
but prior to the inception of the Hudson's Bay project, it probably
related almost entirely to his chemical and scientific researches and
achievements.
In May, 1667, the Prince's secretary opened a letter from Lord
Preston, then English ambassador at Paris, intimating that one M. des
Groseilliers, a Canadian fur-trader, would be the bearer of an
introductory letter from himself to his highness. He was convinced
that the French were managing the fur-trade of New France very
clumsily, and he added that Monsieur des Groseilliers seemed as much
disaffected towards the new company lately chartered by the French
king as towards the old. There is no reason, in the writer's opinion,
why English men of commerce should not avail themselves of
opportunities and instruments, such as the weak policy of their rivals
now afforded, for obtaining a share in the northern fur-trade.
[Sidenote: Rupert sends for Groseilliers.]
Unfortunately Rupert was at first unable to see the adventurer who had
travelled so far. The cause of the delay is not quite clear, but it
appears plausible to suppose that it was due to the Prince's illness.
He had already undergone the operation of trepanning, and it was found
necessary to still continue treatment for the disease to which he had
been subject. At any rate it was a fortnight or three weeks before the
first interview took place, and the Prince and the French trader did
not meet until the 4th of June. The result of this interview was that
Prince Rupert promised his credit for the scheme. Three days later he
sent for Groseilliers, who found on his arrival in the Prince's
apartments several gentlemen, among whom Lord Craven, Sir John
Robinson and Mr. John Portman appear to have been numbered. In a week
from this conference both Radisson, Groseilliers and Portman travelled
to Windsor Castle at the request of the Prince. There is no record of
what then passed, but there is mention of a further meeting in a
letter written by Oldenburgh, the secretary of the Royal Society to
Robert Boyle, in America.
"Surely I need not tell you from hence" he wrote, "what is said here
with great joy of the discovery of a north-west passage by two
Englishmen and one Frenchman, lately represented by them to his
Majesty at Oxford and, answered by the grant of a vessel to sail into
Hudson's Bay and channel into the South Sea."
From this it would appear that Radisson was then popularly supposed to
be an Englishman, probably on account of his being Sir John Kirke's
son-in-law, and also that the matter was not settled at Windsor, but
at Oxford.
Then came a long delay--during which there is nothing worthy of
record. It was too late to attempt a voyage to the Bay in 1667, but
during the autumn and winter Groseilliers and Radisson could console
themselves with the assurance that their scheme had succeeded.
For at last the adventurers had met with a tangible success. A ship
was engaged and fitted out for them; and it was none other than that
commanded by their Boston friend, Captain Zachary Gillam.
FOOTNOTE:
[8] "We have another great officer," records "Pleasant Passages" in
another budget of news from Paris, "Prince Ruperte, Master of the
Horse."
CHAPTER IV.
1668-1670.
The Prince Visits the _Nonsuch_ -- Arrival in the Bay --
Previous Voyages of Exploration -- A Fort Commenced at Rupert's
River -- Gillam's Return -- Dealing with the Nodwayes --
Satisfaction of the Company -- A Royal Charter Granted.
Early in the morning of the 3rd of June, 1668, without attracting
undue attention from the riparian dwellers and loiterers, a small
skiff shot out from Wapping Old Stairs. The boatman directed its prow
towards the _Nonsuch_, a ketch of fifty tons, then lying at anchor in
mid-Thames, and soon had the satisfaction of conveying on board in
safety his Highness Prince Rupert, Lord Craven, and Mr. Hays, the
distinguished patrons of an interesting expedition that day embarking
for the New World. Radisson was to have accompanied the expedition but
he had met with an accident and was obliged to forego the journey
until the following year.
All hands being piped on deck, a salute was fired in honour of the
visitors. Captain Zachary Gillam and the Sieur des Groseilliers
received the Prince, and undertook to exhibit, not without a proper
pride, their craft and its cargo. Subsequently a descent was made to
the captain's cabin, where a bottle of Madeira was broached, and the
success of the voyage toasted by Rupert and his companions. The party
then returned to Wapping, amidst a ringing cheer from captain and
crew. By ten o'clock the _Nonsuch_ had weighed anchor and her voyage
had begun.
The passage across the Atlantic was without any incident worthy of
record. The vessel was fortunate in encountering no gales or rough
seas. The leisure of Groseilliers and Captain Gillam was employed
chiefly in discussing the most advantageous landfall, and in drawing
up plans for a settlement for fort-building and for trade with the
tribes. By the 4th of August they sighted Resolution Isle, at the
entrance of Hudson's Straits. They continued fearlessly on their
course. During their progress the shores on either hand were
occasionally visible; and once a squall compelled them to go so near
land as to descry a band of natives, the like of whom for bulk and
singularity of costume, Groseilliers and the captain had never clapped
eyes upon. They were right in judging these to be Esquimaux.
[Sidenote: The "Nonsuch" in the Bay.]
On the seventh day of their passage amongst those narrow channels and
mountains of ice which had chilled the enthusiasm and impeded the
progress of several daring navigators before them, the forty-two souls
on board the _Nonsuch_ were rewarded with a sight of Hudson's Bay.[9]
Already, and long before the advent of the _Nonsuch_, Hudson's Bay had
a history and a thrilling one.
In 1576 Sir Martin Frobisher made his first voyage for the discovery
of a passage to China and Cathay by the north-west, discovering and
entering a strait to which he gave his name. In the following year he
made a second voyage, "using all possible means to bring the natives
to trade, or give him some account of themselves, but they were so
wild that they only studied to destroy the English." Frobisher
remained until winter approached and then returned to England. A
further voyage of his in 1578-79 made no addition to the knowledge
already derived.
Six years later Captain John Davis sailed from Dartmouth, and in that
and succeeding voyages reached the Arctic circle through the straits
bearing his name. He related having found an open sea tending
westward, which he hoped might be the passage so long sought for; but
the weather proved too tempestuous, and, the season being far
advanced, he likewise returned to a more hospitable clime. After this
there were no more adventures in this quarter of the world until 1607,
when Captain Hudson explored as far north as 80 degrees 23 minutes. On
his third voyage, two years later, he proceeded a hundred leagues
farther along the strait, and arriving at the Bay resolved to winter
there.
Hudson was preparing for further exploration when Henry Green, a
profligate youth, whom he had taken into his house and preserved from
ruin by giving him a berth on board without the knowledge of the
owners, conspired with one Robert Ivett, the mate, whom Captain Hudson
had removed, to mutiny against Hudson's command. These turned the
captain, with his young son John, a gentleman named Woodhouse, who had
accompanied the expedition, together with the carpenter and five
others, into a long-boat, with hardly any provisions or arms. The
inhuman crew suffered all the hardships they deserved, for in a
quarrel they had with the savages Green and two of his companions were
slain. As for Ivett, who had made several voyages with Hudson, and was
the cause of all the mischief, he died on the passage home. Habbakuk
Prickett, one of the crew, who wrote all the account we have of the
latter part of the voyage, was a servant of Sir Dudley Diggs. Probably
his master's influence had something to do with his escape from
punishment.
[Sidenote: Henry Hudson's fate.]
This was the last ever seen or heard, by white men, of Henry Hudson,
and there is every likelihood that he and the others drifted to the
bottom of the Bay and were massacred by the savages.
In the year of Hudson's death Sir Thomas Button, at the instigation of
that patron of geographical science, Prince Henry, pursued the dead
hero's discoveries. He passed Hudson's Straits and, traversing the
Bay, settled above two hundred leagues to the south-west from the
straits, bestowing upon the adjacent region the name of New Wales.
Wintering in the district afterwards called Port Nelson, Button made
an investigation of the boundaries of this huge inland sea, from him
named Button's Bay.
In 1611 came the expedition of Baffin; and in 1631 Captain James
sailed westward to find the long-sought passage to China, spending the
winter at Charlton Island, which afterwards became a depot of the
Company. Captain Luke Fox went out in the same year, but his success
was no greater than his predecessors in attaining the object of his
search. He landed at Port Nelson and explored the country round about,
without however much advantage either to himself or to his crew. When
the _Nonsuch_ arrived a quarter of a century had passed since an
European had visited Hudson's Bay.
After much consultation, the adventurers sailed southward from Cape
Smith, and on Sept. 29 decided to cast anchor at the entrance to a
river situated in 51 degrees latitude. The journey was ended; the
barque's keel grated on the gravel, a boat was lowered and Gillam and
Groseilliers went promptly ashore. The river was christened Rupert's
River,[10] and it being arranged to winter here, all hands were ordered
ashore to commence the construction of a fort and dwellings, upon
which the name of King Charles was bestowed. Thus our little
ship's-load of adventurers stood at last on the remotest shores of the
New World; all but two of them strangers in a strange land.
[Sidenote: The first Fort.]
For three days after their arrival Groseilliers and his party beheld
no savages. The work of constructing the fort went on apace. It was,
under Groseilliers' direction, made of logs, after the fashion of
those built by the traders and Jesuits in Canada; a stockade enclosing
it, as some protection from sudden attack. The experienced bushranger
deemed it best not to land the cargo until communication had been made
with the natives; and their attitude, friendly or otherwise, towards
the strangers ascertained. No great time was spent in waiting; for on
the fourth day a small band of the tribe called Nodwayes appeared,
greatly astonished at the presence of white settlers in those parts.
After a great deal of parleying, the Indians were propitiated by
Groseilliers with some trifling gifts, and the object of their
settlement made known. The Indians retired, promising to return before
the winter set in with all the furs in their possession, and also to
spread the tidings amongst the other tribes.
The autumn supply proved scanty enough; but the adventurers being well
provisioned could afford to wait until the spring.
Groseilliers' anticipations were realized; but not without almost
incredible activity on his part. He spent the summer and autumn, and
part of the ensuing winter, in making excursions into the interior. He
made treaties with the Nodwayes, the Kilistineaux, the Ottawas, and
other detachments of the Algonquin race. Solemn conclaves were held,
in which the bushranger dwelt--with that rude eloquence of which he
was master, and which both he and Radisson had borrowed from the
Indians--on the superior advantages of trade with the English. Nor did
his zeal here pause; knowing the Indian character as he did, he
concocted stories about the English King and Prince Rupert; many a
confiding savage that year enriched his pale-face vocabulary by adding
to it "Charles" and "Rupert," epithets which denoted that transcendent
twain to whom the French bushranger had transferred his labours and
his allegiance.
The winter of 1668-69 dragged its slow length along, and in due course
the ground thawed and the snow disappeared. No sooner had the spring
really arrived than strange natives began to make their appearance,
evincing a grotesque eagerness to strike bargains with the whites for
the pelts which they brought from the bleak fastnesses. By June it was
thought fit that Captain Gillam should return with the _Nonsuch_,
leaving Groseilliers and others at the fort. Gillam accordingly sailed
away with such cargo as they had been able to muster, to report to the
Prince and his company of merchants the excellent prospects afforded
by the post on Rupert's River, provided only the Indians could be made
aware of its existence, and the French trade intercepted.
[Illustration: THE ORIGINAL CHARTER OF THE GREAT COMPANY.
(_From a Photograph._)]
[Sidenote: Groseilliers' presence of mind.]
Chouart des Groseilliers in all his transactions with the natives
exhibited great hardihood of speech and action; and few indeed were
the occasions which caught him unawares. It happened more than once,
for instance, that some of the wandering Algonquins or Hurons
recognized in this smooth-tongued leader of the English fort the same
French trader they had known at Montreal, and the French posts on the
western lakes, and marvelled much that he who had then been loudly
crying "up King Lewis and the Fleur-de-lis," should now be found
surrounded by pale-faces of a different speech, known to be the allies
of the terrible Iroquois. Groseilliers met their exclamations with a
smile; he represented himself as profoundly dissatisfied with the
manner in which the French traders treated his friends the Indians,
causing them to travel so far and brave such perils to bring their
furs, and giving them so little in return. "Tell all your friends to
come hither," he cried, "and King Charles will give you double what
King Lewis gives."
