Pathfinders of the West Part 8

Oldmixon, who wrote from hearsay, says in 1673. Robson, who had access to Hudson's Bay records, says 1676; and I am inclined to think they all agree. In a word, Radisson and Groseillers were on bad terms with the local Hudson's Bay Company governor from the first, and the open quarrel took place only in 1675. Considering the bigotry of the times, the quarrel was only natural. Bayly was governor, but he could not take precedence over Radisson and Groseillers. He was Protestant and English. They were Catholics and French. Besides, they were really at the English governor's mercy; for they could not go back to Canada until publicly pardoned by the French king.

[15] State Papers, Canadian Archives, October 20, 1676, Quebec: Report of proceedings regarding the price of beaver ... by an ordinance, October 19, 1676, M. Jacques d.u.c.h.esneau, Intendant, had called a meeting of the leading fur traders to consult about fixing the price of beaver. There were present, among others, Robert, Cavelier de la Salle, ... Charles le Moyne, ... two G.o.defroys of Three Rivers, ... Groseillers, ... Jolliet, ... Pierre Radisson.

[16] Mr. Low's geological report on Labrador contains interesting particulars of the route followed by Father Albanel. He speaks of the gorge and swamps and difficult _portages_ in precisely the same way as the priest, though Albanel must have encountered the worst possible difficulties on the route, for he went down so early in the spring.

CHAPTER VI

1682-1684

RADISSON GIVES UP A CAREER IN THE NAVY FOR THE FUR TRADE

Though opposed by the Monopolists of Quebec, he secures Ships for a Voyage to Hudson Bay--Here he encounters a Pirate Ship from Boston and an English Ship of the Hudson's Bay Company--How he plays his Cards to win against Both Rivals

A clever man may be a dangerous rival. Both France and England recognized this in Radisson. The Hudson's Bay Company distrusted him because he was a foreigner. The fur traders of Quebec were jealous.

The Hudson's Bay Company had offered him a pension of 100 pounds a year to do nothing. France had pardoned his secession to England, paid his debts, and given him a position in the navy, and when the fleet was wrecked returning from the campaign against Dutch possessions in the West Indies, the French king advanced money for Radisson to refit himself; but France distrusted the explorer because he had an English wife. All that France and England wanted Radisson to do was to keep quiet. What the haughty spirit of Radisson would _not_ do for all the fortunes which two nations could offer to bribe him--was to keep quiet.

He cared more for the game than the winnings; and the game of sitting still and drawing a pension for doing nothing was altogether too tame for Radisson. Groseillers gave up the struggle and retired for the time to his family at Three Rivers. At Quebec, in 1676, Radisson heard of others everywhere reaping where he had sown. Jolliet and La Salle were preparing to push the fur trade of New France westward of the Great Lakes, where Radisson had penetrated twenty years previously.

Fur traders of Quebec, who organized under the name of the Company of the North, yearly sent their canoes up the Ottawa, St. Maurice, and Saguenay to the forests south of Hudson Bay, which Radisson had traversed. On the bay itself the English company were entrenched.

North, northwest, and west, Radisson had been the explorer; but the reward of his labor had been s.n.a.t.c.hed by other hands.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Skin for Skin," Coat of Arms and Motto, Hudson's Bay Company.]

Radisson must have served meritoriously on the fleet, for after the wreck he was offered the command of a man-of-war; but he asked for a commission to New France. From this request there arose complications.

His wife's family, the Kirkes, had held claims against New France from the days when the Kirkes of Boston had captured Quebec. These claims now amounted to 40,000 pounds. M. Colbert, the great French statesman, hesitated to give a commission to a man allied by marriage with the enemies of New France. Radisson at last learned why preferment had been denied him. It was on account of his wife. Twice Radisson journeyed to London for Mary Kirke. Those were times of an easy change in faith. Charles II was playing double with Catholics and Protestants. The Kirkes were closely attached to the court; and it was, perhaps, not difficult for the Huguenot wife to abjure Protestantism and declare herself a convert to the religion of her husband. But when Radisson proposed taking her back to France, that was another matter. Sir John Kirke forbade his daughter's departure till the claims of the Kirke family against New France had been paid.

