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In the second paragraph, they observe that Mr. Young stated their neglect to maintain Mr. Radisson without mentioning their reasons for so doing, which might have shown whether it was their unkindness or Radisson's desert.
They go on to take notice of the fact that about 1681 or 1682, Radisson and Groseilliers entered into another contract with the Company and received 20l. Soon afterwards they absconded, went to France, and thence to Canada. Next year they joined their countrymen in an expedition to Port Nelson, animated by the report of Mr. Abram to the Company that it was the best place for a factory. They took their two barks up as far as they durst for fear of the English. Then the French in the fall built a small hut, which Mr. Young says was too strong for either New England or Old England without guns or works – a place merely to sleep in, manned only with seven French.
This expedition, Mr. Young saith, was at first prejudicial to the Company, but afterward of great advantage, which he cannot apprehend.
In another place Mr. Young is pleased to state that the New England settlement was so strong that the Old could not destroy it. Old England settlement was only a house unfortified, which Bridgar built to keep the goods dry, because Gillam's boat arrived late.
"1. Mr. Young says all are in favour of Radisson but Sir Edward Dering, we have not met with any who are in favour but Mr. Young. Those who give gratuity should know why.
"2. That he had no place or honour given him is no reason for giving gratuity, there being no contract in the case.
"3. Never found him accused of cheating and purloining, but breach of contract with Company, after receiving their money, we do find him guilty of.
"4. Says he never did capitulate with the Company. Find he did (see minutes), May 6th, 1685.
"5. Cannot believe Radisson was beaten by the Company's servants. Greater increase of furs after he left, &c., &c., &c."
This memorial and its answer show the rather unreasonable position taken by the Company. In the time of its admiration for Radisson and of fat dividends, it had provided liberal things; but when money became scarce, then it was disposed to make matters pleasing to itself, despite the claims of Radisson. In the year following the presenting of the memorial, it is stated in the minutes that "Radisson was represented to the Company as in a low and mean condition." At this time it was ordered that 50l. be paid Radisson and to be repaid out of the next dividend.
The unreasonable position assumed by the Company, in withholding a part of the salary which they had promised in good faith, filled Radisson with a sense of injustice. No doubt guided by his friend, Sir William Young, who, on account of his persistence on behalf of the adventurer, was now dropped from the Committee of the Company, Radisson filed a bill in Chancery against the Company, and in July, 1694, notice of this was served upon the Committee.
Much consternation appears to have filled their minds, and the Deputy-Governor, Sir Samuel Clark, reported shortly after having used 200l. for secret service, the matter being seemingly connected with this case.
Notwithstanding the great influence of the Company, the justice of Radisson's claims prevailed, and the Court of Chancery ordered the payment of arrears in full. The Committee afterwards met Sir William Young and Richard Craddock, who upheld Radisson's claim. It is reported that they agreed to settle the matter by paying Radisson 150l., he giving a release, and that he should be paid, under seal, 100l. per annum for life, except in those years when the Company should make a dividend, and then but 50l. according to the original agreement. Radisson then received, as the minutes show, his salary regularly from this time.
In 1698, the Company asked for the renewal by Parliament of its Charter. Radisson petitioned Parliament for consideration, asking that before the request made by the Company for the confirmation of the privileges sought were granted, a clause should be inserted protecting him in the regular payment of the amounts due to him from time to time by the Company.
At the time of his petition to Parliament he states that he has four young children, and has only the 100l. a year given by the Company to live on. In the year 1700 he was still struggling with his straitened circumstances, for in that year he applied to the Company to be appointed warehouse-keeper for the London premises, but his application was refused. His children, of whom he is said to have had nine, appear to have passed over to Canada and to have become a part of the Canadian people. His brother-in-law, Groseilliers, had also returned to his adopted Canada, but is stated to have died before 1698.