In August, 1669, a gun was heard by Groseilliers and his English and
native companions. With great joy the bushranger ran from the fort to
the point of land commanding the Bay, thinking to welcome back Gillam
and the expected _Nonsuch_. But as the vessel came nearer he saw it
was not the _Nonsuch_, and for a moment he was dismayed, uncertain
whether or not to make himself known. But the colour of the flag she
carried reassured him; he caused a fire to be made, that the attention
of those on board might be attracted by the smoke; and was soon made
aware that his signal had been seen. The sloop headed up Rupert's
River, and a boat containing three men was lowered from her side.
Greater still was Groseilliers' joy when he recognized amongst the
approaching party in the boat his brother-in-law, Pierre Radisson.
These two sturdy children of the wilderness embraced one another with
great affection and set to work diligently to barter. The _Nonsuch_
arrived safely in the Thames in the month of August.
[Sidenote: Satisfaction of the Adventurers.]
It would be difficult to exaggerate the satisfaction of the company
of London merchants at hearing the results of their first venture.
They had taken counsel together, and considering the importance of
securing a charter of monopoly from the King to be paramount, Prince
Rupert was persuaded to use his good offices to this end.
Charles was doubtless relieved to hear that his cousin Rupert desired
no greater favour. He expressed himself ready to grant such a patent,
provided the Lord Chancellor approved. A charter was accordingly drawn
up forthwith at the instance of the Prince, in the usual form of such
charters; but the winter of 1669-70 elapsed without its having
received the royal assent. Indeed it was not until the second day of
May that Prince Rupert, presenting himself at Whitehall, received from
the King's own hands one of the most celebrated instruments which ever
passed from monarch to subject, and which, though almost incessantly
in dispute, was perpetuated in full force throughout two
centuries.[11]
[Sidenote: The Charter.]
This document was granted to Prince Rupert and seventeen nobles and
gentlemen, comprising the Duke of Albemarle,[12] Earls Craven and
Arlington, Lord Ashley,[13] Sir John Robinson, Sir Robert Vyner, Sir
Peter Colleton, Sir Edward Hungerford, Sir Paul Neele, Sir John
Griffith, Sir Philip Carteret, Knights and Baronets; James Hays, John
Kirke, Francis Wellington, William Prettyman, John Fenn, Esquires, and
John Portman, "Citizen and Goldsmith," incorporated into a company,
with the exclusive right to establish settlements and carry on trade
at Hudson's Bay. The charter recites that those adventurers having, at
their own great cost, undertaken an expedition to Hudson's Bay in
order to discover a new passage into the South Sea, and to find a
trade for furs, minerals and other commodities, and having made such
discoveries as encouraged them to proceed in their design, his Majesty
granted to them and their heirs, under the name of "The Governor and
Company of Merchants-Adventurers trading into Hudson's Bay," the power
of holding and alienating lands, and the sole right of trade in
Hudson's Strait, and with the territories upon the coasts of the same.
They were authorized to get out ships of war, to erect forts, make
reprisals, and send home all English subjects entering the Bay without
their license, and to declare war and make peace with any prince or
people not Christian.
The territory described as Rupert's Land consisted of the whole region
whose waters flowed into Hudson's Bay. It was a vast tract--perhaps as
vast as Europe--how much vaster was yet to be made known, for the
breadth of the Continent of North America had not yet been even
approximately ascertained. For all the Adventurers knew the Pacific
Ocean was not distant more than one hundred miles west of the Bay.
In the same merry month of May the _Prince Rupert_ set sail from
Gravesend, conveying a new cargo, a new crew, and a newly appointed
overseer of trade, to the Company's distant dominions.
FOOTNOTES:
[9] The proportions of this inland sea are such as to give it a
prominent place among the geographical features of the world. One
thousand three hundred miles in length, by six hundred miles in
breadth, it extends over twelve degrees of latitude, and covers an
area not less than half a million square miles. Of the five basins
into which Canada is divided, that of Hudson's Bay is immeasurably the
largest, the extent of country draining into it being estimated at
three million square miles. To swell the mighty volume of its waters
there come rivers which take their rise in the Rocky Mountains on the
west, and the Labrador wilderness on the east; while southward its
river roots stretch far down below the forty-ninth parallel, reaching
even to the same lake source whence flows a stream into the Gulf of
Mexico. A passing breath of wind may determine whether the ultimate
destiny of the rain drop falling into the little lake be the bosom of
the Mexican Gulf or the chilly grasp of the Arctic ice-floe.
[10] Known afterwards as Nemiscau by the French.
[11] See Appendix.
[12] The second Duke, Charles' old friend, General George Monk, known
to all the leaders of English history as the brave restorer of the
King, afterwards created Duke of Albemarle, died in the year the
charter was granted.
[13] Lord Ashley, the ancestor of the present Earl of Shaftsbury, and
one of the ruling spirits of the reign of Charles II., will also be
remembered as the Achitophel of Dryden.
"A man so various that he seemed to be
Not one; but all mankind's epitome."
Arlington, another of the Honourable Adventurers, was also a member of
the celebrated Cabal.
CHAPTER V.
1668-1670.
Danger Apprehended to French Dominion -- Intendant Talon -- Fur
Trade Extended Westward -- News of the English Expedition
Reaches Quebec -- Sovereign Rights in Question -- English
Priority Established.
[Sidenote: French activity.]
Although neither the Governor, the Fur Company nor the officials of
the Most Christian King at Quebec, had responded favourably to the
proposals of Groseilliers, yet they were not long in perceiving that a
radical change in their trade policy was desirable. Representations
were made to M. Colbert and the French Court. It was even urged that
France's North American dominions were in danger, unless a more
positive and aggressive course were pursued with regard to extension.
These representations, together with the knowledge that the Dutch on
the south side of the St Lawrence and in the valley of the Hudson had
unexpectedly acknowledged allegiance to the King of England,
determined Lewis to evince a greater interest in Canadian affairs than
he had done hitherto.
Mezy was recalled, to die soon afterwards; and Daniel de Remin,
Seigneur de Courcelles, was despatched as Provincial Governor. A new
office was created, that of Intendant of Justice, Police and Finance;
and Jean Talon--a man of ability, experience and energy--was made the
first Intendant. Immediately upon his arrival, he took steps to
confirm the sovereignty of his master over the vast realms in the
West; and to set up the royal standard in the region of the Great
Lakes.
In 1668 Talon returned to France, taking with him one of those hardy
bushrangers (_coureurs de bois_) who passed nearly the whole of their
lives in the interior and in the company of the Hurons. This man seems
to have cut a very picturesque figure. He had been scalped, and bore
about his person many grim mutilations and disfigurements, to bear
witness to his adventures amongst unfriendly tribes. He accompanied
Talon in the capacity of servant or bodyguard, and appears to have had
little difficulty in making himself an object of infinite interest to
the lackeys and concierges of Paris. On the Intendant's return to
Canada, this daring personage, Peray by name, is alluded to as Talon's
most trusted adviser with regard to the western country and the tribes
inhabiting it. In one of the Intendant's letters, dated February 24th,
1669, he writes that Peray had "penetrated among the western nations
farther than any Frenchman; and had seen the copper mine on Lake
Huron. This man offers to go to that mine and explore either by sea,
or by the lake and river--such communication being supposed to exist
between Canada and the South Sea--or to the Hudson's Bay."
French activity had never been so great in the new world as in the
years between Groseilliers' departure from Quebec and the period when
the English fur-traders first came in contact with the French on the
shores of Hudson's Bay, thirteen years later.
In the summer of 1669, the active and intelligent Louis Joliet, with
an outfit of 4,000 livres, supplied him by the Intendant, penetrated
into an unknown region and exhibited the white standard of France
before the eyes of the astonished natives.
This also was the period which witnessed the exploits of La Salle, and
of Saint Lusson. Trade followed quickly on their heels. In March,
1670, five weeks before the charter was granted to the Great Company,
a party of Jesuits arriving at Sault Ste. Marie found twenty-five
Frenchmen trading there with the Indians. These traders reported that
a most lucrative traffic had sprung up in that locality. Coincident
with the tidings they thus conveyed to Talon, the Intendant learnt
from some Algonquins who had come to Quebec to trade, that two
European vessels had been seen in Hudson's Bay.
[Sidenote: Colbert and the Company.]
"After reflecting," he wrote to Colbert, "on all the nations that
might have penetrated as far north as that, I can only fall back on
the English, who, under the conduct of one named Groseilliers, in
former times an inhabitant of Canada, might possibly have attempted
that navigation, of itself not much known and not less dangerous. I
design to send by land some men of resolution to invite the
Kilistinons,[14] who are in great numbers in the vicinity of that Bay,
to come down to see us as the Ottawas do, in order that we may have
the first handling of what the savages bring us, who, acting as retail
dealers between ourselves and those natives (_i.e._, the Kilistinons),
make us pay for this roundabout way of three or four hundred leagues."
The rivalry of French and English north of the St. Lawrence had begun.
With that rivalry began also from this moment that long series of
disputes concerning the sovereignty of the whole northern territories,
which has endured down to our own generation.
[Sidenote: A much vexed controversy.]
Few historical themes have ever been argued at greater length or more
minutely than this--the priority of discovery, occupation, and active
assumption of sovereignty over those lands surrounding Hudson's Bay,
which for two centuries were to be held and ruled by the Hudson's Bay
Company. The wisest jurists, the shrewdest intellects, the most
painstaking students were destined to employ themselves for over a
century in seeking to establish by historical evidence, by tradition
and by deduction, the "rights" of the English or of the French to
those regions.
A great deal of importance has been attached to the fact that in 1627
a charter had been granted by Lewis XIII. to a number of adventurers
sent to discover new lands to the north of the River of St. Lawrence.
The clause of the charter reads as follows:--"Le fort et habitation de
Quebec, avec tout le pays de la Nouvelle France dite Canada, tant le
long des Cotes depuis la Floride que les predecesseurs Rois de Sa
Majeste ont fait habiter en rangeant les Cotes de la Mer jusqu'au
Cercle Artique pour latitude, et de longitude depuis l'Ile de
Terreneuve tirant a l'ouest au Grand Lac dit la Mer douce et au dela
que de dans les terres, et le long des Rivieres qui y passant et se
dechargent dans le fleuve dit St. Laurent, ou autrement la grande
Riviere du Canada, et dans tous les autres fleuves qui se portent a la
mer." But most writers have omitted to verify the fact that in this
charter to the French Company, the only portions of land granted to
the French Company are the lands or portions of lands which had
already been occupied by the Kings of France, and the object of the
charter was simply to give them an exclusive right of trade therein.
Thus it was clearly indicated that the charter did not go further than
the land occupied by the predecessors of Lewis XIV.
"New France was then understood to include the whole region of
Hudson's Bay, as the maps and histories of the time, English and
French, abundantly prove." This is a broad assertion, which is not
supported by the early discoverers nor by the historians of that time.
Charlevoix in his history described New France as being an exceedingly
limited territory. There is in l'Escarbot a description which shows
that at that time the whole territory known as New France extended but
a few miles on each side of the St. Lawrence. Charlevoix says
regretfully at that time that the giving up of this territory did not
amount to much, as New France was circumscribed by very narrow limits
on either side of the St Lawrence.
When an examination is made into the facts of the voyages and
expeditions alleged to have been undertaken by the French prior to
1672, it is difficult to arrive at any but a certain conclusion--that
the French claims had no foundation in fact.
It was then asserted, and long afterwards repeated, that Jean Bourdon,
the Attorney-General in 1656, explored the entire coast of Labrador
and entered Hudson's Bay. For this assertion one is unable to find any
historical support; certainly no record of any kind exists of such a
voyage. There is a record in 1655, it is true, that Sieur Bourdon,
then Attorney-General, was authorized to make a discovery of _Mer du
Nord_; and in order to comply with that _arrét_ of the Sovereign
Council at Quebec, he actually made an attempt at such discovery.
