Pathfinders of the West Part 10

Radisson urged him, "the injuries that France has inflicted on your father." Young Groseillers' mother, Marguerite Hayet, was in want at Three Rivers.[6] It was memory of her that now turned the scales with the young man. He would turn over the furs to Radisson for the English Company, if Radisson would take care of the far-away mother at Three Rivers. The bargain was made, and the two embraced. The surrender of the French furs to the English Company has been represented as Radisson's crowning treachery. Under that odium the great discoverer's name has rested for nearly three centuries; yet the accusation of theft is without a grain of truth. Radisson and Groseillers were to obtain half the proceeds of the voyage in 1682-1683. Neither the explorers nor Jean Groseillers, who had privately invested 500 pounds in the venture, ever received one sou. The furs at Port Nelson--or Fort Bourbon--belonged to the Frenchmen, to do what they pleased with them.

The act of the enthusiast is often tainted with folly. That Radisson turned over twenty thousand beaver pelts to the English, without the slightest a.s.surance that he would be given adequate return, was surely folly; but it was not theft.

The transfer of all possessions to the English was promptly made.

Radisson then arranged a peace treaty between the Indians and the English. That peace treaty has endured between the Indians and the Hudson's Bay Company to this day. A new fort was built, the furs stored in the hold of the vessels, and the crews mustered for the return voyage. Radisson had been given a solemn promise by the Hudson's Bay Company that Jean Groseillers and his comrades should be well treated and reengaged for the English at 100 pounds a year. Now he learned that the English intended to ship all the French out of Hudson Bay and to keep them out. The enthusiast had played his game with more zeal than discretion. The English had what they wanted--furs and fort. In return, Radisson had what had misled him like a will-o'-the-wisp all his life--vague promises. In vain Radisson protested that he had given his promise to the French before they surrendered the fort. The English distrusted foreigners. The Frenchmen had been mustered on the ships to receive last instructions.

They were told that they were to be taken to England. No chance was given them to escape. Some of the French had gone inland with the Indians. Of Jean's colony, these alone remained. When Radisson realized the conspiracy, he advised his fellow-countrymen to make no resistance; for he feared that some of the English bitter against him might seize on the pretext of a scuffle to murder the French. His advice proved wise. He had strong friends at the English court, and atonement was made for the breach of faith to the French.

The ships set sail on the 4th of September and arrived in England on the 23d of October. Without waiting for the coach, Radisson hired a horse and spurred to London in order to give his version first of the quarrel on the bay. The Hudson's Bay Company was delighted with the success of Radisson. He was taken before the directors, given a present of a hundred guineas, and thanked for his services. He was once more presented to the King and the Duke of York. The company redeemed its promise to Radisson by employing the Frenchmen of the surrendered fort and offering to engage young Groseillers at 100 pounds a year.[7]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Hudson Bay Dog Trains laden with Furs arriving at Lower Fort Garry, Red River. (Courtesy of C. C. Chipman, Commissioner H. B.

Company.)]

For five years the English kept faith with Radisson, and he made annual voyages to the bay; but war broke out with France. New France entered on a brilliant campaign against the English of Hudson Bay. The company's profits fell. Radisson, the Frenchman, was distrusted.

France had set a price on his head, and one Martiniere went to Port Nelson to seize him, but was unable to cope with the English. At no time did Radisson's salary with the company exceed 100 pounds; and now, when war stopped dividends on the small amount of stock which had been given to him, he fell into poverty and debt. In 1692 Sir William Young pet.i.tioned the company in his favor; but a man with a price on his head for treason could plainly not return to France.[8] The French were in possession of the bay. Radisson could do no harm to the English.

Therefore the company ignored him till he sued them and received payment in full for arrears of salary and dividends on stock which he was not permitted to sell; but 50 pounds a year would not support a man who paid half that amount for rent, and had a wife, four children, and servants to support. In 1700 Radisson applied for the position of warehouse keeper for the company at London. Even this was denied.

The dauntless pathfinder was growing old; and the old cannot fight and lose and begin again as Radisson had done all his life. State Papers of Paris contain records of a Radisson with Tonty at Detroit![9] Was this his nephew, Francois Radisson's son, who took the name of the explorer, or Radisson's own son, or the game old warrior himself, come out to die on the frontier as he had lived?

History is silent. Until the year 1710 Radisson drew his allowance of 50 pounds a year from the English Company, then the payments stopped.

Did the dauntless life stop too? Oblivion hides all record of his death, as it obscured the brilliant achievements of his life.

There is no need to point out Radisson's faults. They are written on his life without extenuation or excuse, so that all may read. There is less need to eulogize his virtues. They declare themselves in every act of his life. This, only, should be remembered. Like all enthusiasts, Radisson could not have been a hero, if he had not been a bit of a fool. If he had not had his faults, if he had not been as impulsive, as daring, as reckless, as inconstant, as improvident of the morrow, as a savage or a child, he would not have accomplished the exploration of half a continent. Men who weigh consequences are not of the stuff to win empires. Had Radisson haggled as to the means, he would have missed or muddled the end. He went ahead; and when the way did not open, he went round, or crawled over, or carved his way through.