Regularly during the succeeding years the quarterly amount is voted to Radisson by the Company, until January 6th, 1710, when the last quota of 12l. 10s. was ordered to be given. About this time, at the ripe age of seventy-four, passed away Pierre Esprit Radisson, one of the most daring and ingenious men of his time. We know nothing of his death, except from the fact that his pension ceased to be paid.
Judge Prudhomme, to whose appreciative sketch of Radisson in French we have already referred, well summarizes his life. We translate: —
"What a strange existence was that of this man! By turns discoverer, officer of marine, organizer and founder of the most commercial company which has existed in North America, his life presents an astonishing variety of human experiences.
"He may be seen passing alternately from the wigwams of the miserable savages to the court of the great Colbert; from managing chiefs of the tribes to addressing the most illustrious nobles of Great Britain.
"His courage was of a high order. He looked death in the face more than a hundred times without trepidation. He braved the tortures and the stake among the Iroquois, the treacherous stratagems of the savages of the West, the rigorous winters of the Hudson Bay, and the tropical heat of the Antilles.
"Of an adventurous nature, drawn irresistibly to regions unknown, carried on by the enthusiasm of his voyages, always ready to push out into new dangers, he could have been made by Fenimore Cooper one of the heroes of his most exciting romances.
"The picture of his life consequently presents many contrasts. The life of a brigand, which he led with a party of Iroquois, cannot be explained away.
"He was blamable in a like manner for having deserted the flag of France, his native country. The first time we might, perhaps, pardon him, for he was the victim of grave injustice on the part of the government of the colony.
"No excuse could justify his second desertion. He had none to offer, not one. He avowed very candidly that he sought the service of England because he preferred it to that of France.
"In marrying the daughter of Mr. John Kirke, he seems to have espoused also the nationality of her family. As for him, he would have needed to change the proverb, and, in the place of 'One who marries a husband takes his country,' to say, 'One who marries a wife takes her country.'
"The celebrated discover of the North-West, the illustrious Le Verendrye, has as much as Radisson, and even more than he, of just reason to complain of the ingratitude of France; yet how different was his conduct!
"Just as his persecutions have placed upon the head of the first a new halo of glory, so they have cast upon the brow of the second an ineffaceable stain.
"Souls truly noble do not seek in treason the recompense for the rights denied them."
(For a detailed chronological account of Radisson's life, see Appendix B, page 487.)
CHAPTER VI
FRENCH RIVALRY
The golden lilies in danger – "To arrest Radisson" – The land called "Unknown" – A chain of claim – Imaginary pretensions – Chevalier de Troyes – The brave Lemoynes – Hudson Bay forts captured – A litigious governor – Laugh at treaties – The glory of France – Enormous claims – Consequential damages.
The two great nations which were seeking supremacy in North America came into collision all too soon on the shores of Hudson Bay. Along the shore of the Atlantic, England claimed New England and much of the coast to the southward. France was equally bent on holding New France and Acadia. Now that England had begun to occupy Hudson Bay, France was alarmed, for the enemy would be on her northern as well as on her southern border. No doubt, too, France feared that her great rival would soon seek to drive her golden lilies back to the Old World, for New France would be a wedge between the northern and southern possessions of England in the New World.
The movement leading to the first voyage to Hudson Bay by Gillam and his company was carefully watched by the French Government. In February, 1668, at which time Gillam's expedition had not yet sailed, the Marquis de Denonville, Governor of Canada, appointed an officer to go in search of the most advantageous posts and occupy the shores of the Baie du Nord and the embouchures of the rivers that enter therein. Among other things the governor gave orders "to arrest especially the said Radisson and his adherents wherever they may be found."
Intendant Talon, in 1670, sent home word to M. Colbert that ships had been seen near Hudson Bay, and that it was likely that they were English, and were "under the guidance of a man des Grozeliers, formerly an inhabitant of Canada."