Bourdon left Quebec on May 2nd, 1657, and an entry in the records
proves his return on August 11th of the same year. It is manifestly
impossible that such a voyage could have been accomplished between
these dates. But a reference to this business in the Jesuit relations
of the succeeding year is sufficiently convincing.[15]
It is there recorded that on the "11th of August, there appeared the
barque of M. Bourdon, which having descended the Grand River on the
north side, sailed as far as the 55th degree, where it encountered a
great bank of ice, which caused it to return, having lost two Hurons
that it had taken as guides. The Esquimaux savages of the north
massacred them and wounded a Frenchman with three arrows and one cut
with a knife."
Another statement employed to strengthen the French claim to
sovereignty was, that Father Dablon and Sieur de Valiere were ordered
in 1661 to proceed to the country about Hudson's Bay, and that they
accordingly went thither. All accounts available to the historian
agree that the worthy father never reached the Bay.
[Sidenote: La Couture's mythical voyage.]
Another assertion equally long-lived and equally ill-founded, was to
the effect that one Sieur La Couture, with five men, proceeded
overland to the Bay, and there took possession of it in the King's
name. There is no account of this voyage in _Charlevoix_, or in the
"Relations des Jesuites," or in the memoir furnished by M. de
Callieres to the Marquis de Denonville. This memoir, which was penned
in 1685, or twenty-one years after the time of which it treated, set
forth that La Couture made the journey for purposes of discovery.
Under the circumstances, particularly owing to the strong necessity
under which the French were placed to find some shadow of right for
their pretensions, M. de Callieres' memoir has been declared
untrustworthy by competent authorities.
[Illustration: ENGLISH MAP OF 1782.]
In 1663, Sieur Duquet, the King's Attorney for Quebec, and Jean
L'Anglois, a Canadian colonist, are said to have gone to Hudson's Bay
by order of Sieur D'Argenson, and to have renewed possession by
setting up the King's arms there a second time. Such an order could
hardly have been given by D'Argenson, because he had left Canada on
September 16th, 1671, two years before this pretended order was given
to Sieur Duquet.
[Sidenote: French falsehoods and fallacies.]
It has been attempted to explain the silence of the "Relations of the
Jesuits" concerning Bourdon's voyage, by asserting that they were
naturally anxious that members of their own society should be the
pioneers in discovery, and that therefore many important discoveries
were never brought to light in their relations because they were not
made by Jesuits. It is enough to say that such an argument cannot
apply to the voyage of Dablon. He was a Jesuit, a man in whom the
interests of the society were centred, and if a voyage had been made
by him, no doubt a great deal of prominence would have been given to
it. On the contrary, in the third volume of the "Jesuit Relations,"
1662, we find this Jesuit, Father Dablon, describing an unsuccessful
voyage that he made. There can be no doubt that he attempted a voyage.
A portion of this relation is written by himself, and he calls it,
"Journal du Premier Voyage Fait Vers la Mer du Nord." The first
portion of it is most important and conclusive, as showing that De
Callieres, in his memoir to M. De Seignely, twenty-one years
afterwards, must have been speaking from hearsay, and without any
authentic documents on which to base his assertions. Dablon says that
the highest point which he did reach was Nekauba, a hundred leagues
from Tadoussac, and that subsequently he returned; and this is from a
report of this journey written by himself. Some have attempted to
raise a doubt as to the identity of the Dablon in De Callieres'
memoir, with the Dablon of the "Relations des Jesuites." But at the
end of one of the volumes is a complete list of all the Jesuits,
pioneers both of the faith and in the way of discovery, and there is
only one Dablon mentioned. Another inaccuracy of this memoir is as to
the trip of Duquet, under an order said to have been given by Sieur
D'Argenson. There can be no doubt that at the time this pretended
order was given, D'Argenson had left Canada.
On the whole it may be as well for the reader to dismiss the French
pretensions. They are no longer of interest, save to the
hair-splitting student of the country's annals: but in their day they
gave rise to a wilderness of controversy, through which we in the
twentieth century may yet grope vainly for the light. For all
practical purposes the question of priority was settled forever by the
Ontario Boundary Commission of 1884. Let us turn rather to behold to
what account the Honourable Adventurers turned their new property.
FOOTNOTES:
[14] Kristineaux, Crees.
[15] Jean Bourdon was of the Province of Quebec; he was well known to
the Jesuits and trusted by them. He subsequently accompanied Father
Jacques on an embassy to Governor Dongan, the Governor of the Province
of New York.
In Shea's _Charlevoix_, Vol. III, pp. 39, 40, it is stated that Père
Dablon attempted to penetrate to the northern ocean by ascending the
Saguenay. Early in June, two months after they set out, they found
themselves at the head of the Nekauba river, 300 miles from Lake St.
John. Warned of the approach of the Iroquois, they dared not proceed
farther. In the New York Historical Documents (p. 97) there is an
account of Dablon from the time of his arrival in Canada in 1655. He
was immediately sent missionary to Onondaga, where he continued with a
brief interval until 1658. In 1661 he set out overland for Hudson's
Bay, but succeeded only in reaching the head waters of the Nekauba,
300 miles from Lac St. Jean.
CHAPTER VI.
1671.
First Public Sale at Garraway's -- Contemporary Prices of Fur
-- The Poet Dryden -- Meetings of the Company -- Curiosity of
the Town -- Aborigines on View.
On the seventeenth day of November, 1671, the wits, beaux and
well-to-do merchants who were wont to assemble at Garraway's
coffee-house, London, were surprised by a placard making the following
announcement:--"On the fifth of December, ensuing, There Will Be Sold,
in the Greate Hall of this Place, 3,000 weight of Beaver Skins,[16]
comprised in thirty lotts, belonging to the Honourable, the Governour
and Company of Merchants-Adventurers Trading into Hudson's Bay."
[Illustration: THE BEAVER.]
Such was the notice of the first official sale of the Company. Up to
this date, the peltries brought back in their ships had been disposed
of by private treaty, an arrangement entrusted chiefly to Mr. John
Portman and Mr. William Prettyman, both of whom appear to have had
considerable familiarity with the European fur-trade. The immediate
occasion of this sale is a trivial matter. The causes lying behind it
are of interest.
Among the numerous houses which cured and dealt in furs at this
period, both in London and Bristol, there were none whose business
seems to have been comparable, either in quantity or quality, to that
of the great establishments which flourished in Leipsic and Amsterdam,
Paris and Vienna. Indeed, it was a reproach continually levelled at
the English fur-dressers that such furs as passed through their hands
were vastly inferior to the foreign product; and it is certain that it
was the practice of the nobles and wealthier classes, as well as the
municipal and judicial dignitaries, for whose costume fur was
prescribed by use and tradition, to resort not to any English
establishment, but to one of the cities above-mentioned, when desirous
of replenishing this department of their wardrobe. Hitherto, then, the
Company had had but little opportunity of extending its trade, and but
little ground to show why an intending purchaser should patronize its
wares. But the superiority both in the number and quality of the skins
which now began to arrive seems to have encouraged the directors to
make a new bid for public custom; and as the purchasing public showed
no disposition to visit their warehouses they determined to take their
wares to the public.
[Sidenote: First sale well attended.]
This sale of the Company, however, the first, as it subsequently
proved, of a series of great transactions which during the past two
centuries have made London the centre of the world's fur-trade, did
not take place until the twenty-fourth of January. It excited the
greatest interest. Garraway's was crowded by distinguished men, and
both the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York, besides Dryden, the
poet, were among the spectators. There are some lines attributed to
him, under date of 1672, which may have been improvised on this
occasion.
"Friend, once 'twas Fame that led thee forth
To brave the Tropic Heat, the Frozen North,
Late it was Gold, then Beauty was the Spur;
But now our Gallants venture but for Fur."
A number of purchases seem to have been made by private parties; but
the bulk of the undressed beaver-skins probably went to fur merchants,
and there is good reason to believe that the majority found their way
into the hands of Portman and Prettyman. Beaver seems on this occasion
to have fetched from thirty-five to fifty-five shillings--a high
figure, which for a long time was maintained. But the Company showed
considerable sagacity by not parting with its entire stock of furs at
once. Only the beaver-skins were disposed of at this sale; the
peltries of moose, marten, bear and otter were reserved for a separate
and subsequent auction.
[Sidenote: Meeting at John Horth's.]
Prior to its incorporation, and for a year afterwards, the Company
does not seem to have pursued any formal course with regard to its
meetings. At first, they met at the Tower, at the Mint, or at Prince
Rupert's house in Spring Garden. Once or twice they met at Garraway's.
But at a conclave held on November 7th, 1671, it was resolved that a
definite procedure should be established with regard both to the time
and place of meeting, and to the keeping of the minutes and accounts.
These latter, it was ordered, were forthwith to be rendered weekly to
the General Court, so that the adventurers might be conversant with
all sales, orders and commissions included in the Company's dealings.
Employees' accounts were also to be posted up; and the same regulation
was applied to the lists of goods received for the two ships then
lying in the Thames. It was further decreed that the weekly meetings
should take place at Mr. John Horth's office, "The Excise Office," in
Broad Street, pending the building of a "Hudson's Bay House."
Soon afterwards, a "General Court" of the adventurers was held, at
which the Prince, Lord Ashley, Sir John Robinson, Sir Peter Colleson,
Sir Robert Viner, Mr. Kirke and Mr. Portman were in attendance. We
catch a thoroughly typical glimpse of Prince Rupert at this meeting;
sober business was not at all to his taste, and at a very early stage
in the proceedings he feigned either indisposition or another
appointment, and took his departure. A hint, however, may possibly
have been given to him to do so, for, no sooner was the door closed
behind him, than his friend Lord Ashley introduced a very delicate
topic which was entered into by all those present. It concerned
nothing less than Prince Rupert's profits, which up to this time seem
to have been very vaguely defined.
Lord Ashley spoke for the Prince and he seems to have demanded some
definite payment besides a share in the enterprise; but there is no
record of an agreement or of any exact sum, nor is there any basis for
the conjecture that his share was ten thousand pounds. The charter of
monopoly was an important one, and the King certainly not the man to
fail in appreciating its value; but how much he did out of good will
to his kinsman, and how much out of consideration for his own profit,
will never be known. A perusal of the vast quantity of manuscript
matter which exists relating to this arrangement leads to the
conclusion that Charles sold the charter out of hand. And indeed one
pamphleteer, intent on defaming the Company in 1766, even goes so far
as to profess actual knowledge of the sum paid to his Majesty by the
adventurers. Upon a consideration of all the speculations advanced, I
have come to the conclusion that it is highly improbable that the King
received any immediate pecuniary advantage whatever on account of the
charter. There is no shadow of evidence to support the charge; and
there is at least some presumptive evidence against it. Charters were
both commonly and cheaply given in those days. Even where
consideration was given, the amount was insignificant. In 1668, for
example, Charles transferred the province of Bombay, which had come to
the British Crown as portion of the dower of Catherine of Braganza, to
the East India Company for an annual rent of no more than £10. On the
whole then the data, such as they are, strongly favour the belief that
he granted the charter simply in the cause of friendship and at the
urgent instance of his cousin; while, as an additional motive, it was
probably also urged upon him that a charter boasting the royal
signature would be a virtual assertion of his dominion over territory
which was always somewhat in dispute.
Prince Rupert himself in any case was paid a lump sum by the
adventurers, but the amount will probably never be known.
