Pathfinders of the West Part 7

[12] _Les Compagnies de Colonisation sous l'ancien regime_, by Chailly-Bert.

[13] Oldmixon says: "Radisson and Groseillers met with some savages on the Lake of a.s.siniboin, and from them they learned that they might go by land to the bottom of Hudson's Bay, where the English had not been yet, at James Bay; upon which they desired them to conduct them thither, and the savages accordingly did it. They returned to the Upper Lake the same way they came, and thence to Quebec, where they offered the princ.i.p.al merchants to carry ships to Hudson's Bay; but their project was rejected." Vol. I, p. 548. Radisson's figures are given as "pounds "; but by "_L_" did he mean English "pound" or French livre, that is 17 cents? A franc in 1660 equalled the modern dollar.

[14] The exact tribes mentioned in the _Memoire of 1696_, with whom the French were in trade in the West are: On the "Missoury" and south of it, the Mascoutins and Sioux; two hundred miles beyond the "Missisipy"

the Issaguy, the Octbatons, the Omtous, of whom were Sioux capable of mustering four thousand warriors, south of Lake Superior, the Sauteurs, on "Sipisagny, the river which is the discharge of Lake Asemipigon"

(Winnipeg), the "Nation of the Grand Rat," Algonquins numbering two thousand, who traded with the English of Hudson Bay, De la Chesnaye adds in his memoire details of the trip from Lake Superior to the lake of the a.s.siniboines. Knowing what close co-workers he and Radisson were, we can guess where he got his information.

CHAPTER V

1664-1676

RADISSON RENOUNCES ALLEGIANCE TO TWO CROWNS

Rival Traders thwart the Plans of the Discoverers--Entangled in Lawsuits, the two French Explorers go to England--The Organization of the Hudson's Bay Fur Company--Radisson the Storm-centre of International Intrigue--Boston Merchants in the Struggle to capture the Fur Trade

Henceforth Radisson and Groseillers were men without a country. Twice their return from the North with cargoes of beaver had saved New France from ruin. They had discovered more of America than all the other explorers combined. Their reward was jealous rivalry that reduced them to beggary; injustice that compelled them to renounce allegiance to two crowns; obloquy during a lifetime; and oblivion for two centuries after their death. The very force of unchecked impulse that carries the hero over all obstacles may also carry him over the bounds of caution and compromise that regulate the conduct of other men. This was the case with Radisson and Groseillers. They were powerless to resist the extortion of the French governor. The Company of One Hundred a.s.sociates had given place to the Company of the West Indies. This trading venture had been organized under the direct patronage of the king.[1] It had been proclaimed from the pulpits of France.

Privileges were promised to all who subscribed for the stock. The Company was granted a blank list of t.i.tles to bestow on its patrons and servants. No one else in New France might engage in the beaver trade; no one else might buy skins from the Indians and sell the pelts in Europe; and one-fourth of the trade went for public revenue. In spite of all the privileges, fur company after fur company failed in New France; but to them Radisson had to sell his furs, and when the revenue officers went over the cargo, the minions of the governor also seized a share under pretence of a fine for trading without a license.

Groseillers was furious, and sailed for France to demand rest.i.tution; but the intriguing courtiers proved too strong for him. Though he spent 10,000 pounds, nothing was done. D'Avaugour had come back to France, and stockholders of the jealous fur company were all-powerful at court. Groseillers then relinquished all idea of rest.i.tution, and tried to interest merchants in another expedition to Hudson Bay by way of the sea.[2] He might have spared himself the trouble. His enthusiasm only aroused the quiet smile of supercilious indifference.

His plans were regarded as chimerical. Finally a merchant of Roch.e.l.le half promised to send a boat to Isle Percee at the mouth of the St.

Lawrence in 1664. Groseillers had already wasted six months. Eager for action, he hurried back to Three Rivers, where Radisson awaited him. The two secretly took pa.s.sage in a fishing schooner to Anticosti, and from Anticosti went south to Isle Percee. Here a Jesuit just out from France bore the message to them that no ship would come. The promise had been a put-off to rid France of the enthusiast. New France had treated them with injustice. Old France with mockery. Which way should they turn? They could not go back to Three Rivers. This attempt to go to Hudson Bay without a license laid them open to a second fine. Baffled, but not beaten, the explorers did what ninety-nine men out of a hundred would have done in similar circ.u.mstances--they left the country. Some rumor of their intention to abandon New France must have gone abroad; for when they reached Cape Breton, their servants grumbled so loudly that a mob of Frenchmen threatened to burn the explorers. Dismissing their servants, Radisson and Groseillers escaped to Port Royal, Nova Scotia.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Martello Tower of Refuge in Time of Indian Wars--Three Rivers.]