The alarm caused the French by the movements of the English adventurers was no doubt increased by the belief that Hudson Bay was included in French territory. The question of what constituted ownership or priority of claim was at this time a very difficult one among the nations. Whether mere discovery or temporary occupation could give the right of ownership was much questioned. Colonization would certainly be admitted to do so, provided there had been founded "certain establishments." But the claim of France upon Hudson Bay would appear to have been on the mere ground of the Hudson Bay region being contiguous or neighbouring territory to that held by the French.
The first claim made by France was under the commission, as Viceroy to Canada, given in 1540 by the French King to Sieur de Roberval, which no doubt covered the region about Hudson Bay, though not specifying it. In 1598 Lescarbot states that the commission given to De La Roche contained the following: "New France has for its boundaries on the west the Pacific Ocean within the Tropic of Cancer; on the south the islands of the Atlantic towards Cuba and Hispaniola; on the east, the Northern Sea which washes its shores, embracing in the north the land called Unknown toward the Frozen Sea, up to the Arctic Pole."
The sturdy common sense of Anglo-Saxon England refused to be bound by the contention that a region admittedly "Unknown" could be held on a mere formal claim.
The English pointed out that one of their expeditions under Henry Hudson in 1610 had actually discovered the Bay and given it its name; that Sir Thomas Button immediately thereafter had visited the west side of the Bay and given it the name of New Wales; that Captain James had, about a score of years after Hudson, gone to the part of the Bay which continued to bear his name, and that Captain Fox had in the same year reached the west side of the Bay. This claim of discovery was opposed to the fanciful claims made by France. The strength of the English contention, now enforced by actual occupation and the erection of Charles Fort, made it necessary to obtain some new basis of objection to the claim of England.
It is hard to resist the conclusion that a deliberate effort was made to invent some ground of prior discovery in order to meet the visible argument of a fort now occupied by the English. M. de la Potherie, historian of New France, made the assertion that Radisson and Groseilliers had crossed from Lake Superior to the Baie du Nord (Hudson Bay). It is true, as we have seen, that Oldmixon, the British writer of a generation or two later, states the same thing. This claim is, however, completely met by the statement made by Radisson of his third voyage that they heard only from the Indians on Lake Superior of the Northern Bay, but had not crossed to it by land. We have disposed of the matter of his fourth voyage. The same historian also puts forward what seems to be pure myth, that one Jean Bourdon, a Frenchman, entered the Bay in 1656 and engaged in trade. It was stated also that a priest, William Couture, sent by Governor D'Avaugour of New France, had in 1663 made a missionary establishment on the Bay. These are unconfirmed statements, having no details, and are suspicious in their time of origination. The Hudson's Bay Company's answer states that Bourdon's voyage was to another part of Canada, going only to 53° N., and not to the Bay at all. Though entirely unsupported, these claims were reiterated as late as 1857 by Hon. Joseph Cauchon in his case on behalf of Canada v. Hudson's Bay Company. M. Jeremie, who was Governor of the French forts in Hudson Bay in 1713, makes the statement that Radisson and Groseilliers had visited the Bay overland, for which there is no warrant, but the Governor does not speak of Bourdon or Couture. This contradiction of De la Potherie's claim is surely sufficient proof that there is no ground for credence of the stories, which are purely apocryphal. It is but just to state, however, that the original claim of Roberval and De la Roche had some weight in the negotiations which took place between the French and English Governments over this matter.
M. Colbert, the energetic Prime Minister of France, at any rate made up his mind that the English must be excluded from Hudson Bay. Furthermore, the fur trade of Canada was beginning to feel very decidedly the influence of the English traders in turning the trade to their factories on Hudson Bay. The French Prime Minister, in 1678, sent word to Duchesnau, the Intendant of Canada, to dispute the right of the English to erect factories on Hudson Bay. Radisson and Groseilliers, as we have seen, had before this time deserted the service of England and returned to that of France. With the approval of the French Government, these facile agents sailed to Canada and began the organization, in 1681, of a new association, to be known as "The Northern Company." Fitted out with two small barks, Le St. Pierre and La Ste. Anne, in 1682, the adventurers, with their companions, appeared before Charles Fort, which Groseilliers had helped to build, but do not seem to have made any hostile demonstration against it. Passing away to the west side of the Bay, these shrewd explorers entered the River Ste. Therese (the Hayes River of to-day) and there erected an establishment, which they called Fort Bourbon.