The early meetings of the Company seem to have been largely occupied
in considering the question of cargoes. This was, no doubt, a very
important business. The Company appear to have had two precedents
which, in part, they naturally adopted, those of the Dutch (or West
India Company) and the French Company. The East India Company's
practice could have afforded them little assistance. They also struck
out a line for themselves, and in their selection of goods for the
purposes of barter they were greatly guided by the advice of Radisson,
who had a very sound conception of the Indian character. From the
first the Company rejected the policy of seeking to exchange glass
beads and gilded kickshaws for furs. Not that they found it
inexpedient to include these trifles in their cargoes: for we read in
one of the news-letters of 1671, speaking of the doings at
Garraway's:--
"Hither came Mr. Portman, to whom, reports says, is entrusted the
purchase of beads and ribbons for the American savages by the new
Adventurers, and who is charged with being in readiness to bargain for
sackfuls of child's trinkets as well as many outlandish things, which
are proper for barter. He takes the rallying in great good-humour."
[Sidenote: Solid character of the merchandise.]
Long before the Company was thought of, the manufacture of beads and
wampum for the New England trade had been going on in London. But
beads and jewellery, it was argued, were better suited for the African
and East Indian trade. It was Radisson who pointed out with great
propriety that the northern tribes would become most useful to the
Company if they were provided with weapons for killing or ensnaring
the game, as well as with the knives, hatchets and kettles, which were
indispensable for dressing it, and for preparing pemmican. And his
advice was taken on this, as on most other points. Thus for the
_Prince Rupert_ and the _Imploy_, which were to sail in the following
spring, the following cargo was prescribed by Radisson and Captain
Gillam:--
500 fowling pieces, and powder and shot in proportion.
500 brass kettles, 2 to 16 gallons apiece.
30 gross of knives.
2,000 hatchets.
But it is curious to note how this list of exports was continually
added to. For instance, one of the Company on one occasion rose at the
weekly meeting and stated that he had been told by an experienced
Indian trader that scarlet cloth was very highly esteemed among the
Indians.
"I hear," said he, "that an Indian will barter anything he possesses
for a couple of yards of scarlet cloth and a few dyed feathers."
Whereupon, the chairman turned to the original adventurer in the
region controlled by the Company.
"What does Mr. Radisson say to this?"
"I think," said Mr. Radisson, "that the honourable adventurer does not
understand the Indian trade as well as I do. He forgets that Indians
are of many races; and that what will suit the case and attract the
cupidity of an Indian far to the south, will have little effect on the
northern tribes. An Iroquois would think more of a brass nail than of
twenty yards of scarlet cloth. In the north, where we have built a
factory, the Indians are more peaceful; but they do not care much for
kickshaws and coloured rags. They, too, esteem powder and shot and the
means of discharging them. But they are just as fond, particularly
Eskimaux, of knives and kettles and hatchets."
On a subsequent occasion, a third as many again of these implements
were taken as cargo.
[Sidenote: Ships besieged by peddlers.]
In the meantime, it was not to be supposed that the rumours of the
great value put upon petty merchandise by the hyperborean savages,
could fail to excite the cupidity of London merchants and dealers in
these things. The ships that sailed in the spring of 1671 were
besieged by peddlers and small dealers, who were prepared to
adventure their property in the wilds. Not only the ships, but the
houses selected for the Company's meetings were beset with eager
throngs, praying the adventurers, collectively and individually, to
act as middlemen for their trumpery merchandise.
Not only did the ships and the place of meeting suffer siege, but as
many as thirty persons shipped out to Hudson's Bay in the first two
voyages after the granting of the charter, while twenty-one of them
returned in the next two vessels fully determined, apparently, to
repeat a journey which had proved so lucrative.
To abate this nuisance, it was enacted that no persons would
"hereafter be employed to stay in the country or otherwise but by
consent of the Committee, nor any goods be put aboard the ships but
with their knowledge and consent, to the end that the ships be not
hereafter pestered as they were the last voyage."
This enactment may have had its rise in the dishonesty of these
self-appointed adventurers. On several occasions on unshipping the
cargo, boxes and barrels containing valuable furs would be found
missing, or their loss would coincide with the disappearance of a
reprobate who had joined the ship without a character.
Thus we read in the minutes that at one meeting it was ordered that
enquiry be made as to sixty beaver skins, "very good and large, packed
up with the others, in one of the casks, which were not found." One
Jeremiah Walker, a second mate and supercargo was required to state
which cask they were taken in, and his cross-examination reveals the
loose and unbusiness-like methods then in vogue.
Nothing could be more entertaining than the character of these
meetings, as compared with a modern board-meeting of a joint stock
enterprise. A great air of mystery was kept up. The novelty of the
undertaking was so great as to imbue the committee with a high sense
of the importance and interest of their weekly conclaves. The length
of the speeches bears witness to this spirit. A member had been known
to speak for a whole hour on the edifying theme as to whether the furs
should be placed in barrels or boxes.
[Illustration: ARMS OF THE HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY.]
Vague rumours of these secret proceedings permeated the town. They
became a standing topic at the places where men foregathered. To the
popular imagination, the north was a land of fable. The denizens of
those countries were invested with strange attributes and clothed in
weird and wonderful garments. The Hudson's Bay Company dealt with
picturesque monarchs and a fierce, proud and noble people, whose
ordinary attire was the furs of sable, of ermine, of fox, and of
otter; who made treaties and exacted tributes after the fashion of the
ceremonial East. Petty chiefs and sachems were described as kings and
emperors; the wretched squaws of a redskin leader as queens. It was,
perhaps, only natural for a generation which banqueted its imagination
on the seductive fable of a North-West Passage to confuse the Red
Indians of North America with the inhabitants of the East; a very long
period was to pass away before the masses were able to distinguish
between the tawny-skinned Indian of the North American continent and
the swarthy servants of the East India Company. Nor were the masses
alone sinners in this respect. The Indians of Dryden, of Congreve, of
Steele, and even of writers so late as Goldsmith no more resembled the
real Red-men than the bison of the western prairies was akin to the
buffalo of the Himalayas.
For such reasons as these, the Adventurers kept their ways and their
superior knowledge with superior discretion to themselves.
[Sidenote: Capital of the Company.]
It was never known in the seventeenth century what actually
constituted the original capital of the Adventurers. So small was it
that when, in the course of the Parliamentary Committee of Enquiry in
1749, nearly eighty years after the Company had received its charter,
the figures were divulged, the pettiness of the sum occasioned
universal surprise. Each adventurer was apparently required to pay
£300, sterling; and the gross sum was divided into thirty-four equal
shares. Besides Prince Rupert's "sundry charges" (the euphemism
employed to describe the sum paid him for his interest in obtaining
the charter), his Highness was offered a share amounting to one equal
share. "He having graciously signified his acceptance thereof," says
the secretary in the minute-book, "credit given him for three hundred
pounds." The capital thus stood at £10,500.
FOOTNOTE:
[16] The beaver, amphibious and intelligent, had for centuries a
considerable place in commerce: and also a celebrity of its own as the
familiar synonym for the common covering of a man's head, and here the
animal becomes historic. By royal proclamation in 1638, Charles I., of
England, prohibited the use of any material in the manufacture of hats
"except beaver stuff or beaver wool." This proclamation was the
death-warrant of beavers innumerable, sacrificed to the demands of the
trade.
CHAPTER VII.
1671-1673.
Mission of the Père Albanel -- Apprehension at Fort Charles --
Bailey's Distrust of Radisson -- Expedition to Moose River --
Groseilliers and the Savages -- The Bushrangers Leave the
Company's Service -- Arrival of Governor Lyddal.
While the Honourable Company of Adventurers was holding its meetings
in Mr. Alderman Horth's house, and gravely discussing its huge profits
and its motley wares, an event was happening some thousands of miles
away which was to decide the fate, for some years at least, of the two
picturesque figures to whom the inception of the whole enterprise was
due.
In August, 1671, M. Talon, the Intendant of New France, sent for a
certain Father Albanel and a young friend of his, the Sieur de St.
Simon, and after embracing them sent both forth on a perilous mission
to the North. They were directed to "penetrate as far as the Mer du
Nord; to draw up a memoir of all they would discover, drive a trade in
fur with the Indians, and especially reconnoitre whether there be any
means of wintering ships in that quarter." Such were the injunctions
bestowed upon these hardy spirits on the eve of their errand. To recur
to a theme already touched upon, if the French Government of the day
had previously caused visits to be made to Hudson's Bay in the manner
described several years later, all this knowledge would have been
already acquired; and there would have been no necessity to despatch
either priest or layman thither to make that discovery anew.
[Sidenote: Father Albanel's journey.]
In the "Jesuit Relations" for 1672 is found Father Albanel's own
narration of his journey:
"Hitherto this voyage had been considered impossible for Frenchmen,
who, after having undertaken it three times and not having been able
to surmount the obstacles, had seen themselves to abandon it in
despair of success. What appears as impossible is found not to be so
when it pleases God. The conduct of it was reserved to me after
eighteen years' prosecution that I had made, and I have very excellent
proofs that God reserved the execution of it for me, after the
singular favour of a sudden and marvellous, not to say miraculous,
recovery that I received as soon as I devoted myself to this mission
at the solicitation of my Superior; and in fact I have not been
deceived in my expectation; I have opened the road, in company with
two Frenchmen and six savages." Thus it is made apparent that so far
as the Jesuits, pioneers of this country, were concerned, no knowledge
of any of their compatriots having penetrated to Hudson's Bay had ever
reached them. The letter that M. Talon was writing to his royal master
is proof that he, too, was unaware of any prior discovery. No doubt
remains that the worthy priest and the young chevalier, his servant,
were the first party travelling overland from Quebec to penetrate into
those regions and to behold that vast expanse of water.
The little band of English at Fort Charles, under Charles Bailey, who
had been sent out as Governor of Rupert's Land by the Company, were
soon made aware of the proximity of the French, and no one seems to
have been more affected by the news than Radisson and Groseilliers.
The two brothers-in-law indulged in many anxious surmises. Radisson
offered to go and find out who the intruders were, but the Governor by
no means favoured the idea. In those days, when national rivalries and
prejudices were so intense, and especially so among the English middle
classes, Bailey seems to have felt a great deal of distrust with
regard to the two Frenchmen; and he early made up his mind to let them
know his opinion and feel his authority. The two parties were
continually at loggerheads; the Frenchmen naturally resenting the
Governor's unjust suspicions, and the Governor retorting by a
ponderous irony and a surly and continual surveillance of their speech
and movements.
[Sidenote: Rivals on the scene.]
In the following year, 1673, the occupants of the Company's post, at
Rupert's River, were made aware of the neighbourhood of their trade
rivals in no pleasant manner. The Indians of the country round about
began to show signs of disaffection. On being questioned, some of the
more friendly ones were induced to betray the cause. They had been
informed by the Frenchmen, who in that and the previous years had
reached the shores of the Bay, distant some twenty or thirty leagues,
that the English were not to be trusted, that their firearms were
bewitched, and their religion was that of the evil one. Peaceably
inclined, the Nodwayes, who were the principal inhabitants of that
region, fell an easy prey to the proselytism of the indomitable
Jesuits, and many of their younger braves had journeyed to Quebec and
taken part in the mission services there, and at Montreal, before the
arrival of Dablon in their midst. But they were readily adaptable to
the racial and commercial antagonisms of their teachers; and late in
1673 Governor Bailey was informed that they contemplated an attack on
the fort.
[Illustration: TYPE OF EARLY TRADING POST.
(_From an old print._)]
On this, the Company's servants began the task of strengthening their
frail defences. The Governor alleged that he had received instructions
from England to despatch Groseilliers to the other side of the Bay,
called the "West Main." Radisson sought to accompany his kinsman, but
was met with a peremptory refusal. This action by no means increased
the amity between him and his rather stupid and choleric superior.