In Port Royal they met a sea-captain from Boston, Zechariah Gillam, who offered his ship for a voyage to Hudson Bay, but the season was far spent when they set out. Captain Gillam was afraid to enter the ice-locked bay so late in summer. The boat turned back, and the trip was a loss. This run of ill-luck had now lasted for a year. They still had some money from the Northern trips, and they signed a contract with ship-owners of Boston to take two vessels to Hudson Bay the following spring. Provisions must be laid up for the long voyage.

One of the ships was sent to the Grand Banks for fish. Rounding eastward past the crescent reefs of Sable Island, the ship was caught by the beach-combers and totally wrecked on the drifts of sand.

Instead of sailing for Hudson Bay in the spring of 1665, Radisson and Groseillers were summoned to Boston to defend themselves in a lawsuit for the value of the lost vessel. They were acquitted; but lawsuits on the heels of misfortune exhausted the resources of the adventurers.

The exploits of the two Frenchmen had become the sensation of Boston.

Sir Robert Carr, one of the British commissioners then in the New England colonies, urged Radisson and Groseillers to renounce allegiance to a country that had shown only ingrat.i.tude, and to come to England.[3] When Sir George Cartwright sailed from Nantucket on August 1, 1665, he was accompanied by Radisson and Groseillers.[4] Misfortune continued to dog them. Within a few days' sail of England, their ship encountered the Dutch cruiser _Caper_. For two hours the ships poured broadsides of shot into each other's hulls. The masts were torn from the English vessel. She was boarded and stripped, and the Frenchmen were thoroughly questioned. Then the captives were all landed in Spain. Accompanied by the two Frenchmen, Sir George Cartwright hastened to England early in 1666. The plague had driven the court from London to Oxford. Cartwright laid the plans of the explorers before Charles II. The king ordered 40s. a week paid to Radisson and Groseillers for the winter. They took chambers in London. Later they followed the court to Windsor, where they were received by King Charles.

The English court favored the project of trade in Hudson Bay, but during the Dutch war nothing could be done. The captain of the Dutch ship _Caper_ had sent word of the French explorers to De Witt, the great statesman. De Witt despatched a spy from Picardy, France, one Eli G.o.defroy Touret, who chanced to know Groseillers, to meet the explorers in London. Masking as Groseillers' nephew, Touret tried to bribe both men to join the Dutch. Failing this, he attempted to undermine their credit with the English by accusing Radisson and Groseillers of counterfeiting money; but the English court refused to be deceived, and Touret was imprisoned. Owing to the plague and the war, two years pa.s.sed without the vague promises of the English court taking shape. Montague, the English amba.s.sador to France, heard of the explorers' feats, and wrote to Prince Rupert. Prince Rupert was a soldier of fortune, who could enter into the spirit of the explorers.

He had fought on the losing side against Cromwell, and then taken to the high seas to replenish broken fortunes by piracy. The wealth of the beaver trade appealed to him. He gave all the influence of his _prestige_ to the explorers' plans. By the spring of 1668 money enough had been advanced to fit out two boats for Hudson Bay. In the _Eagle_, with Captain Stannard, went Radisson; in the _Nonsuch_, with Captain Zechariah Gillam of Boston, went Groseillers. North of Ireland furious gales drove the ships apart. Radisson's vessel was damaged and driven back to London; but his year was not wasted. It is likely that the account of his first voyages was written while Groseillers was away.[5]

Sometime during his stay in London he married Mary Kirke, a daughter of the Huguenot John Kirke, whose family had long ago gone from Boston and captured Quebec.

Gillam's journal records that the _Nonsuch_ left Gravesend the 3d of June, 1668, reached Resolution Island on August 4, and came to anchor at the south of James Bay on September 29.[6] It was here that Radisson had come overland five years before, when he thought that he discovered a river flowing from the direction of the St. Lawrence. The river was Nemisco. Groseillers called it Rupert in honor of his patron. A palisaded fort was at once built, and named King Charles after the English monarch. By December, the bay was locked in the deathly silence of northern frost. Snow fell till the air became darkened day after day, a ceaseless fall of m.u.f.fling snow; the earth--as Gillam's journal says--"seemed frozen to death." Gillam attended to the fort, Groseillers to the trade. Dual command was bound to cause a clash. By April, 1669, the terrible cold had relaxed. The ice swept out of the river with a roar. Wild fowl came winging north in myriad flocks. By June the fort was sweltering in almost tropical heat. The _Nonsuch_ hoisted anchor and sailed for England, loaded to the water-line with a cargo of furs. Honors awaited Groseillers in London. King Charles created him a _Knight de la Jarretiere_, an order for princes of the royal blood.[7] In addition, he was granted a sum of money. Prince Rupert and Radisson had, meanwhile, been busy organizing a fur company. The success of Groseillers' voyage now a.s.sured this company a royal charter, which was granted in May, 1670.