When Radisson returned without his wife, he was reproached by M.

Colbert for disloyalty. The government refused its patronage to his plans for the fur trade; but M. Colbert sent him to confer with La Chesnaye, a prominent fur trader and member of the Council in New France, who happened to be in Paris at that time. La Chesnaye had been sent out to Canada to look after the affairs of a Rouen fur-trading company. Soon he became a commissioner of the West Indies Company; and when the merchants of Quebec organized the Company of the North, La Chesnaye became a director. No one knew better than he how bitterly the monopolists of Quebec would oppose Radisson's plans for a trip to Hudson Bay; but the prospects were alluring. La Chesnaye was deeply involved in the fur trade and s.n.a.t.c.hed at the chance of profits to stave off the bankruptcy that reduced him to beggary a few years later.

In defiance of the rival companies and independent of those with which he was connected, he offered to furnish ships and share profits with Radisson and Groseillers for a voyage to Hudson Bay.

M. Colbert did not give his patronage to the scheme; but he wished Radisson a G.o.d-speed. The Jesuits advanced Radisson money to pay his pa.s.sage; and in the fall of 1681, he arrived in Quebec. La Chesnaye met him, and Groseillers was summoned. The three then went to the Chateau Saint-Louis to lay their plans before the governor. Though the privileges of the West Indies Company had been curtailed, the fur trade was again regulated by license.[1] Frontenac had granted a license to the Company of the North for the fur trade of Hudson Bay. He could not openly favor Radisson; but he winked at the expedition by granting pa.s.sports to the explorers, and the three men who were to accompany him, Jean Baptiste, son of Groseillers, Pierre Allemand, the pilot who was afterward given a commission to explore the Eskimo country, and Jean G.o.defroy, an interpreter.[2] Jean Baptiste, Radisson's nephew, invested 500 pounds in goods for barter. Others of Three Rivers and Quebec advanced money, to provision the ship.[3] Ten days after Radisson's arrival in Quebec, the explorers had left the high fortress of the St. Lawrence to winter in Acadia. When spring came, they went with the fishing fleets to Isle Percee, where La Chesnaye was to send the ships. Radisson's ship, the _St. Pierre_,--named after himself,--came first, a rickety sloop of fifty tons with a crew of twelve mutinous, ill-fed men, a cargo of goods for barter, and scant enough supply of provisions. Groseillers' ship, the _St. Anne_, was smaller and better built, with a crew of fifteen. The explorers set sail on the 11th of July. From the first there was trouble with the crews. Fresh-water _voyageurs_ make bad ocean sailors. Food was short. The voyage was to be long. It was to unknown waters, famous for disaster. The sea was boisterous. In the months of June and July, the North Atlantic is beset with fog and iceberg. The ice sweeps south in mountainous bergs that have thawed and split before they reach the temperate zones.[4] On the 30th of July the two ships pa.s.sed the Straits of Belle Isle. Fog-banks hung heavy on the blue of the far watery horizon. Out of the fog, like ghosts in gloom, drifted the shadowy ice-floes. The coast of Labrador consists of bare, domed, lonely hills alternated with rock walls rising sheer from the sea as some giant masonry. Here the rock is b.u.t.tressed by a sharp angle knife-edged in a precipice. There, the beetling walls are guarded by long reefs like the teeth of a saw. Over these reefs, the drifting tide breaks with mult.i.tudinous voices. The French _voyageurs_ had never known such seafaring. In the wail of the white-foamed reefs, their superst.i.tion heard the shriek of the demons. The explorers had anch.o.r.ed in one of the sheltered harbors, which the sailors call "holes-in-the-wall." The crews mutinied. They would go no farther through ice-drift and fog to an unknown sea. Radisson never waited for the contagion of fear to work. He ordered anchors up and headed for open sea. Then he tried to encourage the sailors with promises. They would not hear him; for the ship's galley was nearly empty of food.