Nevertheless the winter passed without any open exhibition of
hostility between the two men; and it seemed likely that no
difficulties would arise while the cold weather continued. The ground
was, however, still covered with snow when several Indians appeared
and asked to be allowed to take up their abode at the east end of the
fort, that they might be ready for trade in the spring. Bailey, with
his customary sagacity in such matters, suspected some treachery in
this; but on the active expostulations of Radisson the simple request
was granted, and the Indians immediately proceeded to erect their
wigwams. On the 25th of March, when the thaw commenced, six savages,
announcing themselves as ambassadors from Kas-Kidi-dah, the chief of
the tribe, (referred to by Bailey's secretary as "King Cusciddidah,")
came to herald the approach of that potentate. It so chanced that both
the Governor and Radisson were absent, having gone out to reconnoitre
and to obtain an addition to their now slender stock of meat. In all
these little expeditions the Governor and Radisson were inseparable.
The former swore privately he could never bring himself to trust the
fort in the hands of a Frenchman; and, although there was no reason
whatever to apprehend such consequences, the Governor constantly acted
as if any such show of confidence on his part would emphatically
jeopardize the interests of the Company.
[Sidenote: Governor Bailey's distrust.]
King Cusciddidah arrived on the following day. "His Majestie brought a
retinue with him," records Thomas Gorst, the Governor's secretary,
"but very little beaver, the Indians having already sent their best to
Canada."
In the absence of the Governor, the occupants of the fort regarded
Captain Cole as their superior. Cole did not place much confidence in
the pacific mien of the savages surrounding the fort, and a guard was
kept up night and day. Under cover of darkness two sailors were
despatched to find the Governor; but scarcely had they departed on
their quest than Cusciddidah proposed that two of his Indians should
go on the same errand. The acting commandant of the fort could not
well decline this offer, and on the 31st of March the second party
returned, bringing with them the Governor. To the surprise of all
Radisson did not accompany him. No explanation was offered; but the
next day the rumour ran that they had quarrelled in the wilderness,
that from words they came to blows, and that finally Radisson had
attempted to shoot the Governor.
Filled with a natural alarm, Groseilliers made several attempts to
obtain from Bailey the true story of the affair, but the Governor
declined to affirm or confirm anything, saying that he had no doubt
Groseilliers knew quite as much of the matter as himself.
Groseilliers' anxiety, however, was considerably lessened when at a
formal conference with the Indian king, held at the latter's wigwams
near the fort, he learnt that the French had made a settlement not
above eight days' journey from Rupert's River. Hither, in effect,
Radisson had repaired; and afterwards from thence made his way back to
Quebec. Of his subsequent adventures mention will be made later in the
narrative.
[Sidenote: First French rivalry.]
Cusciddidah openly demanded the English protection. He declared his
apprehension of being attacked by other Indians, whom the French had
animated against the English and all who dealt with them. He even gave
a description of the fort the French had erected on the banks of Moose
River, and the contents of its store-house. Already the French were
resorting to many artifices to hinder the natives from trading with
the heretic pale-faces; they gave higher value for the furs brought
them, and lost no opportunity of instilling into the minds of the
Indians a far from flattering opinion of their trade rivals, the
English.
One hearer received these tidings with complete equanimity. That which
surprised and confounded his companions, filled the bosom of Chouart
des Groseilliers with a secret joy. The Governor's high-handed
deportment had oppressed, if it had not angered him; and he had,
together with his brother-in-law, begun to suspect that this policy of
enmity was dictated by a desire to rid himself and the Company of
them both. But in the proximity of the French he found a weapon of
great utility in his relations with the Governor, his superior
officer.
On the third of April a council was held, to debate upon the
advisability of the Company's agents removing from Rupert's to Moose
River, thus to prevent their traffic being intercepted by the French.
The Governor adopted a tone of great cordiality towards Groseilliers,
and listened with deference to his advice. Groseilliers boldly
counselled giving up the present fort and establishing themselves
close to the French. Bailey, much to Captain Cole's astonishment,
instantly approved of the plan. In vain did Cole protest against the
course as dangerous; the Governor professed his confidence in
Groseilliers' wisdom, and ordered the sloop to be got ready for the
journey.
[Illustration: BARK CANOE OF INDIANS ON HUDSON'S BAY.]
In the meantime the Indians in the neighbourhood of Fort Charles
continued building their wigwams. They raised their wauscohegein or
fort so near the English that the palisades joined. As their numbers
increased, Groseilliers advised putting off their own expedition until
the savages were gone hunting, so that Fort Charles and those left in
charge might not be surprised in their absence. On the 20th of May,
seven canoes containing more subjects of Cusciddidah arrived, bringing
the news to the English that few, if any, Upland Indians might be
expected to visit them that season, the French having persuaded them
to journey with their goods to Canada instead. Indeed, said they, the
tribes had already left, so that even if the English expedition were
made, it would be fruitless.
At this depressing intelligence Bailey again sought Groseilliers'
advice, and this being still in favour of advancing to Moose River, it
was adopted. Before the departure, on the 27th of May, a band of about
fifty men, women and children appeared, anxious to trade; but instead
of furs they offered wampum, feathers, and a few small canoes, for
none of which merchandise the Company's agents had need. They were of
the nation called Pishapocanoes, a tribe allied to the Esquimaux, and
like them, a "poor, beggarly people; by which," adds one of the party,
"we may perceive the French ran away with the best of the trade."
Everything being now in readiness, the expedition started, but without
Bailey. The Governor, at the last moment, decided to remain behind at
Fort Charles and await their return.
[Sidenote: First visit to Moose River.]
The voyage across the Bay was made in safety, and on the very day of
landing at the mouth of Moose River, a band of Tabiti Indians were
encountered, from whom they obtained about two hundred pelts. The
chief of this band denied that the French had bribed them or the other
Indians not to trade with the English. They declared that as yet their
intercourse had been almost entirely with the Jesuits, one of whom was
Father Albanel, who had merely urged them to live on terms of
friendship with the nations in league with the French. The chief
blamed the English for trading with such pitiful tribes as
Cusciddidah's and the Pishapocanoes, advising them instead to settle
at Moose River, where, he asserted, the Upland Indians would come and
trade with them.
One curious incident occurred in the course of this parley. The Tabiti
chief, who had been for some time looking rather sharply at
Groseilliers, suddenly broke off the intercourse. When Captain Cole
demanded the reason, the chief declared that it was on Groseilliers'
account, whom he had recognized as the Frenchman with whom he had had
dealings many years before. Groseilliers, nothing loth, stepped
forward, and declared that the chief might possess himself in easiness
on that score, as he was now to all intents and purposes an
Englishman; and that he would always trade with the Tabitis as such.
"But you drove hard bargains," returned the chief. "You took our
silkiest, softest and richest furs, and you gave us but beads and
ribbons. You told us the skins of the sable, and marten, and beaver
were of little account to you, whereas the English give us, and the
French traders as well, guns and hatchets in exchange."
This harangue does not seem to have particularly disconcerted
Groseilliers; he was an old Indian trader; he returned a polite
answer, renewing his expressions of amity. Nevertheless, it made a
profound impression upon the other members of the party, who reported
to Bailey on their return that the Indians thought Groseilliers too
hard on them, and refused to deal with him. Indeed, they did not
scruple to assert that the comparative failure of their expedition was
owing to Groseilliers' presence; that both the Tabitis and the
Shechittiwans, hard by, were really possessed of peltries which they
chose to conceal.
[Sidenote: Bailey at Moose River.]
On hearing this intelligence, Bailey himself was induced to set out
for Moose River. By rare good fortune, he found the Tabitis reinforced
by a numerous band of Shechittiwans, who had journeyed thither some
fifty leagues and were eager to trade. From this tribe, the Governor
procured no fewer than fifteen hundred skins on very good terms.
Charmed with his adventure, he decided to pursue his course, discover
the Chechouan River, and thence coast along the west shore of the Bay,
to Port Nelson, where there was, as yet, no fort.
On the 18th of July, he arrived at Chechouan River, "where no
Englishman had been before," but secured little or no beaver. He
treated with the chief of the tribe he found there and with his son,
who exacted from him a promise that he would come with a ship and
trade the next year. In return, they assured him they would provide a
quantity of beaver and induce the Upland tribes to travel thence.
Hardly had the sloop departed than, on the 27th, it ran upon a mass of
floating ice and narrowly escaped foundering. This catastrophe
precipitated the Governor's return to Rupert's River. He arrived to
find Groseilliers and his protégé Gorst at daggers drawn, and the
factors, traders and sailors almost at the point of mutiny, and all
this because they objected to serve under a Frenchman.
[Sidenote: Jesuit priest at Fort Charles.]
Bailey now seems to have made up his mind what course to pursue with
regard to Groseilliers; but if anything were wanting to complete his
decision, he had not long to wait. On the next day but one, that is to
say the 30th of August, a messenger came to him to announce the
arrival of a canoe. In it was a Jesuit missionary, accompanied by one
of Cusciddidah's own sons. The worthy priest was in a sorry condition
with regard to his apparel, most of which he had either been robbed of
or been compelled to barter for food during his long sojourn in the
wilderness. He had left Quebec during the preceding October, but had
been detained for many months owing to the impassability of the route.
He bore with him letters; one of them for Mr. Bailey from the Governor
of Quebec. This epistle seems to have given Bailey a great deal of
pleasure, and as a communication from one great man to another, he
caused it to be publicly read out in the fort. The French Governor
desired Bailey to treat the priest civilly "on account of the amity
between the two crowns"; and the bearer of this letter had no reason
to complain of a lack of hospitality. He was clothed and entertained
with great kindness.
Unhappily, on the very evening of his arrival, the Governor was made
aware that the Jesuit had brought other letters, and that these had
been delivered into the hands of Groseilliers. Always suspicious, he
now became convinced of treachery. He saw in this harmless visit of a
pious missionary a deep-laid plot to capture the fort and allow it to
be pillaged by the hostile Indians. He ordered Groseilliers to appear
before him. But Groseilliers was not to be found, and Gorst returned
to say that both the Frenchmen were out walking together. Bailey,
taking several men with him, now went himself in search of the pair;
he confronted Groseilliers, and hurled a host of accusations at his
head. To these accusations, all ill-founded and ill-advised,
Groseilliers very promptly responded by knocking the Governor down. He
then returned calmly to the fort, demanded his wages and possessions,
and calling three of the Indians to his side, including the young
brave who had accompanied the priest, set off valiantly into the
wilderness. In due time he reached Quebec, where he rendered a
faithful account to the authorities of what had transpired. He also
forwarded to England, by way of New England, a minute account of his
experiences, which was duly read out at one of the meetings of the
Company.
The Jesuit, who had offered to proceed with Groseilliers, had been
detained. He seems to have made himself very useful to the English in
their dealings with the Indians, although he was thoroughly
distrusted, as was to be expected, by the Governor.
[Sidenote: Arrival of the "Prince Rupert."]
On the 24th of September, a sloop was descried in the river, which,
with joy, they soon made out to be the _Prince Rupert_, just arrived
from England. She was commanded by Captain Gillam, and with her came
the new Governor, William Lyddal, to supersede Bailey. Captain Gillam
reported that the sister-ship, the _Shaftesbury_, commanded by Captain
Shepherd, was likewise at the mouth of the river. The new Governor's
commission and instructions being read, all hands were immediately put
to work, with the intention of unloading and reloading the ships for
the return voyage immediately. Bailey seems to have expressed the
greatest anxiety to proceed to London without delay; but at length he
was induced to listen to reason. It was pointed out to him that the
season would be far spent before the work of equipment could be
properly concluded. After several councils, it was resolved that they
should winter at Rupert's River; and no effort was made to unload the
vessels until the following spring. In the meantime, the crews were
not idle. Under Lyddal's direction they found employment in cutting
timber and building houses, more particularly a bake-house and a
brew-house, which latter added greatly to the comfort of the fort.
CHAPTER VIII.
1673-1682.