Such was the origin of the Hudson's Bay Company. Prince Rupert was its first governor; Charles Bayly was appointed resident governor on the bay. Among the first shareholders were Prince Rupert, the Duke of York, Sir George Cartwright, the Duke of Albermarle, Shaftesbury, Sir Peter Colleton, who had advanced Radisson a loan during the long period of waiting, and Sir John Kirke, whose daughter had married Radisson.

That spring, Radisson and Groseillers again sailed for the bay. In 1671, three ships were sent out from England, and Radisson established a second post westward at Moose. With Governor Bayly, he sailed up and met the Indians at what was to become the great fur capital of the north, Port Nelson, or York. The third year of the company's existence, Radisson and Groseillers perceived a change. Not so many Indians came down to the English forts to trade. Those who came brought fewer pelts and demanded higher prices. Rivals had been at work. The English learned that the French had come overland and were paying high prices to draw the Indians from the bay. In the spring a council was held.[8] Should they continue on the east side of the bay, or move west, where there would be no rivalry? Groseillers boldly counselled moving inland and driving off French compet.i.tion. Bayly was for moving west. He even hinted that Groseillers' advice sprang from disloyalty to the English. The clash that was inevitable from divided command was this time avoided by compromise. They would all sail west, and all come back to Rupert's River. When they returned, they found that the English ensign had been torn down and the French flag raised.[9] A veteran Jesuit missionary of the Saguenay, Charles Albanel, two French companions, and some Indian guides had ensconced themselves in the empty houses.[10] The priest now presented Governor Bayly with letters from Count Frontenac commending the French to the good offices of Governor Bayly.[11]

France had not been idle.

When it was too late, the country awakened to the injustice done Radisson and Groseillers. While Radisson was still in Boston, all restrictions were taken from the beaver trade, except the tax of one-fourth to the revenue. The Jesuit Dablon, who was near the western end of Lake Superior, gathered all the information he could from the Indians of the way to the Sea of the North. Father Marquette learned of the Mississippi from the Indians. The Western tribes had been summoned to the Sault, where Sieur de Saint-Lusson met them in treaty for the French; and the French flag was raised in the presence of Pere Claude Allouez, who blessed the ceremony. M. Colbert sent instructions to M. Talon, the intendant of New France, to grant t.i.tles of n.o.bility to Groseillers' nephew in order to keep him in the country.[12] On the Saguenay was a Jesuit, Charles Albanel, loyal to the French and of English birth, whose devotion to the Indians during the small-pox scourge of 1670 had given him unbounded influence. Talon, the intendant of New France, was keen to retrieve in the North what D'Argenson's injustice had lost. Who could be better qualified to go overland to Hudson Bay than the old missionary, loyal to France, of English birth, and beloved by the Indians? Albanel was summoned to Quebec and gladly accepted the commission. He chose for companions Saint-Simon and young Couture, the son of the famous guide to the Jesuits. The company left Quebec on August 6, 1671, and secured a guide at Tadoussac. Embarking in canoes, they ascended the shadowy canon of the Saguenay to Lake St. John. On the 7th of September they left the forest of Lake St. John and mounted the current of a winding river, full of cataracts and rapids, toward Mista.s.sini. On this stream they met Indians who told them that two European vessels were on Hudson Bay. The Indians showed Albanel tobacco which they had received from the English.

It seemed futile to go on a voyage of discovery where English were already in possession. The priest sent one of the Frenchmen and two Indians back to Quebec for pa.s.sports and instructions. What the instructions were can only be guessed by subsequent developments. The messengers left the depth of the forest on the 19th of September, and had returned from Quebec by the 10th of October. Snow was falling.