Then Radisson threatened the first mutineer to show rebellion with such severe punishment as the hard customs of the age permitted. The crew sulked, biding its time. At that moment the lookout shouted "Sail ho!"

All hands discerned a ship with a strange sail, such as Dutch and Spanish pirates carried, bearing down upon them sh.o.r.eward. The lesser fear was forgotten in the greater. The _St. Pierre's_ crew crowded sail. Heading about, the two explorers' ships threaded the rock reefs like pursued deer. The pirate came on full speed before the wind.

Night fell while Radisson was still hiding among the rocks.

Notwithstanding reefs and high seas, while the pirate ship hove to for the night, Radisson stole out in the dark and gave his pursuer the slip. The chase had saved him a mutiny.

As the vessels drove northward, the ice drifted past like a white world afloat. When Radisson approached the entrance to Hudson Bay, he met floes in impenetrable ma.s.ses. So far the ships had avoided delay by tacking along the edges of the ice-fields, from lake to lake of ocean surrounded by ice. Now the ice began to crush together, driven by wind and tide with furious enough force to snap the two ships like egg-sh.e.l.ls. Radisson watched for a free pa.s.sage, and, with a wind to rear, scudded for shelter of a hole-in-the-wall. Here he met the Eskimo, and provisions were replenished; but the dangers of the ice-fields had frightened the crews again. In two days Radisson put to sea to avoid a second mutiny. The wind was landward, driving the ice back from the straits, and they pa.s.sed safely into Hudson Bay. The ice again surrounded them; but it was useless for the men to mutiny. Ice blocked up all retreat. Jammed among the floes, Groseillers was afraid to carry sail, and fell behind. Radisson drove ahead, now skirting the ice-floes, now pounded by breaking icebergs, now crashing into surface brash or puddled ice to the fore. "We were like to have perished," he writes, "but G.o.d was pleased to preserve us."

On the 26th of August, six weeks after sailing from Isle Percee, Radisson rode triumphantly in on the tide to Hayes River, south of Nelson River, where he had been with the English ships ten years before. Two weeks later the _Ste. Anne_, with Groseillers, arrived.

The two ships cautiously ascended the river, seeking a harbor. Fifteen miles from salt water, Radisson anch.o.r.ed. At last he was back in his native element, the wilderness, where man must set himself to conquer and take dominion over earth.

Groseillers was always the trader, Radisson the explorer. Leaving his brother-in-law to build the fort, Radisson launched a canoe on Hayes River to explore inland. Young Jean Groseillers accompanied him to look after the trade with the Indians.[5] For eight days they paddled up a river that was destined to be the path of countless traders and pioneers for two centuries, and that may yet be destined to become the path of a northern commerce. By September the floodtide of Hayes River had subsided. In a week the _voyageurs_ had travelled probably three hundred miles, and were within the region of Lake Winnipeg, where the Cree hunters a.s.semble in October for the winter. Radisson had come to this region by way of Lake Superior with the Cree hunters twenty years before, and his visit had become a tradition among the tribes. Beaver are busy in October gnawing down young saplings for winter food.

Radisson observed chips floating past the canoe. Where there are beaver, there should be Indians; so the _voyageurs_ paddled on. One night, as they lay round the camp-fire, with canoes overturned, a deer, startled from its evening drinking-place, bounded from the thicket. A sharp whistle--and an Indian ran from the brush of an island opposite the camp, signalling the white men to head the deer back; but when Radisson called from the waterside, the savage took fright and dashed for the woods.

All that night the _voyageurs_ kept sleepless guard. In the morning they moved to the island and kindled a signal-fire to call the Indians.

In a little while canoes cautiously skirted the island, and the chief of the band stood up, bow and arrow in hand. Pointing his arrows to the deities of north, south, east, and west, he broke the shaft to splinters, as a signal of peace, and chanted his welcome:--

"Ho, young men, be not afraid!