Progress of the Company -- Confusion as to the Names and Number
of the Tribes -- Radisson goes to Paris -- His Efforts to
Obtain Support there, and from Prince Rupert, in England, Fail
-- Arrival of M. de la Chesnaye -- With his help Radisson
Secures Support -- And Sails for Quebec -- Thence Proceeds with
Two Ships to Attack the English Ports in Hudson's Bay -- His
Encounters with Gillam's Expedition from London, and his Son's,
from New England.
Rapidly advancing in prosperity and reputation, and possessed of a
basis of credit which gave it a welcome sense of solidity, the Company
now renewed its efforts to extend its trade and settlements. The
weekly meetings in Mr. John Horth's house, which were so full of
mystery to the public, continued to bear fruit; and at length a
regular system was determined for the organization and government of
its distant dependencies.
[Sidenote: Ignorance of the geography of Hudson's Bay.]
All ships bound for Hudson's Bay were now ordered to visit Charlton
Island, which lies about forty miles from the mouth of Rupert's River,
in the extreme south of the Bay; and the island was also made a
rendezvous whither all factors were to bring all their merchandise for
the purpose of loading the Company's ships. The geography of the
district had hitherto, in spite of the researches of a long series of
explorers, beginning with Frobisher, and ending with Fox, remained
obscure. But the Company's servants had not been idle, and the
Adventurers were soon in possession of carefully drawn charts, and
maps of the straits, the Bay itself, and the lands surrounding it.
They kept themselves also well-advised by lists, drawings, and
detailed descriptions, of the tribes inhabiting the territories
granted to them under the charter; and the discussions which went on
over this subject were not lacking in humour. It is worth observing
that for a great many years during the early history of the Company,
its Governors, captains, chief factors, chief traders, and the rank
and file of its employees could never by any chance agree, either as
to the number or the characteristics of the aborigines. In concocting
their reports many were animated purely by love of romance: others
relied too implicitly on the tales told by the Indians themselves;
others may be credited with being the victims of their own
imaginations. Nor could the lists enumerating the tribes boast more
consistency. Extracts from those of two governors may be given here
for purposes of comparison:--
NATIONS VISITING HUDSON'S BAY.
Bailey, 1673: Lyddal, 1678:
Esquemos, Askimows,
Nodwayes, Odwayes,
Twegwayes, Twagions,
Pankeshones, Paggarshows,
Noridgewelks, Narchuels,
Abenekays, Penkayes,
Micmacks, Micmackes,
Kilistinons, Crilistinons,
Assinapoils, Ossa-poets,
Cuchneways, Kitchenayes,
Algonkins, Algonkings,
Outaways, Otawayes,
Outagamis. Wattagamais.
No wonder, therefore, that the Adventurers in England were puzzled,
and that at one of their later meetings Prince Rupert was forced to
exclaim:
"Gentlemen, these Indians" (each member had been supplied with
Governor Nixon's list) "are not our Indians. 'Fore God, out of the
nineteen I see only five we have dealt with before."
Another worthy member declared, on a similar occasion that the tribes
frequenting the Bay were more volatile than the Bedouins. "These are
not men, but chameleons"--was the remark of another adventurer.
[Sidenote: Confusion of tribes.]
The chief cause of the confusion lay in the variations of spelling.
More than a century was to elapse before a common orthography was
adopted, and in the interval it was impossible to fix the tribes by
name with certainty. The name of no tribe perhaps underwent such
vicissitudes of spelling and pronunciation as that described by the
earliest Jesuit pioneers as the Ossa-poiles, which in our own day are
known as the Assiniboines. They were in process of time the Poeles,
Poets, the Pedlas, the Semplars, Oss-Semplars, Essapoils and the
Simpoils.[17]
At a general court held to consider the action of Governor Bailey, the
majority of the adventurers professed themselves rejoiced at having
been quit of the services of the Sieurs Groseilliers and Radisson; yet
there were not wanting others to openly regret the treatment these two
men had received. As may be supposed, the most fervent of their
advocates and defenders was Sir John Kirke, whose daughter had married
Radisson, and who himself had lately been knighted by the king. He
predicted some disaster to the Company from having dismissed these two
faithful servants, and he was loud and persistent in asserting the bad
faith and unjust suspicions of Bailey.
While the affairs of the Company were proceeding tranquilly at home,
the conduct and employment of one of these two bushrangers was more
enlivening. Chouart was passing his time in inactivity at Three
Rivers. But his brother-in-law, after several ineffectual endeavours
to establish a northern rivalry to the Company, had offered his
services to the French Navy. This career, which at that period must
have been, even for him, sufficiently eventful and exciting, was cut
short by ship-wreck in 1679. Losing all his property, even to his
clothing, Radisson made his way first to Brest and then to Paris. The
Vice-Admiral and Intendant of the Fleet having written in his favour,
the Court was pleased to grant him a sum of one hundred crowns, and
hope was also held out to him that he would be honoured by the command
of a frigate. In the meantime he was accorded leave to go to England
to fetch his wife.
[Sidenote: Radisson in France.]
Madame Radisson, otherwise Mistress Mary Kirke, appears to have caused
her husband a great deal of mortification and numerous disappointments.
There is no doubt that her continued residence in England, in spite of
her husband's return to the French service, made him an object of
suspicion to the French Court. Once when he endeavoured, in a
memorable interview with Colbert, to press upon that Minister his
scheme for ousting the English from Hudson's Bay, the Minister
responded coldly:
"M. Radisson, you are suspected of being in league with the English,
your father-in-law is one of the members of the English Company; and
your wife resides under his roof."
"I made him understand," declared Radisson long afterwards, "that,
though married, I was not master of my wife. Her father would by no
means consent to my bringing her to France with me."
These rebuffs determined him to make an attempt to better his worldly
condition elsewhere. A true soldier of fortune, patriotism appears to
have had little weight with him; he was as ready to serve under the
English as the French. He returned to find his father-in-law more
placable. Sir John had at this time certain claims against the French;
and he doubtless fancied that Radisson might assist him in preferring
these at the French Court. He took occasion to ask his father-in-law
what chance there remained to him of again securing employment under
the Company. "None, sir," replied Kirke, "both Bailey, Lyddal and
others are against you and have poisoned the minds of their employers.
Prince Rupert is, however, your friend, and also Captain Gillam; but
one dislikes to speak openly, and the other dare not."
Acting on this intelligence, Radisson resolved to see Rupert. The
prince received him kindly enough; he took pains to show him his
collection of mezzotints, and to explain some of his scientific
curiosities. He even went so far as to condole with Radisson on the
treatment he had received. But he had to point out that the temper of
the Company was such that he feared it would be in vain for him to
exercise his interest for his visitor's reinstatement.
[Sidenote: Plan to dislodge the Company.]
Radisson, disappointed of his hopes, and frustrated in his desire to
return with his wife, did not meet with a warm welcome on the other
side of the Channel. Colbert received him with black looks; and the
suspicions which gathered about him were now strengthened rather than
dissipated. In this extremity he repaired to the Marquis de Seignely,
to whom he set forth substantially the same plan which he had
cherished for years, of opening out the trade of the North, with the
additional attraction now of dislodging the English from a commerce
which had already proved vastly profitable. Seignely listened with
interest, and requested time to reflect on the matter. At the second
interview Radisson was not overwhelmed with disappointment, for he had
expected no other issue; he was told flatly that he was regarded by
the king as little better than a traitor; and that his Canadian
project met with universal distrust.
The outlook seemed discouraging indeed, when happily at this juncture
there arrived in Paris M. de la Chesnaye, who was in charge of the
fur-trade in Canada, as the head of the Compagnie du Nord. This event
proved Radisson's salvation. He learned with great rejoicing that La
Chesnaye's visit to France was actuated by a desire to report upon the
intrusion of the English Company. La Chesnaye proved a true friend; he
evinced himself most heartily in favour of the Government securing the
services of Radisson in establishing a rival establishment, on the
principle of those of the Company to which he had formerly been
attached.
Many consultations took place, both Seignely and Chesnaye listening
with great interest while Radisson explained the equipment and
merchandise of the Hudson's Bay Company, which he strongly advised
should be taken as a pattern in all practical extensions of the French
fur-trade in those regions.
[Sidenote: Radisson assisted by the Jesuits.]
The only difficulty now presenting itself was to find money for the
enterprise. The exchequer of the Court was at a low ebb; and it had a
thousand calls upon its charity and liberality. Radisson must wait
even for the few hundred crowns he so sadly needed for his passage to
New France and his personal needs. There was, however, one force in
France which could always be approached with a good courage when any
enterprise in a new country required support, and always with success.
It was the power which, though it had endured a thousand
disappointments and sacrificed a thousand lives, and as many fortunes,
in the attempt to teach the Gospel of Jesus in the wilderness, had
adhered without wavering to its faith in the ultimate victory of the
Cross over the savage nature of the Indians. No adventurer, if he had
but a sufficiently plausible story, need turn away empty-handed from
the door of the Jesuits. To the Jesuits of Paris Radisson presented
himself as a good Catholic seeking to subvert the designs of the
heretic English. He applied for assistance, and he was at length
rewarded for his pains by a sum of five hundred crowns.
But nearly two years had passed before this assistance was procured.
Radisson's debts had accumulated; his creditors were clamouring about
him, threatening him with the sponging-house; no effort to elude them
met with success, and at length he found himself at Rochelle, with
scarce twenty crowns in his pocket over and above the cost of his
passage. It was then that he made the resolve to reimburse the
Jesuits, "if he should live to be worth so great a sum," and it is
interesting to discover that two years later he kept his word. At
present he could only trust to La Chesnaye, who was anxiously awaiting
his arrival in Quebec. Thither Radisson arrived on the 25th of
September, 1681.
La Chesnaye showed much joy at seeing his friend; for in truth his own
plans for seeking to share the northern trade of the English were
nearly ripe. He declared that there was no time to be lost; but that
in spite of the urgency of the matter the greatest circumspection
would have to be observed, as Frontenac by no means desired to
compromise the king without first seeing his way clear.
But if the Governor whose career was about to close was punctilious,
the Intendant Duchesneau was not. He had already dispatched a memoir
to his superior relating to Hudson's Bay, and to what he believed to
be the French rights there.
[Sidenote: Duchesneau protests against English encroachments.]
"They" (the English) he wrote, "are still on Hudson's Bay on the north
and do great damage to our fur-trade. The farmers [of the revenue]
suffer in consequence by this diminution of the trade at Tadoussac,
and throughout the entire country, because the English drive off the
Outaoua nations. For the one and the other design they have two forts
on the said Bay--the one towards Tadoussac and the other at Cape
Henrietta Marie, on the side of the Assinibonetz. The sole means to
prevent them succeeding in what is prejudicial to us in this regard
would be to drive them by main force from that Bay, which belongs to
us. Or, if there would be an objection in coming to that extremity, to
construct forts on the rivers falling into the lakes, in order to stop
the Indians at these points."
The zealous Intendant declared that should King Lewis adopt the
resolution to arrange with the Duke of York for his possessions in
that quarter, "in which case Boston could not resist," Canada would be
ruined, "the French being naturally inconsistent and fond of novelty."
Finding, however, that they could obtain no official recognition of
the enterprise, La Chesnaye at length resorted to a transparent
fiction in order to account for Radisson's departure--a subterfuge
which was the more necessary since many had begun to suspect his
destination and urged the Governor to do nothing which would bring
down on them the enmity of the English and their allies, the Iroquois.
He requested the Governor, if he would not countenance an expedition
with license to trade on the shores of the Bay, to grant Radisson
formal permission to return to France by way of New England in a
vessel belonging to the Government of Acadia, which at that moment
lay in the St. Lawrence ready to sail.
It was arranged privately that after his departure Radisson should
proceed in this vessel only as far as Isle Percée in the Gulf, near
the mouth of the river, and there await his kinsmen Groseilliers, his
nephew Chouart, and the two ships which La Chesnaye was even then
busily fitting out. Thus all official cognizance of the expedition
would be avoided.