The streams had frozen, and the Indians had gone into camp for the winter. Going from wigwam to wigwam through the drifted forest. Father Albanel pa.s.sed the winter preaching to the savages. Skins of the chase were laid on the wigwams. Against the pelts, snow was banked to close up every c.h.i.n.k. Inside, the air was blue with smoke and the steam of the simmering kettle. Indian hunters lay on the moss floor round the central fires. Children and dogs crouched heterogeneously against the sloping tent walls. Squaws plodded through the forest, setting traps and baiting the fish-lines that hung through airholes of the thick ice.

In these lodges Albanel wintered. He was among strange Indians and suffered incredible hardships. Where there was room, he, too, sat crouched under the crowded tent walls, scoffed at by the braves, teased by the unrebuked children, eating when the squaws threw waste food to him, going hungry when his French companions failed to bring in game.

Sometimes night overtook him on the trail. Shovelling a bed through the snow to the moss with his snow-shoes, piling shrubs as a wind-break, and kindling a roaring fire, the priest pa.s.sed the night under the stars.

When spring came, the Indians opposed his pa.s.sage down the river. A council was called. Albanel explained that his message was to bring the Indians down to Quebec and keep them from going to the English for trade. The Indians, who had acted as middlemen between Quebec traders and the Northern tribes, saw the advantage of undermining the English trade. Gifts were presented by the Frenchmen, and the friendship of the Indians was secured. On June 1, 1672, sixteen savages embarked with the three Frenchmen. For the next ten days, the difficulties were almost insurmountable. The river tore through a deep gorge of sheer precipices which the _voyageurs_ could pa.s.s only by clinging to the rock walls with hands and feet. One _portage_ was twelve miles long over a muskeg of quaking moss that floated on water. At every step the travellers plunged through to their waists. Over this the long canoes and baggage had to be carried. On the 10th of June they reached the height of land that divides the waters of Hudson Bay from the St.

Lawrence. The watershed was a small plateau with two lakes, one of which emptied north, the other, south. As they approached Lake Mista.s.sini, the Lake Indians again opposed their free pa.s.sage down the rivers.

"You must wait," they said, "till we notify the elders of your coming."

Shortly afterwards, the French met a score of canoes with the Indians all painted for war. The idea of turning back never occurred to the priest. By way of demonstrating his joy at meeting the warriors, he had ten volleys of musketry fired off, which converted the war into a council of peace. At the a.s.semblage, Albanel distributed gifts to the savages.

"Stop trading with the English at the sea," he cried; "they do not pray to G.o.d; come to Lake St. John with your furs; there you will always find a _robe noire_ to instruct you and baptize you."

The treaty was celebrated by a festival and a dance. In the morning, after solemn religious services, the French embarked. On the 18th of June they came to Lake Mista.s.sini, an enormous body of water similar to the Great Lakes.[13] From Mista.s.sini, the course was down-stream and easier. High water enabled them to run many of the rapids; and on the 28th of June, after a voyage of eight hundred leagues, four hundred rapids, and two hundred waterfalls, they came to the deserted houses of the English. The very next day they found the Indians and held religious services, making solemn treaty, presenting presents, and hoisting the French flag. For the first three weeks of July they coasted along the sh.o.r.es of James Bay, taking possession of the country in the name of the French king. Then they cruised back to King Charles Fort on Rupert's River.[14] They were just in time to meet the returned Englishmen.

Governor Bayly of the Hudson's Bay Company was astounded to find the French at Rupert's River. Now he knew what had allured the Indians from the bay, but he hardly relished finding foreigners in possession of his own fort. The situation required delicate tact. Governor Bayly was a bluff tradesman with an insular dislike of Frenchmen and Catholics common in England at a time when bigoted fanaticism ran riot.

King Charles was on friendly terms with France. Therefore, the Jesuit's pa.s.sport must be respected; so Albanel was received with at least a show of courtesy. But Bayly was the governor of a fur company; and the rights of the company must be respected. To make matters worse, the French voyageurs brought letters to Groseillers and Radisson from their relatives in Quebec. Bayly, no doubt, wished the Jesuit guest far enough. Albanel left in a few weeks. Then Bayly's suspicions blazed out in open accusations that the two French explorers had been playing a double game and acting against English interests.