There was an old saying among retired hunters of Three Rivers that "one learned more in the woods than was ever found in l' petee cat-ee-cheesm." Radisson's training was of the woods, rather than the cure's catechism; yet who that has been trained to the strictest code may boast of as dauntless faults and n.o.ble virtues? He was not faithful to any country, but he was faithful to his wife and children; and he was "faithful to his highest hope,"--that of becoming a discoverer,--which is more than common mortals are to their meanest aspirations. When statesmen played him a double game, he paid them back in their own coin with compound interest. Perhaps that is why they hated him so heartily and blackened his memory. But amid all the mad license of savage life, Radisson remained untainted. Other explorers and statesmen, too, have left a trail of blood to perpetuate their memory; Radisson never once spilled human blood needlessly, and was beloved by the savages.

Memorial tablets commemorate other discoverers. Radisson needs none.

The Great Northwest is his monument for all time.

[1] Radisson's pet.i.tion to the Hudson's Bay Company gives these amounts.

[2] See State Papers quoted in Chapter VI. I need scarcely add that Radisson did not steal a march on his patrons by secretly shipping furs to Europe. This is only another of the innumerable slanders against Radisson which State Papers disprove.

[3] It seems impossible that historians with the slightest regard for truth should have branded this part of _Radisson's Relation_ as a fabrication, too. Yet such is the case, and of writers whose books are supposed to be reputable. Since parts of Radisson's life appeared in the magazines, among many letters I received one from a well-known historian which to put it mildly was furious at the acceptance of _Radisson's Journal_ as authentic. In reply, I asked that historian how many doc.u.ments contemporaneous with Radisson's life he had consulted before he branded so great an explorer as Radisson as a liar.

Needless to say, that question was not answered. In corroboration of this part of Radisson's life, I have lying before me: (1) Chouart's letters--see Appendix. (2) A letter of Frontenac recording Radisson's first trip by boat for De la Chesnaye and the complications it would be likely to cause. (3) A complete official account sent from Quebec to France of Radisson's doings in the bay, which tallies in every respect with _Radisson's Journal_. (4) Report of M. de Meulles to the Minister on the whole affair with the English and New Englanders. (5) An official report on the release of Gillam's boat at Quebec. (6) The memorial presented by Groseillers to the French minister. (7) An official statement of the first discovery of the bay overland. (8) A complete statement (official) of the complications created by Radisson's wife being English. (9) A statement through a third party--presumably an official--by Radisson himself of these complications dated 1683. (10) A letter from the king to the governor at Quebec retailing the English complaints of Radisson at Nelson River.

In the face of this, what is to be said of the historian who calls Radisson's adventures "a fabrication"? Such misrepresentation betrays about equal amounts of impudence and ignorance.

[4] From Charlevoix to modern writers mention is made of the death of these two explorers. Different names are given as the places where they died. This is all pure supposition. Therefore I do not quote.

No records exist to prove where Radisson and Groseillers died.

[5] See Appendix.

[6] State Papers record payment of money to her because she was in want.

[7] Dr. George Bryce, who is really the only scholar who has tried to unravel the mystery of Radisson's last days, supplies new facts about his dealings with the Company to 1710.

[8] Marquis de Denonville ordered the arrest of Radisson wherever he might be found.

[9] Appendix; see State Papers.

PART II

THE SEARCH FOR THE WESTERN SEA: BEING AN ACCOUNT OF THE DISCOVERY OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS, THE MISSOURI UPLANDS, AND THE VALLEY OF THE SASKATCHEWAN

CHAPTER VIII

1730-1750

THE SEARCH FOR THE WESTERN SEA[1]

M. de la Verendrye continues the Exploration of the Great Northwest by establishing a Chain of Fur Posts across the Continent--Privations of the Explorers and the Ma.s.sacre of Twenty Followers--His Sons visit the Mandans and discover the Rockies--The Valley of the Saskatchewan is next explored, but Jealousy thwarts the Explorer, and he dies in Poverty

I

1731-1736

A curious paradox is that the men who have done the most for North America did not intend to do so. They set out on the far quest of a crack-brained idealist's dream. They pulled up at a foreshortened purpose; but the unaccomplished aim did more for humanity than the idealist's dream.

Columbus set out to find Asia. He discovered America. Jacques Cartier sought a mythical pa.s.sage to the Orient. He found a northern empire.

La Salle thought to reach China. He succeeded only in exploring the valley of the Mississippi, but the new continent so explored has done more for humanity than Asia from time immemorial. Of all crack-brained dreams that led to far-reaching results, none was wilder than the search for the Western Sea. Marquette, Jolliet, and La Salle had followed the trail that Radisson had blazed and explored the valley of the Mississippi; but like a will-o'-the-wisp beckoning ever westward was that undiscovered myth, the Western Sea, thought to lie like a narrow strait between America and j.a.pan.