The sun is favorable to us!

Our enemies shall fear us!

This is the man we have wished Since the days of our fathers!"

With a leap, the chief sprang into the water and swam ash.o.r.e, followed by all the canoes. Radisson called out to know who was commander. The chief, with a sign as old and universal as humanity, bowed his head in servility. Radisson took the Indian by the hand, and, seating him by the fire, chanted an answer in Cree:--

"I know all the earth!

Your friends shall be my friends!

I come to bring you arms to destroy your enemies!

Nor wife nor child shall die of hunger!

For I have brought you merchandise!

Be of good cheer!

I will be thy son!

I have brought thee a father!

He is yonder below building a fort Where I have two great ships!" [6]

The chief kept pace with the profuse compliments by vowing the life of his tribe in service of the white man. Radisson presented pipes and tobacco to the Indians. For the chief he reserved a fowling-piece with powder and shot. White man and Indian then exchanged blankets.

Presents were sent for the absent wives. The savages were so grateful that they cast all their furs at Radisson's feet, and promised to bring their hunt to the fort in spring. In Paris and London Radisson had been hara.s.sed by jealousy. In the wilderness he was master of circ.u.mstance; but a surprise awaited him at Groseillers' fort.

The French habitation--called Fort Bourbon--had been built on the north sh.o.r.e of Hayes or Ste. Therese River. Directly north, overland, was another broad river with a gulflike entrance. This was the Nelson.

Between the two rivers ran a narrow neck of swampy, bush-grown land.

The day that Radisson returned to the newly erected fort, there rolled across the marshes the ominous echo of cannon-firing. Who could the newcomers be? A week's sail south at the head of the bay were the English establishments of the Hudson's Bay Company. The season was far advanced. Had English ships come to winter on Nelson River? Ordering Jean Groseillers to go back inland to the Indians, Radisson launched down Hayes River in search of the strange ship. He went to the salt water, but saw nothing. Upon returning, he found that Jean Groseillers had come back to the fort with news of more cannonading farther inland.

Radisson rightly guessed that the ship had sailed up Nelson River, firing cannon as she went to notify Indians for trade. Picking out three intrepid men, Radisson crossed the marsh by a creek which the Indian canoes used, to go to Nelson River.[7] Through the brush the scout spied a white tent on an island. All night the Frenchmen lay in the woods, watching their rivals and hoping that some workman might pa.s.s close enough to be seized and questioned. At noon, next day, Radisson's patience was exhausted. He paddled round the island, and showed himself a cannon-shot distant from the fort. Holding up a pole, Radisson waved as if he were an Indian afraid to approach closer in order to trade. The others hallooed a welcome and gabbled out Indian words from a guide-book. Radisson paddled a length closer. The others ran eagerly down to the water side away from their cannon. In signal of friendship, they advanced unarmed. Radisson must have laughed to see how well his ruse worked.

"Who are you?" he demanded in plain English, "and what do you want?"

The traders called back that they were Englishmen come for beaver.

Again the crafty Frenchman must have laughed; for he knew very well that all English ships except those of the Hudson's Bay Company were prohibited by law from coming here to trade.[8] Though the strange ship displayed an English ensign, the flag did not show the magical letters "H. B. C."

"Whose commission have you?" pursued Radisson.

"No commission--New Englanders," answered the others.

"Contrabands," thought Radisson to himself. Then he announced that he had taken possession of all that country for France, had built a strong fort, and expected more ships. In a word, he advised the New Englanders to save themselves by instant flight; but his canoe had glided nearer. To Radisson's surprise, he discovered that the leader of the New England poachers was Ben Gillam of Boston, son of Captain Gillam, the trusted servant of the Hudson's Bay Company, who had opposed Radisson and Groseillers on Rupert's River. It looked as if the contraband might be a venture of the father as well as the son.[9]

Radisson and young Gillam recognized each other with a show of friendliness, Gillam inviting Radisson to inspect the ship with much the same motive that the fabled spider invited the fly. Radisson took tactful precaution for his own liberty by graciously asking that two of the New England servants go down to the canoe with the three Frenchmen.