In September came the company ship to the fort with Captain Gillam, who had never agreed with Radisson from the time that they had quarrelled about going from Port Royal to the straits of Hudson Bay. It has been said that, at this stage, Radisson and Groseillers, feeling the prejudice too strong against them, deserted and pa.s.sed overland through the forests to Quebec. The records of the Hudson's Bay Company do not corroborate this report. Bayly in the heat of his wrath sent home accusations with the returning ship. The ship that came out in 1674 requested Radisson to go to England and report. This he did, and so completely refuted the charges of disloyalty that in 1675 the company voted him 100 pounds a year; but Radisson would not sit quietly in England on a pension. Owing to hostility toward him among the English employees of the company, he could not go back to the bay. Meantime he had wife and family and servants to maintain on 100 pounds a year. If England had no more need of him, France realized the fact that she had.

Debts were acc.u.mulating. Restless as a caged tiger, Radisson found himself baffled until a message came from the great Colbert of France, offering to pay all his debts and give him a position in the French navy. His pardon was signed and proclaimed. In 1676, France granted him fishing privileges on the island of Anticosti; but the lodestar of the fur trade still drew him, for that year he was called to Quebec to meet a company of traders conferring on the price of beaver.[15] In that meeting a.s.sembled, among others, Jolliet, La Salle, Groseillers, and Radisson--men whose names were to become immortal.

It was plain that the two adventurers could not long rest.[16]

[1] Chailly-Bert.

[2] The Jesuit expeditions of Dablon and Dreuillettes in 1661 had failed to reach the bay overland. Cabot had coasted Labrador in 1497; Captain Davis had gone north of Hudson Bay in 1585-1587; Hudson had lost his life there in 1610. Sir Thomas b.u.t.ton had explored Baffin's Land, Nelson River, and the b.u.t.ton Islands in 1612; Munck, the Dane, had found the mouth of the Churchill River in 1619, James and Fox had explored the inland sea in 1631; Shapley had brought a ship up from Boston in 1640; and Bourdon, the Frenchman, had gone up to the straits in 1656-1657.

[3] George Carr, writing to Lord Arlington on December 14, 1665, says: "Hearing some Frenchmen discourse in New England ... of a great trade of beaver, and afterward making proof of what they had said, he thought them the best present he could possibly make his Majesty and persuaded them to come to England."

[4] Colonel Richard Nicolls, writing on July 31, 1665, says he "supposes Col. Geo. Cartwright is now at sea."

[5] It plainly could not have been written while _en route_ across the Atlantic with Sir George Cartwright, for it records events after that time.

[6] Robson's _Hudson Bay_.

[7] See Dr. N. E. Dionne, also Marie de l'Incarnation, but Sulte discredits this granting of a t.i.tle.

[8] See Robson's _Hudson Bay_, containing reference to the journal kept by Gorst, Bayly's secretary, at Rupert Fort.

[9] See State Papers, Canadian Archives, 1676, January 26, Whitehall: Memorial of the Hudson Bay Company complaining of Albanel, a Jesuit, attempting to seduce Radisson and Groseillers from the company's services; in absence of ships pulling down the British ensign and tampering with the Indians.

[10] I am inclined to think that Albanel may not have been aware of the doc.u.ments which he carried from Quebec to the traders being practically an offer to bribe Radisson and Groseillers to desert England. Some accounts say that Albanel was accompanied by Groseillers' son, but I find no authority for this. On the other hand, Albanel does not mention the Englishmen being present. Just as Radisson and Groseillers, ten years before, had taken possession of the old house battered with bullets, so Albanel took possession of the deserted huts.

Here is what his account says (Cramoisy edition of the _Relations_): "Le 28 June a peine avions nous avance un quart de lieue, que nous rencontrasmes a main gauche dans un pet.i.t ruisseau un heu avec ses agrez de dix ou dou tonneaux, qui portoit le Pavilion Anglois et la voile latine; dela a la portee du fusil, nous entrasmes dans deux maisons desertes ... nous rencontrasmes deux ou trois cabanes et un chien abandonne... ." His tampering with the Indians was simply the presentation of gifts to attract them to Quebec.

[11] See State Papers, Canadian Archives: M. Frontenac, the commander of French (?) king's troops at Hudson Bay, introduces and recommends Father Albanel.

[12] State Papers, Canadian Archives.

[13] For some years there were sensational reports that Mista.s.sini was larger than Lake Superior. Mr. Low, of the Canadian Geological Survey, in a very exhaustive report, shows this is not so. Still, the lake ranks with the large lakes of America. Mr. Low gives its dimensions as one hundred miles long and twelve miles wide.

[14] There is a discrepancy in dates here which I leave savants to worry out. _Albanel's Relation_ (Cramoisy) is of 1672. Thomas Gorst, secretary to Governor Bayly, says that the quarrel took place in 1674.