The search began in earnest one sweltering afternoon on June 8, 1731, at the little stockaded fort on the banks of the St. Lawrence, where Montreal stands to-day. Fifty grizzled adventurers--wood runners, voyageurs, Indian interpreters--bareheaded, except for the colored handkerchief binding back the lank hair, dressed in fringed buckskin, and chattering with the exuberant nonchalance of boys out of school, had finished gumming the splits of their ninety-foot birch canoes, and now stood in line awaiting the coming of their captain, Sieur Pierre Gaultier de Varennes de la Verendrye. The French soldier with his three sons, aged respectively eighteen, seventeen, and sixteen, now essayed to discover the fabled Western Sea, whose narrow waters were supposed to be between the valley of the "Great Forked River" and the Empire of China.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Indians and Hunters spurring to the Fight.]

Certainly, if it were worth while for Peter the Great of Russia to send Vitus Bering coasting the bleak headlands of ice-blocked, misty sh.o.r.es to find the Western Sea, it would--as one of the French governors reported--"be n.o.bler than open war" for the little colony of New France to discover this "sea of the setting sun." The quest was invested with all the rainbow tints of "_la gloire_"; but the rainbow hopes were founded on the practical basis of profits. Leading merchants of Montreal had advanced goods for trade with the Indians on the way to the Western Sea. Their expectations of profits were probably the same as the man's who buys a mining share for ten cents and looks for dividends of several thousand per cent. And the fur trade at that time was capable of yielding such profits. Traders had gone West with less than $2000 worth of goods in modern money, and returned three years later with a sheer profit of a quarter of a million. Hope of such returns added zest to De la Verendrye's venture for the discovery of the Western Sea.

Goods done up in packets of a hundred pounds lay at the feet of the _voyageurs_ awaiting De la Verendrye's command. A dozen soldiers in the plumed hats, slashed buskins, the brightly colored doublets of the period, joined the motley company. Priests came out to bless the departing _voyageurs_. Chapel bells rang out their G.o.d-speed. To the booming of cannon, and at a word from De la Verendrye, the gates opened. Falling in line with measured tread, the soldiers marched out from Mount Royal. Behind, in the ambling gait of the moccasined woodsman, came the _voyageurs_ and _coureurs_ and interpreters, pack-straps across their foreheads, packets on the bent backs, the long birch canoes hoisted to the shoulders of four men, two abreast at each end, heads hidden in the inverted keel.

The path led between the white fret of Lachine Rapids and the dense forests that shrouded the base of Mount Royal. Checkerboard squares of farm patches had been cleared in the woods. La Salle's old thatch-roofed seigniory lay not far back from the water. St. Anne's was the launching place for fleets of canoes that were to ascend the Ottawa. Here, a last look was taken of splits and seams in the birch keels. With invocations of St. Anne in one breath, and invocations of a personage not mentioned in the cure's "petee cat-ee-cheesm" in the next breath, and imprecations that their "souls might be smashed on the end of a picket fence,"--the _voyageur's_ common oath even to this day,--the boatmen stored goods fore, aft, and athwart till each long canoe sank to the gunwale as it was gently pushed out on the water. A last sign of the cross, and the lithe figures leap light as a mountain cat to their place in the canoes. There are four benches of paddlers, two abreast, with bowman and steersman, to each canoe. One can guess that the explorer and his sons and his nephew, Sieur de la Jemmeraie, who was to be second in command, all unhatted as they heard the long last farewell of the bells. Every eye is fastened on the chief bowman's steel-shod pole, held high--there is silence but for the bells--the bowman's pole is lowered--as with one stroke out sweep the paddles in a poetry of motion. The chimes die away over the water, the chapel spire gleams--it, too, is gone. Some one strikes up a plaintive ditty,--the _voyageur's_ song of the lost lady and the faded roses, or the dying farewell of Cadieux, the hunter, to his comrades,--and the adventurers are launched for the Western Sea.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fight at the Foot-hills of the Rockies between Crows and Snakes.]

II

1731-1736

Every mile westward was consecrated by heroism. There was the place where Cadieux, the white hunter, went ash.o.r.e single-handed to hold the Iroquois at bay, while his comrades escaped by running the rapids; but Cadieux was a.s.sailed by a subtler foe than the Iroquois, _la folie des bois_,--the folly of the woods,--that sends the hunter wandering in endless circles till he dies from hunger; and when his companions returned, Cadieux lay in eternal sleep with a death chant scribbled on bark across his breast. There were the Rapids of the Long Sault where Dollard and seventeen Frenchmen fought seven hundred Iroquois till every white man fell. Not one of all De la Verendrye's fifty followers but knew that perils as great awaited him.

Streaked foam told the voyageurs where they were approaching rapids.