This was really one of the best trading points on the Bay. Some dispute as to even the occupancy of this point took place, but it would seem as if Radisson and Groseilliers had the priority of a few months over the English party that came to establish a fort at the mouth of the adjoining River Nelson. The two adventurers, Radisson and Groseilliers, in the following year came, as we have seen, with their ship-load of peltries to Canada, and it is charged that they attempted to unload a part of their cargo of furs before reaching Quebec. This led to a quarrel between them and the Northern Company, and the adroit fur traders again left the service of France to find their way back to England. We have already seen how completely these two Frenchmen, in the year 1684, took advantage of their own country at Fort Bourbon and turned over the furs to the Hudson's Bay Company.
The sense of injury produced on the minds of the French by the treachery of these adventurers stirred the authorities up to attack the posts in Hudson Bay. Governor Denonville now came heartily to the aid of the Northern Company, and commissioned Chevalier de Troyes to organize an overland expedition from Quebec to Hudson Bay. The love of adventure was strong in the breasts of the young French noblesse in Canada. Four brothers of the family Le Moyne had become known for their deeds of valour along the English frontier. Leader among the valorous French-Canadians was Le Moyne D'Iberville, who, though but twenty-four years of age, had already performed prodigies of daring. Maricourt, his brother, was another fiery spirit, who was known to the Iroquois by a name signifying "the little bird which is always in motion." Another leader was Ste. Helene. With a party of chosen men these intrepid spirits left the St. Lawrence in March, 1685, and threaded the streams of the Laurentian range to the shore of Hudson Bay.
After nearly three months of the most dangerous and exciting adventures, the party reached their destination. The officers and men of the Hudson's Bay Company's service were chiefly civilians unaccustomed to war, and were greatly surprised by the sudden appearance upon the Bay of their doughty antagonists. At the mouth of the Moose River one of the Hudson's Bay Company forts was situated, and here the first attack was made. It was a fort of considerable importance, having four bastions, and was manned by fourteen guns. It, however, fell before the fierce assault of the forest rangers. The chief offence in the eyes of the French was Charles Fort on the Rupert River, that being the first constructed by the English Company. This was also captured and its fortifications thrown down. At the same time that the main body were attacking Charles Fort, the brothers Le Moyne, with a handful of picked men, stealthily approached in two canoes one of the Company's vessels in the Bay and succeeded in taking it.
The largest fort on the Bay was that in the marshy region on Albany River. It was substantially built with four bastions and was provided with forty-three guns. The rapidity of movement and military skill of the French expedition completely paralyzed the Hudson's Bay Company officials and men. Governor Sargeant, though having in Albany Fort furs to the value of 50,000 crowns, after a slight resistance surrendered without the honours of war. The Hudson's Bay Company employés were given permission to return to England and in the meantime the Governor and his attendants were taken to Charlton Island and the rest of the prisoners to Moose Fort. D'Iberville afterwards took the prisoners to France, whence they came back to England.
A short time after this the Company showed its disapproval of Governor Sargeant's course in surrendering Fort Albany so readily. Thinking they could mark their disapprobation more strongly, they brought an action against Governor Sargeant in the courts to recover 20,000l. After the suit had gone some distance, they agreed to refer the matter to arbitration, and the case was ended by the Company having to pay to the Governor 350l. The affair, being a family quarrel, caused some amusement to the public.
The only place of importance now remaining to the English on Hudson Bay was Port Nelson, which was near the French Fort Bourbon. D'Iberville, utilizing the vessel he had captured on the Bay, went back to Quebec in the autumn of 1687 with the rich booty of furs taken at the different points.