[Sidenote: Company's enemies leave Quebec.]
The terms agreed upon were, that in return for La Chesnaye's
equipment, Radisson and Groseilliers were, provided certain conditions
were carried out, to receive jointly half the profits of the venture,
and La Chesnaye the other half. What these conditions were can only be
guessed; but beyond all question, they concerned the capture or
spoliation of the English trading posts on the Bay. Radisson took with
him his nephew, Jean Baptiste, who had passed nearly the whole of his
life among the Indians as a _coureur de bois_; the pilot, Pierre
Allemand, and an old bushranger named Godefrey, who was well
acquainted with the Indians of the northern regions. Groseilliers was
to remain behind until the spring, when he was to have the command of
the smaller of the two vessels. On the 4th of November the advance
guard of the expedition directed against the Company's establishment
in Hudson's Bay left Quebec.
In the following spring the rendezvous was kept at the island named.
Radisson is found complaining bitterly of the character of the vessels
_St. Pierre_ and _St. Anne_. The former he describes as an old craft
of 50 tons only, "with twelve men of a crew, including those with me.
There were goods enough for the trade aboard her," he adds, "but so
scanty a supply of provisions that if I had not been so deeply engaged
I should not venture on the enterprise."
[Sidenote: Rejected advice of Radisson and Groseilliers.]
If his case was scarcely hopeful, that of his brother-in-law was far
worse. The latter's vessel could boast but little more than half the
tonnage, and while her crew was larger by three men, she carried even
fewer supplies. But Radisson and Groseilliers were not men to shrink
from any enterprise because it seemed hazardous. They had led bold,
reckless lives, and their spirits rose at the prospect of danger. It
was afterwards alleged of this pair that one great cause of their
disagreement with the Company was their absolute inability to remain
quiet and content in the enjoyment of a regular traffic. Such a career
seemed to their bold, energetic dispositions worthier of drapers'
apprentices. It is said they counselled the Company not to think of
establishing one or two trading posts and expect the Indians to come
to them for trade, but to push on in the wilderness to the north and
west, building new depots and stirring up the hunters to greater
activity and more profitable results. Had this advice been followed,
the exploration of the great North-West would not only have been
anticipated by almost a century; but by the occupation of its
territory, the great evils of a later day would have been averted; nor
would anyone in England have challenged the Company's right to an
exclusive trade in the regions granted by its charter.
But the Company was soon to learn that its earliest pioneers and
forerunners were not to be cast off with impunity. The two bushrangers
experienced considerable difficulty at the outset in propitiating and
calming the fears of their crews, who were terrified, and not without
reason, at the prospect of a voyage of 900 leagues in such craft as
the _St. Pierre_ and the _St. Anne_, and amidst rough water and ice.
But they at length succeeded and effected a start.
After nineteen days the crew of Groseilliers' ship mutinied.
Groseilliers' attempts to appease them seemed about to end in signal
failure when the man on watch cried out that a vessel was in sight to
windward. Groseilliers seized his opportunity; "See!" he cried,
pointing to the distant barque, "yonder is one of the English Company,
laden with the profits of their trade in the Bay. Every man has his
pocket full of gold and his stomach full of rum; and we shall have the
same if we are not cowards enough to abandon our voyage."
After innumerable episodes, some of which almost ended in tragic
consequences, Radisson at last, on the 26th of August, arrived on the
west coast of Hudson's Bay. On the following day he was joined by his
brother-in-law in the _St. Anne_ at the mouth of a river named by the
Indians Ka-kirka-kiouay, translated by Radisson as "who goes, who
comes."
Twelve days before their arrival another ship had entered this same
river, commanded by none other than Captain Gillam, and having on
board John Bridgar, commissioned as Governor of the new settlement at
Port Nelson.
Having thus entered the river, they advanced fifteen miles up stream,
and Radisson then left Groseilliers to build a fort, while he himself
departed in search of savages with whom to trade. With him he took his
nephew and Godefrey, all three being well armed with muskets and
pistols. In the course of eight days they accomplished forty leagues
and attained the upper part of the river, though without meeting a
single savage. On the eighth day, however, their eyes were rejoiced by
the sight of a large encampment of Indians, who, while not especially
rich in furs, were eager to conclude a treaty with the French, and to
encourage their settlement in the country. Radisson now decided to
return, accompanied by some of the savages, and on the 12th day of
September rejoined his brother-in-law, whose fort he found pretty well
advanced.
[Sidenote: The younger Gillam discovered.]
Hardly had he returned when the sudden booming of a cannon startled
the settlement. It was the first time the Indians had ever heard the
sound, and they expressed much astonishment and apprehension. While
the two adventurers hastened to re-assure their allies, they were
themselves hardly less disturbed. Radisson made up his mind to
immediately ascertain whence the firing came and with this intention
he embarked in a canoe and went to the mouth of the river. In passing
to the opposite bank of the stream, and while in the vicinity of a
small island, they perceived signs of European habitation. A tent had
been erected, and at that moment a log house was being built. After a
stealthy reconnoitre, lasting the whole night, Radisson and his
companions advanced boldly in the morning from the opposite shore in
their canoe. The islanders were engaged in making a repast when
Radisson attracted their attention. Speaking first to them in French,
and finding that none of them understood, he thereupon addressed them
in English. He asked them what was their business in those parts.
Their leader quickly responded: "We are English, and come for the
beaver trade."
"By whose authority," asked Radisson; "do you possess a commission?"
The other replied that he did not himself possess such a document, but
that his father did, and that he and his companions hailed from New
England. Whereupon Radisson, still seated in his canoe at some
distance from the shore, informed them that they had not a shadow of
right to be in those regions, which he himself had discovered and
settled for the French some years before. He drew upon his imagination
so far as to intimate that he was at that moment in command of a large
force of Frenchmen near at hand, who would effectually maintain the
sovereignty of King Lewis and his exclusive trading right in this
territory; and he concluded his harangue, which was delivered almost
at the top of his voice, by advising the party of New Englanders to
embark as soon as possible and to return from whence they came.
Before any reply could be made, a cry broke from the lips of both the
leaders. The canoe had touched the bank, and they recognized one
another. The New Englander was the son of Radisson's old friend
Gillam; and, as may be supposed, he possessed a very high admiration
for a man of whom he had heard so much. They speedily embraced, but
Radisson is careful to inform us that he did not entirely trust his
young friend. When young Gillam's ship appeared at the mouth of the
river, and he was invited to go on board, he did so, but he took the
precaution of insisting upon two Englishmen being left as hostages on
shore. It was not without misgivings that, as he neared the vessel in
their canoe, he observed the captain posting the English emblem and
likewise discharging a number of cannon shots.
"I told him," says Radisson, "that it was not necessary to fire any
more, for fear of causing jealousy amongst our people, who might show
themselves hostile. He proposed that we should negotiate together. I
promised that I would persuade our other officers to consent that,
since the season was already too far advanced for them to withdraw, he
should pass the winter where he was without their doing him any
mischief."
In short Radisson was resolved at all costs to keep up appearances. He
even went so far as to grant Gillam formal permission to continue
building his house, "barring fortifications," and to guarantee him
against insults from the Indians, over whom he professed to have
absolute power. The two men parted on good terms; and perhaps Gillam's
complaisance was well-advised. Radisson confesses that had the English
shown themselves refractory or exhibited any disposition to assert
rights over the country, it was his firm intention to concert a plan
for seizing their ship, which he observes, was an "excellent prize"
inasmuch it held no commission or warrant to trade from any power.
It afterwards appeared that this enterprise of the New England ship
was set on foot by Gillam senior, who, dissatisfied with his profits
under the Company, sought to adventure an expedition on his own
account from Boston. He was destined to pay the penalty for this
indiscretion.
Happy at having come out of this encounter so easily, Radisson and his
party re-embarked in their canoe and struck out northwards. Another
surprise was in store for them. A ship under full sail was on the
point of entering the river. More strategy was necessary. The party
regained the shore and instantly kindled a huge bonfire, upon which
they cast grass and leaves so as to produce a thick column of smoke.
Their purpose was to attract the attention and arrest the progress of
the vessel and in this they succeeded. Believing they had come upon an
Indian settlement, and anxious to reconnoitre before proceeding
farther, the parties aboard the ship cast anchor immediately and so
remained motionless in the channel all night.
[Sidenote: Arrival of Bridgar.]
Early in the morning they saw that a boat was being lowered from the
ship, and while it was filling with occupants Radisson made ready to
receive them. Each of his party was posted, armed, at the entrance to
the wood, while Radisson himself walked down to the shore to greet the
strangers.
They were soon within hail. Radisson set up a loud cry, Indian
fashion, for the purpose of eliciting a response. He was disappointed
in this; for the boat approached steadily and silently; there was a
movement of the oars, but most of the figures appeared stern and
motionless. The boat grounded ten yards from where Radisson stood with
folded arms, and a general attitude of defiance. One of the crew had
got a leg over the side of the boat when our bushranger cried out in a
loud voice:
"Hold, in the King's name." And then presenting his carbine, "I forbid
you to land."
The occupants of the boat were astonished.
"Who are you?" they asked, "and what is your business?"
"I am a Frenchman," was the answer, delivered in English; "and I hold
this country for his Most Christian Majesty, King Lewis!"
Radisson signalled to his followers, who emerged from their retreat,
making a brave show of their weapons. The coup seemed destined to be
successful. The leader of the boat party, visibly impressed, remained
standing up in his craft without any attempt on the part of his
followers to land.
"I beg to inform you, gentlemen, that we hail from London. Our ship
yonder is the _Prince Rupert_, belonging to the honourable Hudson's
Bay Company and commanded by Captain Zachary Gillam."
"You arrive too late. This country is already in the possession of the
King of France, and its trade belongs to the Northern Company of
Canada."
A short dispute succeeded. Suddenly changing his tactics, Governor
Bridgar, for it was no other, feigned acquiescence, admitted that
after all Radisson might be right, and requested the privilege of
landing and saluting him.
[Sidenote: The Bushranger's mendacity.]
The two leaders now conversed amicably. Radisson took occasion to
elaborate the narrative to which he had recently treated young Gillam,
without, however, mentioning the circumstance of his having met the
latter. He did not scruple to allege a lengthy residence in the
region, detailing his forces, both French and Indian, with a fine
display of exactitude. Commenced on shore, the interview was
transferred to the ship; Radisson, while accepting Bridgar's
hospitality, took care to keep, as before, two or three hostages on
land. On board the _Prince Rupert_ he embraced Gillam, and listened
with a real interest to the tidings he had to convey of what had been
happening in Europe, and of the affairs of the Company. For himself,
he readily volunteered the information that he and his brother-in-law
Groseilliers had two fine large vessels in the vicinity, while the
third was shortly expected. He likewise made no secret of the fact
that a huge fort was being constructed hard by in the interests of the
French Company. In all of these statements Governor Bridgar professed
absolute credence, whatever may have been his private opinion of their
value.
In reality, however, he was not deceived; and if it had not been for
Radisson's precaution as to the hostages, there is some reason to
believe he would have detained his guest on board the Company's ship
to ruminate for a while on his treachery to the Company. Even allowing
for the truth of Radisson's assertions regarding the occupation by the
French of Port Nelson and the surrounding neighbourhood in large
numbers, Bridgar was not to be dissuaded by mere words from his
intention to establish a factory there. He had every confidence in the
Company's rights; and he determined to carry out his instructions to
the letter.
No sooner had Radisson departed, therefore, than a majority of the
people on board the _Prince Rupert_ landed and commenced building a
fort.
The French party hiding in the woods spied on their movements; and
before rejoining their comrades at their own settlement they had the
privilege of seeing the erection of Fort Nelson, the fourth
establishment of the Company in the Hudson's Bay territories, well
under way.
FOOTNOTE:
[17] Also known to-day as the Stone Indians.