No sooner had Radisson gone on the New England ship than young Gillam ordered cannon fired and English flags run up. Having made that brave show of strength, the young man proposed that the French and the New Englanders should divide the traffic between them for the winter.

Radisson diplomatically suggested that such an important proposal be laid before his colleagues. In leaving, he advised Gillam to keep his men from wandering beyond the island, lest they suffer wrong at the hands of the French soldiers. Incidentally, that advice would also keep the New Englanders from learning how desperately weak the French really were. Neither leader was in the slightest deceived by the other; each played for time to take the other unawares, and each knew the game that was being played.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Hudson's Bay Company Coins, made of Lead melted from Tea Chests at York Factory, each Coin representing so many Beaver Skins.]

Instead of returning by the creek that cut athwart the neck of land between the two rivers, Radisson decided to go down Nelson River to the bay, round the point, and ascend Hayes River to the French quarters.

Cogitating how to frighten young Gillam out of the country or else to seize him, Radisson glided down the swift current of Nelson River toward salt water. He had not gone nine miles from the New Englanders when he was astounded by the spectacle of a ship breasting with full-blown sails up the tide of the Nelson directly in front of the French canoe. The French dashed for the hiding of the brushwood on sh.o.r.e. From their concealment they saw that the ship was a Hudson's Bay Company vessel, armed with cannon and commission for lawful trade.

If once the Hudson's Bay Company ship and the New Englanders united, the English would be strong enough to overpower the French.

The majority of leaders would have escaped the impending disaster by taking ingloriously to their heels. Radisson, with that adroit presence of mind which characterized his entire life, had provided for his followers' safety by landing them on the south sh.o.r.e, where the French could flee across the marsh to the ships if pursued. Then his only thought was how to keep the rivals apart. Instantly he had an enormous bonfire kindled. Then he posted his followers in ambush. The ship mistook the fire for an Indian signal, reefed its sails, and anch.o.r.ed. Usually natives paddled out to the traders' ships to barter.

These Indians kept in hiding. The ship waited for them to come; and Radisson waited for the ship's hands to land. In the morning a gig boat was lowered to row ash.o.r.e. In it were Captain Gillam, Radisson's personal enemy, John Bridgar,[10] the new governor of the Hudson's Bay Company for Nelson River, and six sailors. All were heavily armed, yet Radisson stood alone to receive them, with his three companions posted on the outskirts of the woods as if in command of ambushed forces.

Fortune is said to favor the dauntless, and just as the boat came within gunshot of the sh.o.r.e, it ran aground. A sailor jumped out to drag the craft up the bank. They were all at Radisson's mercy--without cover. He at once levelled his gun with a shout of "Halt!" At the same moment his own men made as if to sally from the woods. The English imagined themselves ambushed, and called out that they were the officers of the Hudson's Bay Company. Radisson declared who he was and that he had taken possession of the country for France. His musket was still levelled. His men were ready to dash forward. The English put their heads together and decided that discretion was the better part of valor. Governor Bridgar meekly requested permission to land and salute the commander of the French. Then followed a pompous melodrama of bravado, each side affecting sham strength. Radisson told the English all that he had told the New Englanders, going on board the Company's ship to dine, while English hostages remained with his French followers. For reasons which he did not reveal, he strongly advised Governor Bridgar not to go farther up Nelson River. Above all, he warned Captain Gillam not to permit the English sailors to wander inland. Having exchanged compliments, Radisson took gracious leave of his hosts, and with his three men slipped down the Nelson in their canoe. Past a bend in the river, he ordered the canoe ash.o.r.e. The French then skirted back through the woods and lay watching the English till satisfied that the Hudson's Bay Company ship would go no nearer the island where Ben Gillam lay hidden.