These events having taken place at a time when the two countries, France and England, were nominally at peace, negotiations took place between the two Powers.
Late in the year 1686 a treaty of neutrality was signed, and it was hoped that peace would ensue on Hudson Bay. This does not seem to have been the case, however, and both parties blame each other for not observing the terms of the Act of Pacification. D'Iberville defended Albany Fort from a British attack in 1689, departed in that year for Quebec with a ship-load of furs, and returned to Hudson Bay in the following year. During the war which grew out of the Revolution, Albany Fort changed hands again to the English, and was afterwards retaken by the French, after which a strong English force (1692) repossessed themselves of it. For some time English supremacy was maintained on the Bay, but the French merely waited their time to attack Fort Bourbon, which they regarded as in a special sense their own. In 1694 D'Iberville visited the Bay, besieged and took Fort Bourbon, and reduced the place with his two frigates. His brother De Chateauguay was killed during the siege.
In 1697 the Bay again fell into English hands, and D'Iber ville was put in command of a squadron sent out for him from France, and with this he sailed for Hudson Bay. The expedition brought unending glory to France and the young commander. Though one of his warships was crushed in the ice in the Hudson Straits and his remaining vessels could nowhere be seen when he reached the open waters of the Bay, yet he bravely sailed to Port Nelson, purposing to invest it in his one ship, the Pelican. Arrived at his station, he observed that he was shut in on the rear by three English men-of-war. His condition was desperate; he had not his full complement of men, and some of those on board were sick. His vessel had but fifty guns; the English vessels carried among them 124. The English vessels, the Hampshire, the Dering, and the Hudson's Bay, all opened fire upon him. During a hot engagement, a well-aimed broadside from the Pelican sank the Hampshire with all her sails flying, and everything on board was lost; the Hudson's Bay surrendered unconditionally, and the Dering succeeded in making her escape. After this naval duel D'Iberville's missing vessels appeared, and the commander, landing a sufficient number of men, invested and took Port Nelson. The whole of the Hudson Bay territory thus came into the possession of the French. The matter has always, however, been looked at in the light of the brilliant achievement of this scion of the Le Moynes.
Few careers have had the uninterrupted success of that of Pierre Le Moyne D'Iberville, although this fortune reached its climax in the exploit in Hudson Bay. Nine years afterwards the brilliant soldier died of yellow fever at Havana, after he had done his best in a colonization enterprise to the mouth of the Mississippi which was none too successful. Though the treaty of Ryswick, negotiated in this year of D'Iberville's triumphs, brought for the time the cessation of hostilities, yet nearly fifteen years of rivalry, and for much of the time active warfare, left their serious traces on Hudson's Bay Company affairs. A perusal of the minutes of the Hudson's Bay Company during this period gives occasional glimpses of the state of war prevailing, although it must be admitted not so vivid a picture as might have been expected. As was quite natural, the details of attacks, defences, surrenders, and parleys come to us from French sources rather than from the Company's books. That the French accounts are correct is fully substantiated by the memorials presented by the Company to the British Government, asking for recompense for losses sustained.
In 1687 a petition was prepared by the Hudson's Bay Company, and a copy of it is found in one of the letter-books of the Company. This deals to some extent with the contention of the French king, which had been lodged with the British Government, claiming priority of ownership of the regions about Hudson Bay. The arguments advanced are chiefly those to which we have already referred. The claim for compensation made upon the British Government by the Company is a revelation of how seriously the French rivalry had interfered with the progress of the fur trade. After still more serious conflict had taken place in the Bay, and the Company had come to be apprehensive for its very existence, another petition was laid before His Majesty William III., in 1694. This petition, which also contained the main facts of the claim of 1687, is so important that we give some of the details of it. It is proper to state, however, that a part of the demand is made up of what has since been known as "consequential damages," and that in consequence the matter lingered on for at least two decades.
The damages claimed were: —