CHAPTER IX.
1682-1683.
Death of Prince Rupert -- The Company's Difficulty in Procuring
Proper Servants -- Radisson at Port Nelson -- The two Gillams
-- Their Meeting -- Capture of the New England Party -- The
First Scotchman in the Bay -- Governor Bridgar Carried off
Prisoner -- Indian Visitors to the Fort -- Disasters to the
Ships -- The French Burn the Island Fort -- Radisson's Harangue
to the Indians -- Return to France.
[Sidenote: Death of Prince Rupert.]
On the 28th of November, 1682, at his house in Spring Garden, died the
first Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company. The prince had been in
ill-health for some time, he was in his sixty-third year; and he had
lived a stirring and adventurous life. His demise occasioned general
regret, more amongst the people than at Court; for, as a writer of
that day observed, "he had of late years proved a faithful counsellor
to the King, but a greater patriot to English liberty; and therefore
was towards his latter end neglected by the Court to that degree that
nothing passed between him and his great relations but bare civilities
in the common forms." On the sixth of the ensuing month his body was
privately interred among others of the Royal Family in a vault in
Westminster Abbey.
A week later there was held a General Court of the Company, at which
the Duke of York was chosen to succeed Rupert in the governorship.
Besides the Duke himself, his Royal Highness the Duke of Albemarle,
Lord Arlington and Mr. Hays, all delivered enthusiastic panegyrics on
the deceased prince, rightly attributing to his zeal, judgment and
enterprise, the successful establishment of the Company. And the
meeting then adjourned out of regret for the dead Governor without
proceeding to further business.
More than fifteen years had elapsed since Medard Chouart des
Groseilliers had first fired Prince Rupert with his project of
founding a great fur-traffic in the unknown and unexplored regions of
the New World. The prince had lived to see that project succeed even
beyond his most sanguine expectations. Now, at his death, the Company
owned four ships; and after all the cost of its plant, its ships and
its equipment had been paid, it was returning an annual profit of two
hundred per cent. on its capital. It was well-known that his Highness
favoured greater activity, and one of his last acts had been to sign
the commission of John Bridgar as Governor of the new settlement at
Port Nelson. But during his own Governorship, the Company, feeling, no
doubt, that they must balance the Prince's zeal for adventure with
considerable caution, opposed the policy of rapid expansion with
somewhat excessive prudence; and it was only after his death that they
felt confident in pursuing a more vigorous and enterprising plan of
commerce.
Under date of April 27th, 1683, while the drama between the French and
English was being enacted at Port Nelson, the following instructions
were addressed to Governor Sargeant, regarding trade with the
interior: "You are to choose out from amongst our servants such as are
best qualified with strength of body and the country language to
travel and to penetrate into the country, and to draw down the Indians
by fair and gentle means to trade with us."
But the Company was to learn that the parsimony which then
characterized its policy was not calculated to foster the success of
its aims. The majority of the men it sent out from England could not
be classified under the head of adventurous spirits, ready to dare all
for mere excitement and the prospect of gain. They were for the most
part young men gifted with no more aptitude for the work in the
wilderness than a disinclination to pursue their callings at home. No
small number were dissatisfied apprentices; one William Evans had been
a drawer at the Rainbow Inn; Portman had sent his scullion.
Even at that early day the staffs employed on the plantations were
recruited from amongst the very class least competent to exploit those
regions. The majority of the applicants for employment in the
Company's service in the seventeenth century were not men of character
and vigour, or even of robust physique, but rather hare-brained
artisans of the wild, dare-devil type, whose parents and friends
foresaw for them, if London or Bristol formed the sphere of their
talents, a legal and violent rather than a natural termination of
their respective careers.
[Sidenote: Company's encouragement requested.]
Sargeant's response to the foregoing injunction certainly served to
enlighten his superiors. "I shall not be neglectful," he wrote, "as
soon as I can find any man capable and willing to send up into the
country with the Indians, to endeavour to penetrate into what the
country will and may produce, and to effect their utmost in bringing
down the Indians to our factory; but your Honours should give good
encouragement to those who undertake such extraordinary service; or
else I fear that there will be but few that will embrace such
employment."
The rebuke may have been just; but it seems to have given offence to
some of the more pompous members of the Company; and Sargeant was
desired not to cast any further reflection on his employers in his
communications to them. Nevertheless, the Company was soon to learn
the value of a less niggardly policy.
Meanwhile for ten days the two ex-employees, Radisson and
Groseilliers, gave no further evidence to the English at the new
settlement on Nelson River of their presence. But on the tenth day
their curiosity and uneasiness regarding the conduct of the English
Governor, Bridgar, and the other servants of the Company, had reached
such a pitch that it was decided without further consideration that
Radisson should start off at once to reconnoitre their behaviour. The
actual distance between Fort Bourbon, on the Hays River, and the
Company's factory on Nelson River was not above fifty miles; but owing
to the dangerous character of the river, and the necessity for delay
before an attempt could be made to cross it, Radisson and his party
consumed fourteen days on the journey.
[Sidenote: Bridgar's credulity.]
On their arrival on the 3rd of February, one of the first objects to
attract their attention was the _Prince Rupert_, stuck fast in the ice
and mud about a mile from where the factory was being erected. At the
same time they met the Governor, who was out on a hunting expedition
with the chief mate of the vessel. Satisfying himself that no
treachery was intended, Radisson accepted Bridgar's invitation to
enter the log-house which he had caused to be built for his own
occupation. Radisson introduced one of the Frenchmen who accompanied
him as the captain of an imaginary ship, which he averred had arrived
from France in his behalf. "Mr. B. believed it and anything else I
chose to tell him," remarks Radisson naively, "I aiming always to
prevent him from having any knowledge of the English interloper."
While engaged in the pleasing diversion of drinking each other's
health, a number of musket shots were fired. The crew of the vessel
not taking any notice of this, the bushranger concluded that those on
board were not on their guard and might readily be surprised.
With this condition uppermost in his mind, the Frenchman quitted
Bridgar, having first allayed any suspicion which might have naturally
arisen as to the intention of the party. The latter went boldly on
board the ship, and no hindrance being offered, their leader had a
colloquy with Captain Gillam. The latter, while he received the visit
civilly enough, found occasion to let Radisson know that he was far
from entirely trusting him. When his visitor suggested that he was
running a great risk in allowing the _Prince Rupert_ to remain
grounded, Gillam bluntly requested Radisson to mind his own business,
adding that he knew perfectly well what he was doing--a boast which,
as the sequel showed, was certainly not well founded. Radisson was
determined not to be put out of temper, and so run risk of spoiling
his plans.
Winter, even in all its rigour, seems to have had no terrors for our
indomitable bushranger. For the next two months, as we shall see, he
continued to scour backwards and forwards through the country,
inspiring his followers and urging them onward to the prosecution of a
plan which was obvious to them all. After parting from Gillam the
elder, who had not the faintest suspicion that his son was in the
locality, Radisson at once started to parley with Gillam, the
younger.
When he had regained the island which he had left, he was instantly
made aware that the New Englanders had been considerably less idle
than the Company's servants; having completed a very creditable fort
and mounted it with six pieces of cannon. With Benjamin Gillam, our
bushranger passed off the same subterfuge with which he had hoodwinked
Zachary. He spoke fluently of his newly arrived ship and her cargo and
crew, and to cap his narrative, proceeded to introduce her captain,
who was none other than the old pilot, Pierre Allemand, who, from the
description still extant of his appearance, looked every inch the
bold, fierce and uncompromising mariner. He had a great deal to tell
Benjamin likewise of the Company's post near by, which he said
contained forty soldiers.
"Let them be forty devils," exclaimed Gillam, junior, "we have built a
good fort and are afraid of nothing."
Whereupon Radisson gently reminded him that according to his agreement
he was to have built no fort whatever. In reply to this Benjamin
begged his visitor not to take umbrage at such a matter, as he never
intended to dispute the rights of the French in the region; and the
fort was merely intended as a defence against the Indians.
[Sidenote: A manoeuvre of Radisson's.]
As the evening wore on, a manoeuvre suggested itself to Radisson. He
resolved to bring father and son together. No sooner had he formed
this amiable resolve than he revealed to Benjamin Gillam the proximity
of the _Prince Rupert_ and her commander, and described the means by
which an encounter might be effected without eliciting the suspicions
of Governor Bridgar or any of the Company's servants. It consisted
briefly in young Benjamin's disguising himself as a Frenchman and a
bushranger. The scheme met with the young man's hearty approbation and
the details were settled as Radisson had designed.
On the following day the party set out through the snow. Arriving at
the point of land opposite to which the Company's ship lay, Radisson
posted two of his best men in the woods on the path which led to the
factory. He instructed them to allow the Governor to pass should he
come that way, but that if he returned from the ship unaccompanied or
prior to their own departure they were to seize and overpower him on
the spot. With such precautions as these, Radisson felt himself safe
and went on board the _Prince Rupert_ accompanied by Gillam. He
introduced his two companions into the captain's room without any
notice on the part of Gillam the elder, and the mate and another man
he had with him. Leaning across the table, upon which was deposited a
bulky bottle of rum, Radisson whispered to the honest captain that he
had a secret of the highest importance to communicate if he would but
dismiss the others. Gillam readily sent away the mate, but would not
dismiss his second attendant until Radisson, again in a whisper,
informed him that the black-bearded man in the strange head-gear was
his son.
[Sidenote: Meeting of father and son.]
After communicating this intelligence the pair had their own way. The
next few moments were devoted to embraces and to an interchange of
news, for Captain Gillam and Benjamin had not met for two years. The
sire could not refrain from imparting to his son that he was running a
great risk; he declared it would be ruinous to him if it got to the
Governor's ears that there was any collusion between them. Radisson
again professed his friendship, but added that in his opinion neither
of the parties had any right to be where they were, he having taken
possession for the King of France. "This territory is all his Most
Christian Majesty's," he said. "The fort we have built yonder we call
Fort Bourbon, and none have any right here but such as own allegiance
to Lewis XIV." He observed that nothing would cause a rupture of the
friendly relations now subsisting between French and English but the
trade in peltries, trade which he had too great reason to fear they
hoped to initiate with the Indians in the spring.
The elder Gillam coolly responded that the ship he commanded, and the
spot on which they were then assembled, luckily belonged not to
himself, but to the Hudson's Bay Company.
"With regard to the trade, gentlemen," said he, "you have nothing to
fear from me. Even though I don't carry a solitary beaver back to the
Thames, I shall not trouble myself, being sure of my wages."
[Sidenote: Gillam nearly betrayed.]
This interview was prolonged. The healths of the Kings of France and
England, Prince Rupert and M. Colbert (quite in ignorance of the death
of the two last named) were drunk with zeal and enthusiasm. In the
midst of all this, that which Radisson had anticipated, occurred.
Governor Bridgar, notified of Radisson's return, came to the ship in
hot haste. On his joining the group, he remarked meaningly that the
fort the French had constructed must be nearer than he had been given
to think, since its commandant could effect so speedy a return. He
evinced himself very uneasy in mind concerning the Frenchman's
intentions. Before their departure, young Gillam came very near being
betrayed. He was partially recognized by one of the traders who
accompanied the Governor. But the matter passed off without serious
consequences.
None too soon did the party return to young Gillam's fort on the
island, for a tremendous blizzard ensued, sweeping the whole country,
and forcing Radisson to remain for some days within doors. As soon as
the storm had subsided, however, Radisson started off, declining
Gillam's offer of his second mate to accompany him back to the French
settlement.
"I managed to dissuade him," he writes, "having my reasons for wishing
to conceal the road we should take. On leaving we went up from the
fort to the upper part of the river, but in the evening we retraced
our steps and next morning found ourselves in sight of the sea, into
which it was necessary to enter in order to pass the point and reach
the river in which was our habitation. But eve
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